Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this matter.
First, they have endeavoured to hang the dialogues upon one another by the
slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictory
assertions respecting their order and sequence.  The mantle of
Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his
method with the most various results.  The value and use of the method has
been hardly, if at all, examined either by him or them.  Secondly, they
have extended almost indefinitely the scope of each separate dialogue; in
this way they think that they have escaped all difficulties, not seeing
that what they have gained in generality they have lost in truth and
distinctness.  Metaphysical conceptions easily pass into one another; and
the simpler notions of antiquity, which we can only realize by an effort,
imperceptibly blend with the more familiar theories of modern philosophers.
An eye for proportion is needed (his own art of measuring) in the study of
Plato, as well as of other great artists.  We may hardly admit that the
moral antithesis of good and pleasure, or the intellectual antithesis of
knowledge and opinion, being and appearance, are never far off in a
Platonic discussion.  But because they are in the background, we should not
bring them into the foreground, or expect to discern them equally in all