PLATO’S “Dialogues” are not strictly essays in their form. The discursiveness of the “Socratic method” of developing a thought through leading questions which involve the idea of the response to them is antagonistic to the true method of the essayist as it was defined and developed by Plato’s great pupil, Aristotle. But if Aristotle is the master to whom we owe the Baconian essay, Plutarch, who was Plato’s pupil and Montaigne’s master, has transmitted the amiable Platonic discursiveness to modern times, so that we have the schools of Plato, of Aristotle, of Theophrastus, and of Cicero all clearly defined in modern essay writing. It is remarkable that Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus all belong to the school of Socrates, and are explainable as results of his inspiration. Theophrastus who was taught by Aristotle as the latter was by Plato is the best representative of Socratic humor, as Plato is of Socratic thought. Among philosophical writers on “the higher life,” Plato has not been surpassed in ancient or modern times. It is impossible to guess how much of all he attributes to Socrates he really owed to him. There can be no question, however, of his own genius or his own originality. To the Greek world and to the classical Pagan world everywhere, what he wrote of the soul, of death, of the future life, and of the Divinity had the effect of a revelation. We may imagine, if we cannot realize, the strength of his influence then by the admiration and even love he still excites in students of his writings. He is the great master of all philosophical idealists, and of those who go beyond philosophical idealism to the faith that the only true “realism” concerns itself with the enduring realities of a life of which the present life is a transitory phase. What Aristotle did to prepare the way for science Plato did to make it ready for the Christianity of the Gospels.

  He was born at Ægina 427 (perhaps 429) B.C. His parents were of patrician descent, and in his youth he was much like other well-bred Greeks. He wrestled, went to the wars, and wrote verse. Several short poems still extant are attributed to him, and one of them is a remarkably artistic example of the vowel symphony constructed according to the Homeric mode in melody. After he became a pupil of Socrates, however, it is said that he burned as many of his poems as he could collect,—perhaps because they were chiefly erotic lyrics of a most unphilosophical kind. After the death of Socrates, whom he had constantly attended, he left Athens, traveling in Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Græcia. During this tour, it is said that he offended Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, who sold him as a slave. On being ransomed, he returned to Athens and began teaching in the “Academy,” a school which he founded and taught for nearly fifty years until his death in 347 B.C. His most popular works are perhaps “Crito” and “Phædo,” in which he deals with the imprisonment and death of Socrates, but his “The Banquet” and “Republic” are also widely read by those who are not professional students of philosophy. Among other dialogues scarcely less noted are “Phædrus,” “Gorgias.” “Theætetus,” “Timæus,” “Politicus,” “Critias,” and “Ion.”

  No one who reads half a dozen pages of Plato will need to be told he is a great thinker. Of his style, except as we can see his discursive tendencies, it would be presumptuous to speak. He has been called “a prose poet,” but the melody of the Greek language cannot be translated into any other and we do not read Greek prose with its own rhythms; but before the close of the twentieth century, the learned world will probably so far revive the quantities of the Greek language and revitalize it into a living tongue, that it will be possible to decide whether the sense of music shown in the verse, attributed to Plato, governs in his prose also. If so, he will take rank among the world’s greatest masters of melodious prose.