PLATO'S LATEST WORK 311 and downfall of the isle Atlantis, an ideal type of mere material strength and wealth, with marked resemblances to Athens. There was to have been another dialogue, Hermocrates, in this series, but it was never written, Plato died, leaving the Laws unrevised — still on the wax, tradition says, for Philip of Opus to transcribe and edit — and the Critias broken in the midst of a sentence. Plato h:id failed in the main efforts of his life. He was, indeed, almost worshipped by a large part of the Greek world ; his greatness was felt not only by philo- sophers, but by the leading generals and statesmen. The Cyrenaics might be annoyed by his loftiness ; the Cynics might rage at him for a false Socratic, a rich man's philosopher speculating at ease in his garden, instead of making his home with the disinherited and crying in the streets against sin. But at the end of his lifetime he was almost above the reach of attack. Even comedy is gentle towards him ; and the slanders of the next generation are only the rebound against previous exaggerations of praise. It is significant of the vulgar conception of him, that rumour made him the son of Apollo, and wrapped him in Apolline myths ; of the philosophic feeling, that Aristotle — no sentimentalist certainly, and no uncompromising disciple — built him an altar and a shrine. But the world was going wrong in Plato's eyes : those who praised, did not obey ; those who wor- shipped, controverted him. He had set out expecting to find some key to the world — some principle that would enable him to operate with all mental concepts as one does with the concepts of mathematics. It is the knowledge of this principle which is to make the
- Rulers ' of the Laws and the Republic infallible and
