[73] Aristophan. Nubes, 547-8.
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Ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ καινὰς ἰδέας εἰσφέρων
σοφίζομαι, Οὐδὲν ἀλλήλαισιν ὁμοίας, καὶ πάσας δεξιάς. |
Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this.
It may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher, the leading champion of Plato’s central purpose and systematic unity from the beginning, lays down a doctrine to the same effect. He says, “Truly, nothing can be more preposterous, than when people demand that all the works even of a great master shall be of equal perfection — or that such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not composed by him”. Zeller expresses himself in the same manner, and with as little reserve.[74] These eminent critics here proclaim a general rule which neither they nor others follow out.
[74] Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 337. “Und wahrlich, nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn man verlangt, dass alle Werke auch eines grossen Meisters von gleicher Volkommenheit seyn sollten — oder die es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt haben.”
Compare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., vol. ii. p. 322, ed. 2nd.
It is to be remembered that this opinion of Schleiermacher refers only to completed works of the same master. You are not authorised in rejecting any completed work as spurious, on the ground that it is not equal in merit to some other. Still less, then, are you authorised in rejecting, on the like ground, an uncompleted work — a professed fragment, or a preliminary sketch. Of this nature are several of the minor items in the Thrasyllean canon.
M. Boeckh, in his Commentary on the dialogue called Minos, has assigned the reasons which induce him to throw out that dialogue, together with the Hipparchus, from the genuine works of Plato (and farther to consider both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic dialogues De Justo and De Virtute, as works of Σίμων ὁ σκυτεύς: with this latter hypothesis I have here no concern). He admits fully that the Minos is of the Platonic age and irreproachable in style — “veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores totus denique character, spondent” (p. 32). Next, he not only admits that it is like Plato, but urges the too great likeness to Plato as one of the points of his case. He says that it is a bad, stupid, and unskilful imitation of different Platonic dialogues: “Pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de nimiâ similitudine Platonicorum aliquot locorum. Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: ni forté quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente” (p. 23). In the sense which Boeckh intends, I agree that Plato did not imitate himself: in another sense, I think that he did. I mean that his consummate compositions were preceded by shorter, partial, incomplete sketches, which he afterwards worked up, improved, and re-modelled. I do not understand how Plato could have composed such works as Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposion, Phædrus, Phædon, &c., without having before him many of these preparatory sketches. That some of these sketches should have been preserved is what we might naturally expect; and I believe Minos and Hipparchus to be among them. I do not wonder that they are of inferior merit. One point on which Boeckh (pp. 7, 8) contends that Hipparchus and Minos are unlike to Plato is, that the collocutor with Sokrates is anonymous. But we find anonymous talkers in the Protagoras, Sophistês, Politikus, and Leges.
I find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less important, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely internal grounds. Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras: both these two dialogues are among the most renowned of the catalogue: both have escaped all suspicion as to legitimacy, even from Ast and Socher, the two boldest of all disfranchising critics. In the Protagoras, Sokrates maintains an elaborate argument to prove, against the unwilling Protagoras, that the Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the Evil identical with the Painful — in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an argument equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different from Pleasurable, Evil from Painful. What the one affirms, the other denies. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself characterises the thesis vindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as “entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic”.[75] If internal grounds of repudiation are held to be available against the Thrasyllean canon, how can such grounds exist in greater force than those which are here admitted to bear against the Protagoras — That it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of the Gorgias — That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at great length, a thesis “entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic”? Since the critics all concur in disregarding these internal objections, as insufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Protagoras, I cannot concur with them when they urge the like objections as valid and irresistible against other dialogues.
[75] Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Protag. vol. i. p. 232. “Jene ganz unsokratische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass das Gute nichts anderes ist als das Angenehme.”