Menexenus | Page 4

which Aristotle
attributes to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3)
great excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit of the
Platonic writings. But the testimony of Aristotle cannot always be
distinguished from that of a later age (see above); and has various
degrees of importance. Those writings which he cites without
mentioning Plato, under their own names, e.g. the Hippias, the Funeral
Oration, the Phaedo, etc., have an inferior degree of evidence in their
favour. They may have been supposed by him to be the writings of
another, although in the case of really great works, e.g. the Phaedo, this
is not credible; those again which are quoted but not named, are still
more defective in their external credentials. There may be also a
possibility that Aristotle was mistaken, or may have confused the
master and his scholars in the case of a short writing; but this is

inconceivable about a more important work, e.g. the Laws, especially
when we remember that he was living at Athens, and a frequenter of
the groves of the Academy, during the last twenty years of Plato's life.
Nor must we forget that in all his numerous citations from the Platonic
writings he never attributes any passage found in the extant dialogues
to any one but Plato. And lastly, we may remark that one or two great
writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly
devoid of Aristotelian (1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato,
on the ground of (2) length, (3) excellence, and (4) accordance with the
general spirit of his writings. Indeed the greater part of the evidence for
the genuineness of ancient Greek authors may be summed up under two
heads only: (1) excellence; and (2) uniformity of tradition--a kind of
evidence, which though in many cases sufficient, is of inferior value.
Proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusion
that nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever been
ascribed to Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion of
them, including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by
the ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute,
Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and
external evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But there
still remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either
that they are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth,
or possibly like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the
compositions of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some
contemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of
Plato, or of some Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate
his master. Not that on grounds either of language or philosophy we
should lightly reject them. Some difference of style, or inferiority of
execution, or inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered
decisive of their spurious character. For who always does justice to
himself, or who writes with equal care at all times? Certainly not Plato,
who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power, in the
formation of sentences, and in the use of words, if his earlier writings
are compared with his later ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with
the Laws. Or who can be expected to think in the same manner during a
period of authorship extending over above fifty years, in an age of great

intellectual activity, as well as of political and literary transition?
Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later
ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which
separates his later writings from Aristotle.
The dialogues which have been translated in the first Appendix, and
which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic
writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the
First Alcibiades. Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration
are cited by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in the
Rhetoric. Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his
citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the
extant dialogues. From the mention of 'Hippias' in the singular by
Aristotle, we may perhaps infer that he was unacquainted with a second
dialogue bearing the same name. Moreover, the mere existence of a
Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, does
to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a very
clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to
contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a
careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or
leading thought of