Abandonment of Plato’s philosophical projects prior to the Leges.
All critics have remarked the many and important differences between the Republic and the Laws. And it seems certain, that during the interval which separates the two, Plato’s point of view must have undergone a considerable change. We know from himself that he intended the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus and Republic: a portion of the Kritias still exists — as we have just seen — but it breaks off abruptly, and there is no ground for believing that it was ever completed. We know farther from himself that he projected an ulterior dialogue or exposition, assigned to Hermokrates, as sequel to the Kritias: both being destined to exhibit in actual working and manifestation, the political scheme, of which the Republic had described the constituent elements.[2] While the Kritias was prematurely arrested in its progress towards maturity, the Hermokrates probably was never born. Yet we know certainly that both the one and the other were conceived by Plato, as parts of one comprehensive project, afterwards abandoned. Nay, the Kritias was so abruptly abandoned, that it terminates with an unfinished sentence: as I have stated in the last chapter.
[2] Plato, Timæus, pp. 20-27. Plato, Kritias, p. 108.
Untoward circumstances of Plato’s later life — His altered tone in regard to philosophy.
To what extent such change of project was brought about by external circumstances in Plato’s life, we cannot with certainty determine. But we know that there really occurred circumstances, well calculated to produce a material change in his intellectual character and point of view. His personal adventures and experience, after his sixty-first year, and after the death of the elder Dionysius (B.C. 367), were of an eventful and melancholy character. Among them were included his two visits to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse; together with the earnest sympathy and counsel which he bestowed on his friend Dion; whose chequered career terminated, after an interval of brilliant promise, in disappointment, disgrace, and violent death. Plato not only suffered much distress, but incurred more or less of censure, from the share which he had taken, or was at least supposed to have taken, in the tragedy. His own letters remain to attest the fact.[3] Considering the numerous enemies which philosophy has had at all times, we may be sure that such enemies would be furnished with abundant materials for invidious remark — by the entire failure of Plato himself at Syracuse as well as by the disgraceful proceedings first of Dion, next, of his assassin Kallippus: both of them pupils, and the former a favourite pupil, of Plato in the Academy. The prospect, which accident had opened, of exalting philosophy into active influence over mankind, had been closed in a way no less mournful than dishonourable. Plato must have felt this keenly enough, even apart from the taunts of opponents. We might naturally expect that his latest written compositions would be coloured by such a temper of mind: that he would contract, if not an alienation from philosophy, at least a comparative mistrust of any practical good to come from it: and that if his senile fancy still continued to throw out any schemes of social construction, they would be made to rest upon other foundations, eliminating or reducing to a minimum that ascendancy of the philosophical mind, which he had once held to be omnipotent and indispensable.
[3] See especially the interesting and valuable Epistola vii. of Plato; also the life of Dion by Plutarch.
The reader will find a full account of Plato’s proceedings in Sicily, and of the adventures of Dion, in chap. 84 of my ‘History of Greece’.
The passage of Plato in Legg. iv. 709-710 (alluding to the concurrence and co-operation of a youthful despot, sober-minded and moderate, but not exalted up to the level of philosophy, with a competent lawgiver for the purpose of constructing a civic community, furnished with the best laws) is supposed by K. F. Hermann (System der Platon. Philos. p. 69) and by Zeller (Phil. d. Griech. vol. ii. p. 310, ed. 2nd.) to allude to the hopes which Plato cherished when he undertook his first visit to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse. See Epistol. vii. pp. 327 C, 330 A-B, 334 C; Epistol. ii. 311 B.
Such allusion is sufficiently probable. Yet we must remember that the Magnetic community, described by Plato in the Treatise De Legibus, does not derive its origin from any established despot or prince, but from a general resolution supposed to have been taken by the Kretan cities, and from a Decemviral executive Board of Knossian citizens nominated by them. Kleinias, as a chief member of this Board, solicits the suggestion of laws from the Athenian elder (Legg. iii. p. 702 C). This is more analogous to Plato’s subsequent counsel, after his attempt to guide the younger Dionysius had failed. See Epistol. vii. p. 337 C-E.