o shows the same indifference to his own
doctrine of Ideas which he has already manifested in the Parmenides and
the Sophist. The principle of the one and many of which he here speaks,
is illustrated by examples in the Sophist and Statesman. Notwithstanding
the differences of style, many resemblances may be noticed between the
Philebus and Gorgias. The theory of the simultaneousness of pleasure
and pain is common to both of them (Phil. Gorg.); there is also a common
tendency in them to take up arms against pleasure, although the view of
the Philebus, which is probably the later of the two dialogues, is
the more moderate. There seems to be an allusion to the passage in
the Gorgias, in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and
scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which
Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates
is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of
practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims
of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying
in effect: 'Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and
usefullest of sciences:--this does not prove that dialectic is not the
purest and most exact.' From the Sophist and Statesman we know that his
hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in
later life; although both in the Statesman and Laws he admits of a
higher use of rhetoric.

Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the
Philebus. That the date is probably later than that of the Republic, may
be further argued on the following grounds:--1. The general resemblance
to the later dialogues and to the Laws: 2. The more complete account of
the nature of good and pleasure: 3. The distinction between perception,
memory, recollection, and opinion which indicates a great progress
in psychology; also between understanding and imagination, which is
described under the figure of the scribe and the painter. A superficial
notion may arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such as
the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, as studies or preparations
for longer ones. This view may be natural; but on further reflection is
seen to be fallacious, because these three dialogues are found to make
an advance upon the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can
more easily suppose that Plato composed shorter writings after longer
ones, than s