verned by the
will of God. Throughout the two dialogues Socrates continues a silent
auditor, in the Statesman just reminding us of his presence, at the
commencement, by a characteristic jest about the statesman and the
philosopher, and by an allusion to his namesake, with whom on that
ground he claims relationship, as he had already claimed an affinity
with Theaetetus, grounded on the likeness of his ugly face. But in
neither dialogue, any more than in the Timaeus, does he offer any
criticism on the views which are propounded by another.

The style, though wanting in dramatic power,--in this respect resembling
the Philebus and the Laws,--is very clear and accurate, and has
several touches of humour and satire. The language is less fanciful and
imaginative than that of the earlier dialogues; and there is more of
bitterness, as in the Laws, though traces of a similar temper may also
be observed in the description of the 'great brute' in the Republic,
and in the contrast of the lawyer and philosopher in the Theaetetus.
The following are characteristic passages: 'The ancient philosophers,
of whom we may say, without offence, that they went on their way rather
regardless of whether we understood them or not;' the picture of the
materialists, or earth-born giants, 'who grasped oaks and rocks in their
hands,' and who must be improved before they can be reasoned with; and
the equally humourous delineation of the friends of ideas, who defend
themselves from a fastness in the invisible world; or the comparison of
the Sophist to a painter or maker (compare Republic), and the hunt after
him in the rich meadow-lands of youth and wealth; or, again, the
light and graceful touch with which the older philosophies are painted
('Ionian and Sicilian muses'), the comparison of them to mythological
tales, and the fear of the Eleatic that he will be counted a parricide
if he ventures to lay hands on his father Parmenides; or, once more,
the likening of the Eleatic stranger to a god from heaven.--All these
passages, notwithstanding the decline of the style, retain the impress
of the great master of language. But the equably diffused grace is gone;
instead of the endless variety of the early dialogues, traces of the
rhythmical monotonous cadence of the Laws begin to appear; and already
an approach is made to the technical language of Aristotle, in the
frequent use of the words 'essence,' 'power,' 'generation,' 'motion,'
'rest,' 'action,' 'passi