s, after the First
Alcibiades, which may be called, and appears to have been generally
considered by the ancients an introduction to the whole of Plato's
philosophy, I have placed the Republic and the Laws, which may be said to
comprehend systematically the morals and politics of Plato. After these I
have ranked the Timaeus, which contains the whole of his physiology, and
together with it the Critias, because of its connection with the Timaeus.
The next in order is the Parmenides, which contains a system of his
theology. Thus far this arrangement is conformable to the natural progress
of the human mind in the acquisition of the sublimest knowledge; the
subsequent arrangement principally regards the order of things. After the
Parmenides then, the Sophista, Phaedrus, Greater Hippias, and Banquet,
follow, which may be considered as so many lesser wholes subordinate to
and comprehended in the Parmenides, which, like the universe itself, is a
whole of wholes. For in the Sophista being itself is investigated, in the
Banquet love itself, and in the Phaedrus beauty itself; all which are
intelligible forms, and are consequently contained in the Parmenides, in
which the whole extent of the intelligible is unfolded. The Greater
Hippias is classed with the Phaedrus, because in the latter the whole
series of the beautiful is discussed, and in the former that which
subsists in soul. After these follows the Theaetetus, in which science
considered as subsisting in soul is investigated; science itself,
according to its first subsistence, having been previously celebrated by
Socrates in one part of the Phaedrus. The Politicus and Minos, which
follow next, may be considered as ramifications from the Laws; and, in
short, all the following dialogues either consider more particularly the
dogmas which are systematically comprehended in those already enumerated,
or naturally flow from them as their original source. As it did not
however appear possible to arrange these dialogues which rank as parts in
the same accurate order as those which we considered as whole, it was
thought better to class them either according to their agreement in one
particular circumstance, as the Phaedo, Apology, and Crito, all which
relate to the death of Socrates, and as the Meno and Protagoras, which
relate to the question whether virtue can be taught; or according to
their agreement in character, as the Lesser Hippias and Euthydemus, which
are anatreptic, and the Th