GENERAL INTRODUCTION a very mystical suggestions must have led his favourit pupils a good way towards a new system of meta physics. These intimates learnt, as they steeped their minds in his, and felt the growth of a unique affection amid the glow of enlightenment, that happiness may be elsewhere than in our dealin with the material world, and that the mind has prerogatives and duties far above the sphere of civic ife After the death of Socrates in 399, Plato spent some twelve years in study and travel. For the irst part of this time he was perhaps at Megara, where Eucleides, his fellow-student and friend, was forming a school of dialectic. Here he may have mposed some of the six Dialogues already men tioned as recording Socrates activity in Athens Towards and probably beyond the end of this period in order to present the Socratic method in bolder confict with sophistic education, he wrote the Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, and Gorgias. These works show a much greater command of dramatic and literary art, and a deeper interest in logic. The last of them may well be later than 387, the year in which, after an all but disastrous attempt to better the mind of Dionysius of Syracuse, he returned to Athens, and, now forty years of age, founded the Academy; where the memory of his master was to s perpetuated by continuing and expanding the ocratic discussions among the elect of the new Digitized by Microsoft(BGENERAL INTRODUCTION a very crude stage of psychology, his logical and mystical suggestions must have led his favourite pupils a good way towards a new system of meta￾physics. These intimates learnt, as they steeped their minds in his, and felt the growth of a unique affection amid the glow of enlightenment, that happiness may be elsewhere than in our dealings with the material world, and that the mind has prerogatives and duties far above the sphere of civic life.After the death of Socrates in 399, Plato spent some twelve years in study and travel. For the first part of this time he was perhaps at Megara, where Eucleides, his fellow-student and friend, was forming a school of dialectic. Here he may have composed some of the six Dialogues already men￾tioned as recording Socrates' activity in Athens. Towards and probably beyond the end of this period, in order to present the Socratic method in bolder conflict with sophistic education, he wrote the Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, and Gorgias. These works show a much greater command of dramatic and literary art, and a deeper interest in logic. The last of them may well be later than 387, the year in which, after an all but disastrous attempt to better the mind of Dionysius of Syracuse, he returned to Athens, and, now forty years of age, founded the Academy ; where the memory of his master was to be perpetuated by continuing and expanding the Socratic discussions among the elect of the new xiii