It is now generally recognized that Plato's whole theory of the Ideal State is based upon the principle that human society is ‘natural’ . As against the antisocial doctrines of certain sophists, this proposition means, in the first place, a denial of the view that society originated in a primitive contract. But Plato does not merely reject this false opinion; he also sets up an alternative doctrine that the state is natural, in the sense that a human society constructed on (...) ideal lines1 would be one that should reflect the structure of man's soul, and give full play to the legitimate functions of every part of his nature. Accordingly, it is vital to his purpose in the Republic to show that the division of the Ideal State into three classes—Guardians, Auxiliaries, Producers—corresponds to the division of the soul into three ‘parts’ , ‘kinds’, or ‘forms’ —the Reflective, Spirited, and Appetitive. (shrink)

All are agreed that towards the end of his long life Euripides leff Athens and went to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon. From Plato 1 and many other sources we know that Archelaus was the illegitimate son of Perdiccas II., by Simiche, a slave girl, and had succeeded to his father by murdering his uncle Alcetas, his half-brother, and his cousin. As these events occurred in 413 or 412 B.C., the poet's visit must have been later than that (...) date, and has with probability been placed soon after the production of his Orestes at Athens in Ol. 92. 4. (shrink)

I. ON Aristotle's supposed inconsistency in his treatment of Epic as a form of Mimesis. In his note on the Poetic c. i, 1447, a, 15, Mr. Ingram Bywater writes: ‘ In his use of mimesthai, in the Poetics Aristotle has fallen into a grave inconsistency, as he distinctly makes it in one place include narrative, and in another exclude it.’ Yet I venture to think that a careful examination of the two passages will show that Aristotle is perfectly consistent, (...) and that Mr. Bywater like his predecessors has completely misunderstood the second passage. (shrink)