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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues
bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to
contemporaries of Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real
external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot
be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks
either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we
have express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing
the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the
genuineness of the extant dialogue.
Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an absolute
line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of Plato. They
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