Suckow gives two reasons for believing that the Politikus is not by Plato:--1. That the doctrines respecting government are different from those of the Republic, and the cosmology of the long mythe which it includes different from the cosmology of the Timæus. These are reasons similar to those advanced by Socher, and (in my judgment) insufficient reasons. 2. That Aristotle, in a passage of the Politica (iv. 2, p. 1289, b. 5), alludes to an opinion, which is found in the Politikus in the following terms: [Greek: ê)/dê me\n ou)=n tis a)pephê/nato kai\ tô=n pro/teron ou(/tôs], &c. Suckow maintains that Aristotle could never have alluded to Plato in these terms, and that he must have believed the Politikus to be composed by some one else. But I think this inference is not justified by the premisses. It is noway impossible that Aristotle might allude to Plato sometimes in this vague and general way: and I think that he has done so in other passages of the same treatise (vii. 2, 1324, a. 29--vii. 7, p. 1327, b. 37). Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. p. 162, seq.) combats with much force the views of Suckow. It would be rash to build so much negative inference upon a loose phrase of Aristotle. That he should have spoken of Plato in this vague manner is much more probable, or much less improbable, than the counter-supposition, that the author of a striking and comprehensive dialogue, such as the Politikus, should have committed a fraud for the purpose of fastening his composition on Plato, and thus abnegating all fame for himself. The explicit affirmation of the Politikus itself ought to be believed, in my judgment, unless it can be refuted by greater negative probabilities than any which Socher and Suckow produce. I do not here repeat, what I have endeavoured to justify in an earlier chapter of this work, the confidence which I feel in the canon of Thrasyllus; a confidence which it requires stronger arguments than those of these two critics to overthrow.] [Footnote 2: Plato, Sophist. p. 216 B-C.] This Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting questions to Theætêtus, in the Sophistês--to the younger Sokrates in the Politikus. Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in both dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of connection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is his namesake, and that Theætêtus resembles him in flat nose and physiognomy.[3] [Footnote 3: Plato, Politik. p. 257 E.] [Side-note: Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus.]