The question of the canon is associated with several other difficult inquiries — the order of production and dates of the several works, their coherence and interde- pendence, their special aim, and their purpose as parts of a supposed Platonic system. There are no external testimonies or internal criteria by which the dates of j production can be fixed. In some of the Dialogues [ events are mentioned which seem to determine the an- terior limit of their composition, but reveal nothing as
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to later 1 3 critics have supposed that the
order <>r approximate dates could be settled by the rel- ative age assigned to Socrates in each. This is very arbitrary and fantastical, and Leaves no guidance bul bold conjecture. Some critics assume thai certain appeared during the Lifetime ol Socrates, others immediately after bis death, others again during the {.cri. ■<! of Plato's foreign wanderings, and a Large por- tion of the remainder in an indicated succession aiti i- 1 Ill- institution of ill" Academy. Some philological Legisla- tors decide thai the Phaedrus and such other Dialogues as may .-nit their fancy were the first fruits of his lit- erary fecundity, in consequence ol the joyous juvenility of their utterances, the uncastigated redundance of im- agination, and the poetic richness of expression. Bui the latesl productions of Edmund Burke were the rich- est, the mosl ornate, fervid, and poetical.
li i- impossible to discover the chr logical order of
the Platonic treatises. The wide diversity of opinion on the Bubject, the ingenious arguments employed by discordant scholars to confirm their own theories and to refute those of others, attest this impossibility. There i- as much divergence of view in regard to the sequence of the Platonic 1 dialogues as in regard to the dramas of Shakespeare. The hopeless uncertainty of all conclu- sions i- assured by the similar characteristics of both authors. The productions of each were subjeel to con- tinued revision and alteration; the first draft rarely, if ever, represented the ultimate form. Additions, sup- pressions, expansions, modifications, were from time to time introduced by both into their works, which were not published in permanent form, or thrown into circu- lation until after the death of their authors. Hence it is an utterly delusive procedure in either case to under- take |o deride l lie date of production by tone, by style. by doctrine, or by historical statement or allusion. The writings of Plato are not hounded by the accidents of time. I Ik j bear the impress of Ids hand, his heart, his soul, not at particular moments of his Life, but are the flower ami sum of his whole intellectual existence. Except in a few instances, which do not affect the to- tality of his instructions, there is no ascertainable be- fore and after, bul all stand upon the same chronological plane. The attempt to determine the order in which the several works of Plato was produced derives its
chief interest fr the aid thence expected in tracing
the evolution of the Platonic doctrines, and the relation ■• in-' to the rest. The inquiry is tempting, i ii capable of satisfactory solution, would be more fruitless in the case of Plato than of any other phi- losopher. There is so little in Plato of a dogmatic character, so much of tentative, sceptical, and unde- fined exploration, that the chief resull of such an in- vestigation, if ii were practicable, would nol be the dis- covery of the process of development and expansion, bul only the settlement of the sequence of published doubts.
1'he question of the < nectionofthe Platonic writings
early engaged attention. It seems to have been raised in the years immediately following Plato's death. The Vristophanes of Byzantium, librarian of the Museum al Alexandria, put forth an arrangement ofthe more notable tractates of Plato in a system of trilogies, the mi mbers of each trilogy being determined bj com- munity of subject or correspond* nee of form and treat- ment The Platonic exposition is, for the mosl part, so | nly dramatic thai it might naturally Buggesl an
arrangement analogous to that observed in theatrical compositions. But the adaptation ofthe mould to the Platonic writings is altogether arbitrary, and proved to be inadequate in the hand- of its inventors. The Leges re divorced from the Republic; the Crito and Phado were placed in a different class from the Euthyphron and the \pology. Only fifteen ofthe trea- tises were trilogized} the rest were nngrouped, and fol- lowed in single file. Grote thinks the arrangement may have been earlier than Aristophanes. The imperfec- tions ol the s, heme are manifold, and provoked other
distributions. By some critics his works were arranged in three classes: 1. The Direct, or dramatic; •_'. The In- direct, or narrative ; 3. The Mixed. This disposition i- awkward. insufficient, and indistinct Only two, or at most three ofthe works of Plato are really narrative. All the rest are dialogues, and therefore dramatic: but i in se .-.re composed of dialogues blended in varying pro- portions with narrative. Under the reign ofthe first emperors of Rome the Platonic remains were redis- tributed by Thrasyllus. to whom were due two distinct schemes, [mitating the example of Aristophanes, and guided by the same dramatic analogy, be disposed the whole recognised works of Plato in nine tetralogies, or groups of four each. The first tetralogy, in which a real community of subject and an orderly development are manifest, was formed ofthe Euthyphron, Apology,