The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all.

There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence.

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them.

The republic by plato