Excerpt from The Republic of Plato: Translated Into English With Introduction, Analysis Marginal Analysis, and Index
The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist. The Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other contains more graphic descriptions of character, or is richer in humour and imagery. Nor in any other Dialogue is the attempt made to unite the speculative and practical, or to interweave the State with philosophy. Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger work which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. Lastly, Plato may be regarded as the 'captain or leader' of a goodly band of followers; in him is to be found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustin's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous modern writings which are framed upon the same model. The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another world; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. And many of the latest thoughts of modern philosophers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by Plato.
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