Excerpt from The Republic of Plato, Vol. 1 Tm: Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicas or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws as works of art, the Sympo sium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style no other shows an equal know ledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy) The Republic is the centre aroun which the other Dialogues may be grouped here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp. Especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the modems, was the first who conceived a method of know ledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest meta physical genius whom the world has seen and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psycho logy, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.