Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage, without o'erfowing full. ----------------- [27] The reader will see, from the notes on Plato's dialogues, and particularly from the notes on the Parmenides and Timaeus, that the style of that philosopher possesses an accuracy which is not to be found in any modern writer; an accuracy of such a wonderful nature, that the words are exactly commensurate with the sense. Hence the reader who has happily penetrated his profundity finds, with astonishment, that another word could not have been added without being superfluous, nor one word taken away without injuring the sense. The same observation may also be applied to the style of Aristotle. ----------------- Having thus considered the philosophy of Plato, given a general view of his writings, and made some observations on his style, it only now remains to speak of the following arrangement of his dialogues and translation of his works, and then, with a few appropriate observations, to close this Introduction. As no accurate and scientific arrangement then of these dialogues has been transmitted to us from the ancients, I was under the necessity of adopting an arrangement of my own, which I trust is not unscientific, however inferior it may be to that which was doubtless made, though unfortunately lost, by the latter interpreters of Plato. In my arrangement, therefore, I have imitated the order of the universe in which, as I have already observed, wholes precede parts, and universals particulars. Hence I have placed those dialogues first which rank as wholes, or have the relation of a system, and afterwards those in which these systems are branch out into particulars. Thus, after the First Alcibiades, which may be called, and appears to have been generally considered by the ancients an introduction to the whole of Plato's philosophy, I have placed the Republic and the Laws, which may be said to comprehend systematically the morals and politics of Plato. After these I have ranked the Timaeus, which contains the whole of his physiology, and together with it the Critias, because of its connection with the Timaeus. The next in order is the Parmenides, which contains a system of his theology. Thus far this arrangement is conformable to the natural progress of the human mind in the acquisition of the sublimest knowledge; the subsequent arrangement principally regards the order of things. After the Parmenides then, the Sophista, Phaedrus, Greater Hippias, and Banquet, follow, which may be considered as so many lesser wholes subordinate to and comprehended in the Parmenides, which, like the universe itself, is a whole of wholes. For in the Sophista being itself is investigated, in the Banquet love itself, and in the Phaedrus beauty itself; all which are intelligible forms, and are consequently contained in the Parmenides, in which the whole extent of the intelligible is unfolded. The Greater