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3o6 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE the opening of his school. We cannot tell which was originally the provocation and which the answer ; con- troversial writings in antiquity were generally worked over and over till each side had answered the other to its own satisfaction. But the tone of mutual criticism is clear, and the Phcsdrns ends with a supposed message to Isocrates from the master. * Isocrates is young yet' — that is, of course, at the imaginary date of the con- versation — ' and is too fine material to be a mere orator ; if he will turn to philosophy, he has the genius for it.' " Take that message from me, Phcedrus, to Isocrates wlioni I love." If this is 'polemic,' it is not living polemic ; it is the tone of an old friend letting bygones be bygones, and agreeing to respect a difference of opinion. The probability is that we have the Phcedrus in a late revi- sion. The first publication was perhaps the occasion of Isocrates's outburst ; our Phcedrus is rewritten fifteen years later, answering gently various points of criticism, and ending with this palpable olive-branch. During these years Plato was working out his most elaborate effort, the Republic. He used for the intro- duction a little dialogue in the early humorous style, ' on Righteousness,' between Socrates and Thrasymachus. This is now Book I. of the Republic ; the rest is by the language-tests uniform, and the various theories for dividing the long work into 'strata' are so far dis- countenanced. The main subject of this great unity is hiKatoavvT) — what Righteousness is, and whether there is any reason to be righteous rather than unrighteous. This leads to the discussion and elaboration of a righteous community ; not, as a modern would expect, because Justice is a relation between one man and another — Plato emphatically insists that it is something in the