expression.  Instead of the equally diffused grace and ease of the earlier
dialogues there occur two or three highly-wrought passages; instead of the
ever-flowing play of humour, now appearing, now concealed, but always
present, are inserted a good many bad jests, as we may venture to term
them.  We may observe an attempt at artificial ornament, and far-fetched
modes of expression; also clamorous demands on the part of his companions,
that Socrates shall answer his own questions, as well as other defects of
style, which remind us of the Laws.  The connection is often abrupt and
inharmonious, and far from clear.  Many points require further explanation;
e.g.  the reference of pleasure to the indefinite class, compared with the
assertion which almost immediately follows, that pleasure and pain
naturally have their seat in the third or mixed class: these two
statements are unreconciled.  In like manner, the table of goods does not
distinguish between the two heads of measure and symmetry; and though a
hint is given that the divine mind has the first place, nothing is said of
this in the final summing up.  The relation of the goods to the sciences
does not appear; though dialectic may be thought to correspond to the
highest good, the sciences and arts and true opinions are enumerated in the
fourth class.  We seem to have an intimation of a further discussion, in
which some topics lightly passed over were to receive a fuller