Plato there was no regular mode of publication,
and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a
work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity
in supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or
turned from one work to another; and such interruptions would be more
likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short writing. In all
attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic writings
on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being
composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted
to affect longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than
shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of
the Republic may only arise out of the discordant elements which the
philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole, perhaps without
being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is obvious to
us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have
ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the
want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems
which are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings
of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and
language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of
speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely defined.
For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest
creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by this
test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our modern ideas,
appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they were
composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition
that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort
is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of
the work to another.

The second title, 'Concerning Justice,' is not the one by which the
Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and,
like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be
assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others have asked
whether the definition of justice, which is the professed aim, or the
construction of the State is the principal argument of the work. The
answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same
truth; for justice