It was by oral discourse that knowledge was chiefly communicated at the dawn of science, when books either did not exist, or were extremely rare. In the Porch, in the Garden, or among the groves of the Academy, the philosopher conferred with his disciples, listened to their remarks, and replied to their objections. Socrates, in particular, was accustomed thus to inculcate his moral lessons; and it was natural for the scholars, who recorded them, to follow the manner in which they had been disclosed. Of these disciples, Plato, who was the most distinguished, readily adopted a form of composition, which gave scope to his own fertile and poetical imagination; while, at the same time, it enabled him more accurately to paint his great master. One of his chief objects, too, was to represent the triumph of Socrates over the Sophists; and if a writer wish to cover an opponent with ridicule, perhaps no better mode could be devised, than to set him up as a man of straw in a dialogue. As argumentative victory, or the embarrassment of the antagonist of Socrates, was often all that was aimed at, it was unnecessary to be very scrupulous about the means, and, considered in this view, the agreeable irony of that philosopher--the address with which, by seeming to yield, he ensnares the adversary--his quibbles--his subtle distinctions, and perplexing interrogatories, display consummate skill, and produce considerable dramatic effect; while, at the same time, the scenery and circumstances of the dialogue are often described with a richness and beauty of imagination, which no philosophic writer has as yet surpassed(393).
When Cicero, towards the close of his long and meritorious life, employed himself in transferring to Rome the philosophy of Greece, he appears to have been chiefly attracted by the diffusive majesty of Plato, whose intellectual character was in many respects congenial to his own. His dialogues in so far resemble those of Plato, that the personages are real, and of various characters and opinions; while the circumstances of time and place are, for the most part, as completely fictitious as in his Greek models. Yet there is a considerable difference in the manner of Cicero's Dialogues, from those of the great founder of the Academy. Plato ever preserved something of the Socratic method of giving birth to the thoughts of others--of awakening, by interrogatories, the sense of truth, and supplanting errors. But Cicero himself, or the person who speaks his sentiments, always takes the lead in the conference, and gives us long, and often uninterrupted dissertations. His object, too, appears to have been not so much to cover his adversaries with ridicule, or even to prevail in the argument, as to pay a complimentary tribute to his numerous and illustrious friends, or to recall, as it were, from the tomb, the departed heroes and sages of his country.