Part

 1 Intro| INTRODUCTION~Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most
 2 Intro|     interrogated about them. Yet Plato was not a mystic, nor in
 3 Intro|          other of his Dialogues, Plato is emancipated from former
 4 Intro|       things in the Symposium of Plato than any commentator has
 5 Intro|          hears. The Symposium of Plato is a work of this character,
 6 Intro|   applied to all the writings of Plato, is especially applicable
 7 Intro|         finite and infinite.~But Plato seems also to be aware that
 8 Intro| consciously or unconsciously, in Plato’s doctrine of love.~The
 9 Intro|       Ethics). So naturally does Plato mingle jest and earnest,
10 Intro|    distinctions are not found in Plato; —they are the points of
11 Intro| extremely confused and pedantic. Plato is attacking the logical
12 Intro|       Like the sophists and like Plato himself, though in a different
13 Intro|      there is no hint given that Plato is specially referring to
14 Intro|   beginning, but a lame ending.’~Plato transposes the two next
15 Intro|         his love of Beatrice, so Plato would have us absorb all
16 Intro|        theme of the Symposium of Plato. And as there is no impossibility
17 Intro|          is a ‘mystery’ in which Plato also obscurely intimates
18 Intro|        has a ridiculous element (Plato’s Symp.), and is a subject
19 Intro|       moral reprobation (compare Plato’s Symp.). It is also used
20 Intro|    compare Xen. Symp.). Nor does Plato feel any repugnance, such
21 Intro| Athenaeus), was not perceived by Plato himself. We are still more
22 Intro|         is not a mere fiction of Plato’s, but seems actually to
23 Intro|       Vit. It is observable that Plato never in the least degree
24 Intro|     friendships are spoken of by Plato in a manner different from
25 Intro|          adduce the authority of Plato either for or against such
26 Intro|        Peloponnesian wars, or of Plato and the Orators, than England
27 Intro|        stimulus to good (compare Plato, Laws, where he says that
28 Intro|      been present to the mind of Plato in the description of the
29 Intro|         the forty-fourth year of Plato’s life. The Symposium cannot
30 Intro|        are the only Dialogues of Plato in which the theme of love
31 Intro|       the human mind is capable. Plato does not go on to ask whether
32 Intro|           compare Phaedrus). But Plato does not distinguish the
33 Intro|         of the other writings of Plato, throw a doubt on the genuineness
34 Intro|       show that he wrote against Plato, and was acquainted with