tence of contemporary writings bearing
the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the
genuineness of the extant dialogue.

Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an
absolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of
Plato. They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There may
have been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as there
are certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported. The
traditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have
formed the basis of semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of the
same mixed character which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates,
although the form of them is different. But the writings of Plato,
unlike the writings of Aristotle, seem never to have been confused with
the writings of his disciples: this was probably due to their definite
form, and to their inimitable excellence. The three dialogues which
we have offered in the Appendix to the criticism of the reader may
be partly spurious and partly genuine; they may be altogether
spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly admitted. Nor
can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the Parmenides, and
the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection can be urged
against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight (chiefly)
of internal evidence in their favour. Nor, on the other hand, can
we exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usually
rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be
genuine. The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require
more careful study and more comparison of them with one another, and
with forged writings in general, than they have yet received, before we
can finally decide on their character. We do not consider them all as
genuine until they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintained
and still more often implied in this and similar discussions; but
should say of some of them, that their genuineness is neither proven nor
disproven until further evidence about them can be adduced. And we are
as confident that the Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, the
Timaeus, and the Laws are genuine.

On the whole, not a twentieth part of the writings which pass under
the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients
themselves and two or three other plausible inventions, can be fairl