or notion, between means
and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind
into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of
pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary--these and other
great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and
were probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical
truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose
sight, the difference between words and things, has been most
strenuously insisted on by him, although he has not always avoided the
confusion of them in his own writings. But he does not bind up truth
in logical formulae,--logic is still veiled in metaphysics; and the
science which he imagines to "contemplate all truth and all existence"
is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to
have discovered.

Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a
still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of
Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment
of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second only
in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said
as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the
sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a
history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is
supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it
would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the
logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle
for Liberty, intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas.
We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the
fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of the Laws, in
what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We can only
guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato became
sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had
lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the
completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had
this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato
himself sympathizing with the struggle for Hellenic independence,
singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the
reflection of Herodotus where he contemplates the growth of the
Athenian em