from their disciples and friends. And there is a remarkable difference in the manner in which the life of Socrates is written by Xenophon, and that of Jesus by the evangelists. There cannot be a doubt but that the evangelists had a much higher opinion of their master than Xenophon or Plato had of theirs. The traces of this are numerous, and indisputable; but there is not in their writings any direct encomium, or praise, of him, as there is in the Greek writers of Socrates; and yet without any assistance of this kind a reader of moderate discernment cannot help forming a much higher idea of Jesus than he does of Socrates from the facts recorded of him, and the discourses ascribed to him.

Indeed, we have no example of such simplicity in writing as that of the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in all the heathen world; and it is not easy to account for the difference, especially with respect to the later writers; except that Moses having begun to write in this simple manner, the succeeding writers, having no other model, naturally followed that; inserting in their composi tions nothing that appeared superfluous, as direct encomiums are, when the facts from which such encomiums are drawn, are before the reader; who may be supposed as capable of drawing a proper inference from them as the writer himself,

As

As the sacred writers say nothing directly in praise of those whom they most esteemed and admired, they say nothing directly in dispraise, or censure, of those whom they most disliked, but leave the circumstances they simply mention to make their natural impression upon their readers. And from the effects of these two different modes of writing, the natural and the artificial, as they may be termed, the former appears to be better calculated to answer the purpose of the writer than' the latter. When a man directly praises or cen-` sures another, we suspect some previous bias for or against him, and are upon our guard; but when we read a simple narrative of facts, without any explanatory remarks of the writer; we have no suspicion of any thing unfavourable to truth- We think we see with our own eyes, and hear with our own cars, and that we thus judge for ourselves.

My father to shew how little stress he laid on a casual opinion, has directed me to add the following sentence concerning the Demon of Socratesfrom his second tract in answer to Dr. Linn, and to insert it at the end of the section relating to So

crates.

H 4.

J. P.

As

As to the Demon of Socrates, on which you urge me so closely, I professed not to have any fixed opinion about it. If I had been asked what I thought of it a short time before the writing of my pamphlet, I should have said, as you do, it was probably nothing more than his own good sense, but on considering his character more particularly, I was unwilling to think that such a man would persist through life, and to his dying moments, in telling a lie. And what the Supreme Being might please to do by or with him, or any man, neither you nor I can tell. But I never said, as you now quote me, that "God spake to Socrates by a demon," which you call, (p. 75,)“ a glaring deformity of my asser"tion. Such an idea never occurred to me. As my opinion on this very unimportant subject is unsettled, it is very possible that I may revert to my former opinion, and yours about it.

ON

ON

PLATONISM.

121

INTRODUCTION.

PLATO was the professed disciple of Socrates,

and attended him eight years. His attachment to him appears by the sum that he raised to procure his release from imprisonment, and his eagerness to speak in his defence at his trial. The veneration in which he held his memory is evident from his making him the principal speaker in many of his dialogues, and the person who delivers his own sentiments in them.

After the death of Socrates, Plato travelled in quest of knowledge, first into Italy, where he conversed with the disciples of Pythagoras, and afterwards into Egypt, where, being known to be a person of considerable distinction in his own country, he appear to have been received with great respect, and from the Eastern part of the world in which it

is said he travelled in the disguise of a merchant, he seems to have got some knowledge, directly or indirectly, of the sytem that generally prevailed there.

That he should expect to learn something in countries out of the bounds of Greece is not extraordinary, as it is acknowledged by him, that "what the Greeks knew concerning the gods, and "their worship, was derived from the Barbarians." But he says (Epinomis.) "what the Greeks learn"ed of the Barbarians we have improved." Notwithstanding this acknowledgment, he is willing to ascribe more merit to the Greeks than to them, when he says (Ib.) that "though there is the great"est difficulty in the invention of these things, we 66 'hope that all the Greeks will honour the one "God in a better manner than the Barbarians, e"specially as instructed, and warned, by the Del'phic oracle" (Ib.) so that, in his opinion, the Greeks had divine instruction as well as human.

He farther acknowledges that, in the early ages, "the Greeks entertained very imperfect ideas of "the gods and their worship, having low ideas of "their characters, which they did well to correct. "Because in time past, he says (Ib.) our ancestors "formed wrong opinions of the gods, and their 66 proge