current of philosophic thought, because their
systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato
and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to
be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.

[Footnote 488: "Banquet," Secs. 39, 40.]

Plato (B.C. 430-347) was pre-eminently the pupil of Socrates. He came to
Socrates when he was but twenty years of age, and remained with him to
the day of his death.

Diogenes Laertius reports the story of Socrates having dreamed he found
an unfledged cygnet on his knee. In a few moments it became winged and
flew away, uttering a sweet sound. The next day a young man came to him
who was said to reckon Solon among his near ancestors, and who looked,
through him, to Codrus and the god Poseidon. That young man was Plato,
and Socrates pronounced him to be the bird he had seen in his
dream.[489]

[Footnote 489: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. iii.
ch. vii.]

Some have supposed that this old tradition intimates that Plato departed
from the method of his master--he became fledged and flew away into the
air. But we know that Plato did not desert his master whilst he was
living, and there is no evidence that he abandoned his method after he
was dead. He was the best expounder and the most rigid observer of the
Socratic "organon." The influence of Socrates upon the philosophy of
Plato is everywhere discernible. Plato had been taught by Socrates, that
beyond the world of sense there is a world of eternal truth, seen by the
eye of reason alone. He had also learned from him that the eye of reason
is purified and strengthened by _reflection_, and that to reflect is to
observe, and analyze, and define, and classify the facts of
consciousness. Self-reflection, then, he had been taught to regard as
the key of real knowledge. By a completer induction, a more careful and
exact analysis, and a more accurate definition, he carried this
philosophic method forward towards maturity. He sought to solve the
problem of _being_ by the principles revealed in his own consciousness,
and in the _ultimate ideas of the reason_ to find the foundation of all
real knowledge, of all truth, and of all certitude.

Plato was admirably fitted for these sublime investigations by the
possession of those moral qualities which were so prominent in the
character of his master. He had that same deep seriousness of spirit,
that earnestness an