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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: semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of the same mixed character
which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them
is different. But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle,
seem never to have been confused with the writings of his disciples: this
was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable
excellence. The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to
the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they
may be altogether spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly
admitted. Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the
Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection
can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight
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