Page:Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 4 (1867).djvu/289

eT

eS

GROTE’S PLATO. 283

the rock in different places at the touch of his magical wand; for it was his profession and practice to make others think, not to think for them. Concerning Sok- rates himself, though in one sense nearly the whole book relates to him, there is no express notice in these volumes, the narrative and estimate which we read in the “ History of Greece” being sufficient.

Some knowledge of the earlier Hellenic thinkers is necessary to a full understanding of Plato. Unfortu- nately the materials are defective, and almost wholly second-hand, a few fragments only of the original authors having been preseryed by the citations of later

writers. We are in possession, however, of what were regarded by their successors as the fundamental doc- trines of each; but there is some difficulty in knowing what to make of them. These first gropings of the speculative intellect have so little in common with modern scientific habits, that the modern mind does not easily accommodate itself to them. The physical theories seem so absurd, and the metaphysical ones so unintelligible, that there needs some stress of thought to enable us to perceive how eminently natural they were. Multiplied failures have taught us the unwelcome lesson, that man can only arrive at an understanding of nature by a very circuitous route; that the great questions are not accessible directly,

-but through a multitude of smaller ones, which in the first ardor of their investigations men overlooked and despised — though they are the only questions suffi- ciently simple and near at hand, to disclose the real laws and processes of nature, with which as keys we are afterwards enabled to unlock such of her greater