APPENDIX.
Ast is the only critic who declares the Lachês not to be Plato’s work (Platon’s Leben und Schr. pp. 451-456). He indeed even finds it difficult to imagine how Schleiermacher can accept it as genuine (p. 454). He justifies this opinion by numerous reasons — pointing out what he thinks glaring defects, absurdity, and bad taste, both in the ratiocination and in the dramatic handling, also dicta alleged to be un-Platonic. Compare Schleiermacher’s Einleitung zum Lachês, p. 324 seq.
I do not concur with Ast in the estimation of those passages which serve as premisses to his conclusion. But even if I admitted his premisses, I still should not admit his conclusion. I should conclude that the dialogue was an inferior work of Plato, but I should conclude nothing beyond. Stallbaum (Prolegg. ad Lachet. p. 29-30, 2nd ed.) and Socher discover “adolescentiæ vestigia” in it, which are not apparent to me.
Socher, Stallbaum, and K. F. Hermann pass lightly over the objections of Ast; and Steinhart (Einleit. p. 355) declares them to be unworthy of a serious answer. For my part, I draw from these dissensions among the Platonic critics a conviction of the uncertain evidence upon which all of them proceed. Each has his own belief as to what Plato must say, ought to say, and could not have said; and each adjudicates thereupon with a degree of confidence which surprises me. The grounds upon which Ast rejects Lachês, Charmidês, and Lysis, though inconclusive, appear to me not more inconclusive than those on which he and other critics reject the Erastæ, Theagês. Hippias Major, Alkibiadês II., &c.
The dates which Stallbaum, Schleiermacher, Socher, and Steinhart assign to the Lachês (about 406-404 B.C.) are in my judgment erroneous. I have already shown my reasons for believing that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed until after the death of Sokrates. The hypotheses also of Steinhart (p. 357) as to the special purposes of Plato in composing the dialogue are unsupported by any evidence; and are all imagined so as to fit his supposition as to the date. So also Schleiermacher tells us that a portion of the Lachês is intended by Plato as a defence of himself against accusations which had been brought against him, a young man, for impertinence in having attacked Lysias in the Phædrus, and Protagoras in the Protagoras, both of them much older than Plato. But Steinhart justly remarks that this explanation can only be valid if we admit Schleiermacher’s theory that the Phædrus and the Protagoras are earlier compositions than the Lachês, which theory Steinhart and most of the others deny. Steinhart himself adapts his hypotheses to his own idea of the date of the Lachês: and he is open to the same remark as he himself makes upon Schleiermacher.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHARMIDES.
As in Lachês, we have pursued an enquiry into the nature of Courage — so in Charmidês, we find an examination of Temperance, Sobriety, Moderation.[1] Both dialogues conclude without providing any tenable explanation. In both there is an abundant introduction — in Charmidês, there is even the bustle of a crowded palæstra, with much dramatic incident — preluding to the substantive discussion. I omit the notice of this dramatic incident, though it is highly interesting to read.