内容简介：
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE VI. On The Philosophy Op Plato As A Whole. Gentlemen:? sub/ect of Having, at such length as our present oc- etiaiedCture casion demanded, considered the chief characteristics of the life and writings of Plato, we are now to enter upon a much more difficult task,?that of briefly, but definitely, fixing our views of his philosophical labours. Upon the difficulty of the undertaking, however, I will not insist, as I should be sorry to suggest any thing which might deter you from making that personal investigation to which all my efforts in this place are only meaut to be preparatory or auxiliary. Neither shall I (for reasons still more obvious) say any thing about my own qualifications to be your assistant in the study. My only claims upon your attention consist in this:?that what I shall offer you is at least the result of patient and conscientious examination of the original documents of this great master of reason; and, therefore, that if my conclusions should coincide with those already advanced in your ordinary text-books and treatises, they will possess the value (whatever it may amount to) of independent evidence; if they should differ, they will invite you to the tribunal where alone such differences can be properly decided,? the great originals, the fontes integri, themselves. If they effect this, they will procure you a benefit cheaply purchased by the trouble of listening for a while to a tedious or inefficient exposition. In our present Lecture we shall consider the Philosophy of Plato generally, and as a whole. I. The quality which above all others mani- fests itself to the student of this philosophy is painasa the eminently ethical character of the entire sys- nsedieai a J iiaracier. tem. It is a contemplative philosophy only for practica...