begin a new period of philosophy with Plato. For Ast perceives nothing new or peculiar in the struggle Socrates made against the Sophists, only virtue and the thirst after truth, which had undoubtedly animated all the preceding philosophers ; what he represents as characteristic in the Athenian philosophy, is the union of the elements which had been previously separate and opposed to each other ; and since he does not in fact shew the existence of this union in Socrates himself, and distinctly recog- nizes their separation in his immediate disciples, Plato is after all the point at which according to him that union begins.
But if we choose really to consider Plato as the true beginner of a new period, not to mention that he is far too perfect for a first beginning, we fall into two difficulties. First as to his relation to Aristotle. In all that is most peculiar to Plato, Aristotle appears as directly opposite to him as possible ; but the main division of philosophy, notwithstand- ing the wide difference between their modes of treating it, he has in common with Plato, and the Stoics with both ; it fits as closely, and sits as easily on one as the other, so that one can scarcely help believing that it was derived from some common origin, which was the root of Plato'^s philosophy as well as theirs. The second difficulty is to conceive what Platos relation to Socrates could really have been, if Socrates was not in any way his master in philosophy. If we should suppose that Platos character was formed by the example of Socrates, and that reverence for his master's virtue, and love of truth, was the tie that bound him, still this merely moral relation is not a sufficient solution of the difficulty. The mode in which Plato introduces Socrates, even in works which contain profound philosophical investigations, must be i:egarded as the wildest caprice, and would necessarily have appeared merely ridiculous and absurd to all his contempo- raries, if he was not in some way or other indebted to him for his philosophical life. Hence we are forced to abide by the conclusion, that if a great pause is to be made in Greek philosophy, to separate the scattered tenets of the earlier schools from the later systems, this must be made with Socrates ; but then we must also ascribe to him some element of a more strictly philosophical kind than most writers do, though as a mere beginning it needs not to have been carried
