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o shows the same indifference to his own doctrine of Ideas which he has already manifested in the Parmenides and the Sophist. The principle of the one and many of which he here speaks, is illustrated by examples in the Sophist and Statesman. Notwithstanding the differences of style, many resemblances may be noticed between the Philebus and Gorgias. The theory of the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain is common to both of them (Phil. Gorg.); there is also a common tendency in them to take up arms against pleasure, although the view of the Philebus, which is probably the later of the two dialogues, is the more moderate. There seems to be an allusion to the passage in the Gorgias, in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect: 'Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:--this does not prove that dialectic is not the purest and most exact.' From the Sophist and Statesman we know that his hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in later life; although both in the Statesman and Laws he admits of a higher use of rhetoric. Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the Philebus. That the date is probably later than that of the Republic, may be further argued on the following grounds:--1. The general resemblance to the later dialogues and to the Laws: 2. The more complete account of the nature of good and pleasure: 3. The distinction between perception, memory, recollection, and opinion which indicates a great progress in psychology; also between understanding and imagination, which is described under the figure of the scribe and the painter. A superficial notion may arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such as the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, as studies or preparations for longer ones. This view may be natural; but on further reflection is seen to be fallacious, because these three dialogues are found to make an advance upon the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can more easily suppose that Plato composed shorter writings after longer ones, than s
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