g) in the study of Plato, as well as of
other great artists. We may hardly admit that the moral antithesis
of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of knowledge
and opinion, being and appearance, are never far off in a Platonic
discussion. But because they are in the background, we should not bring
them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all the
dialogues.

There may be some advantage in drawing out a little the main outlines
of the building; but the use of this is limited, and may be easily
exaggerated. We may give Plato too much system, and alter the natural
form and connection of his thoughts. Under the idea that his dialogues
are finished works of art, we may find a reason for everything, and lose
the highest characteristic of art, which is simplicity. Most great works
receive a new light from a new and original mind. But whether these new
lights are true or only suggestive, will depend on their agreement with
the spirit of Plato, and the amount of direct evidence which can
be urged in support of them. When a theory is running away with
us, criticism does a friendly office in counselling moderation, and
recalling us to the indications of the text.

Like the Phaedrus, the Gorgias has puzzled students of Plato by the
appearance of two or more subjects. Under the cover of rhetoric higher
themes are introduced; the argument expands into a general view of the
good and evil of man. After making an ineffectual attempt to obtain a
sound definition of his art from Gorgias, Socrates assumes the
existence of a universal art of flattery or simulation having several
branches:--this is the genus of which rhetoric is only one, and not the
highest species. To flattery is opposed the true and noble art of life
which he who possesses seeks always to impart to others, and which at
last triumphs, if not here, at any rate in another world. These two
aspects of life and knowledge appear to be the two leading ideas of
the dialogue. The true and the false in individuals and states, in the
treatment of the soul as well as of the body, are conceived under the
forms of true and false art. In the development of this opposition
there arise various other questions, such as the two famous paradoxes of
Socrates (paradoxes as they are to the world in general, ideals as they
may be more worthily called): (1) that to do is worse than to suffer
evil; and (2) that when a man has done evil he had better be punished
t