Untitled - 24grammata.com

206 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. XIV.required, hardly inferior to his. Common or even uncommon philosophic acumen, industry, and learning in this caseare not sufficient. The mind of Plato rose above visibleobjects, and entered on the higher regions, where exist theeternal first forms of things.To these his eye was undeviatinglydirected, as the only regions where knowledge canbe found, since there is nothing beyond opinion in theworld of the senses, and where real beauty, goodness, andjustice dwell eternal and unchangeable as the Divinity, andHe who cannot follow Platoyet distinct from the Divinity.to those regions, and feel with him, in the vei 1 of, mythological fables, what he himself felt rather than knew, maymake many valuable and correct remarks respecting thatphilosopher, but is not capable of presenting a perfect andadequate image of him. The attempt to give a body tothat which is ethereal, is vain ;for it then ceases to beethereal. But the relation in which he stood to his nationcan be very distinctly delineated. In him the poetic character of the Greeks expressed itself philosophically. It wasonly in a nation so thoroughly poetical, that a Plato couldbe produced.Socrates had contemplated man as a moral being Pla;to's philosophy embraced the social union.Long beforehim, the state had so far become an object of speculation,that writers had endeavoured to sketch the model of a perfect constitution. No more immediate occasion for suchexercise could be found than in the Grecian cities, whichformed as it were the model of a chart of free states ; which,by means of their wants and changes, almost necessarily conducted the reflecting mind to such objects of thought Thefirst distinct attempt of this kind, as we expressly learn fromAristotle, 1was made by Hippodamus of Miletus, who musthave been a contemporary of Themistocles. 2The markedseparation of the three classes of artists, agriculturists, andsoldiers, and the division which he makes of land into sacred, public, and private land, remind us of the Egyptianinstitutions. Not only his plan, but that of Phaneas of Chalcedon,is discussed at largeby Aristotle.Investigations ofJAristot Polit il. cap, 8.w me/According to Aristotle, he was employed in the construction wuvuuu of thes, which was the work of Themistocles.