[Footnote 5: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 11, 38.
The collocutor remarks that what Cicero says is inconsistent with what he (Cicero) had written in the fourth book De Finibus. To which Cicero replies:--
"Tu quidem tabellis obsignatis agis mecum, et testificaris, quid dixerim aliquando aut scripserim. Cum aliis isto modo, qui legibus impositis disputant. Nos in diem vivimus: quodcunque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, id dicimus: itaque soli sumus liberi."]
There have been various critics, who, on perceiving inconsistencies in Plato, either force them into harmony by a subtle exegêsis, or discard one of them as spurious.[6] I have not followed either course. I recognise such inconsistencies, when found, as facts--and even as very interesting facts--in his philosophical character. To the marked contradiction in the spirit of the Leges, as compared with the earlier Platonic compositions, I have called special attention. Plato has been called by Plutarch a mixture of Sokrates with Lykurgus. The two elements are in reality opposite, predominant at different times: Plato begins his career with the confessed ignorance and philosophical negative of Sokrates: he closes it with the peremptory, dictatorial, affirmative of Lykurgus.
[Footnote 6: Since the publication of the first edition of this work, there have appeared valuable commentaries on the philosophy of the late Sir William Hamilton, by Mr. John Stuart Mill, and Mr. Stirling and others. They have exposed inconsistencies, both grave and numerous, in some parts of Sir William Hamilton's writings as compared with others. But no one has dreamt of drawing an inference from this fact, that one or other of the inconsistent trains of reasoning must be spurious, falsely ascribed to Sir William Hamilton.
Now in the case of Plato, this same fact of inconsistency is accepted by nearly all his commentators as a sound basis for the inference that both the inconsistent treatises cannot be genuine: though the dramatic character of Plato's writings makes inconsistencies much more easily supposable than in dogmatic treatises such as those of Hamilton.]
To Xenophon, who belongs only in part to my present work, and whose character presents an interesting contrast with Plato, I have devoted a separate chapter. To the other less celebrated Sokratic Companions also, I have endeavoured to do justice, as far as the scanty means of knowledge permit: to them, especially, because they have generally been misconceived and unduly depreciated.