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But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae,-logic is still

veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to

'contemplate all truth and all existence' is very unlike the

doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have

discovered (Soph. Elenchi, 33. 18).

Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of

a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history

of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The

fragment of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous

fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the

legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of

the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical

tale, of which the subject was a history of the wars of the

Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed to be

founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have

stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to

the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty

(cp. Tim. 25 C), intended to represent the conflict of Persia and

Hellas.