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When we have shaken off the rubbish of ages, there remain one or two questions of which the investigation has a permanent value:—

1. Did Plato derive the legend of Atlantis from an Egyptian source? It may be replied that there is no such legend in any writer previous to Plato; neither in Homer, nor in Pindar, nor in Herodotus is there any mention of an Island of Atlantis, nor any reference to it in Aristotle, nor any citation of an earlier writer by a later one in which it is to be found. Nor have any traces been discovered hitherto in Egyptian monuments of a connexion between Greece and Egypt older than the eighth or ninth century B.C. It is true that Proclus, writing in the fifth century after Christ, tells us of stones and columns in Egypt on which the history of the Island of Atlantis was engraved. The statement may be false—there are similar tales about columns set up 'by the Canaanites whom Joshua drove out' (Procop.); but even if true, it would only show that the legend, 800 years after the time of Plato, had been transferred to Egypt, and inscribed, not, like other forgeries, in books, but on stone. Probably in the Alexandrian age, when Egypt had ceased to have a history and began to appropriate the legends of other nations, many such monuments were to be found of events which had become famous in that or other countries. The oldest witness to the story is said to be Crantor, a Stoic philosopher who lived a generation later than Plato, and therefore may have borrowed it from him. The statement is found in Proclus; but we require better assurance than Proclus can give us before we accept this or any other statement which he makes.

Secondly, passing from the external to the internal evidence, we may remark that the story is far more likely to have been invented by Plato than to have been brought by Solon from Egypt. That is another part of his legend which Plato also seeks to impose upon us. The verisimilitude which he has given to the tale is a further reason for suspecting it; for he could easily 'invent Egyptian or any other tales' (Phaedrus). Are not the words, 'The truth of the story is a great advantage,' if we read between the lines, an indication of the fiction? It is only a legend that Solon went to Egypt, and if he did he could not have conversed with Egyptian priests or have read records in their temples. The truth is that the introduction is a mosaic work of small touches which, partly by their minuteness, and also by their seeming probability, win the confidence of the reader. Who would desire better evidence than that of Critias, who had heard the narrative in youth when the memory is strongest at the age of ten from his grandfather Critias, an old man of ninety, who in turn had heard it from Solon himself? Is not the famous expression—'You Hellenes are ever children and there is no knowledge among you hoary with age,' really a compliment to the Athenians who are described in these words as 'ever young'? And is the thought expressed in them to be attributed to the learning of the Egyptian priest, and not rather to the genius of Plato? Or when the Egyptian says—'Hereafter at our leisure we will take up the written documents and examine in detail the exact truth about these things'—what is this but a literary trick by which Plato sets off his narrative? Could any war between Athens and the Island of Atlantis have really coincided with the struggle between the Greeks and Persians, as is sufficiently hinted though not expressly stated in the narrative of Plato? And whence came the tradition to Egypt? or in what does the story consist except in the war between the two rival powers and the submersion of both of them? And how was the tale transferred to the poem of Solon? 'It is not improbable,' says Mr. Grote, 'that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem' (Plato). But are probabilities for which there is not a tittle of evidence, and which are without any parallel, to be deemed worthy of attention by the critic? How came the poem of Solon to disappear in antiquity? or why did Plato, if the whole narrative was known to him, break off almost at the beginning of it?

While therefore admiring the diligence and erudition of M. Martin, we cannot for a moment suppose that the tale was told to Solon by an Egyptian priest, nor can we believe that Solon wrote a poem upon the theme which was thus suggested to him—a poem which disappeared in antiquity; or that the Island of Atlantis or the antediluvian Athens ever had any existence except in the imagination of Plato. Martin is of opinion that Plato would have been terrified if he could have foreseen the endless fancies to which his Island of Atlantis has given occasion. Rather he would have been infinitely amused if he could have known that his gift of invention would have deceived M. Martin himself into the belief that the tradition was brought from Egypt by Solon and made the subject of a poem by him. M. Martin may also be gently censured for citing without sufficient discrimination ancient authors having very different degrees of authority and value.

2. It is an interesting and not unimportant question which is touched upon by Martin, whether the Atlantis of Plato in any degree held out a guiding light to the early navigators. He is inclined to think that there is no real connexion between them. But surely the discovery of the New World was preceded by a prophetic anticipation of it, which, like the hope of a Messiah, was entering into the hearts of men? And this hope was nursed by ancient tradition, which had found expression from time to time in the celebrated lines of Seneca and in many other places. This tradition was sustained by the great authority of Plato, and therefore the legend of the Island of Atlantis, though not closely connected with the voyages of the early navigators, may be truly said to have contributed indirectly to the great discovery.

The Timaeus of Plato, like the Protagoras and several portions of the Phaedrus and Republic, was translated by Cicero into Latin. About a fourth, comprehending with lacunae the first portion of the dialogue, is preserved in several MSS. These generally agree, and therefore may be supposed to be derived from a single original. The version is very faithful, and is a remarkable monument of Cicero's skill in managing the difficult and intractable Greek. In his treatise De Natura Deorum, he also refers to the Timaeus, which, speaking in the person of Velleius the Epicurean, he severely criticises.

The commentary of Proclus on the Timaeus is a wonderful monument of the silliness and prolixity of the Alexandrian Age. It extends to about thirty pages of the book, and is thirty times the length of the original. It is surprising that this voluminous work should have found a translator (Thomas Taylor, a kindred spirit, who was himself a Neo-Platonist, after the fashion, not of the fifth or sixteenth, but of the nineteenth century A.D.). The commentary is of little or no value, either in a philosophical or philological point of view. The writer is unable to explain particular passages in any precise manner, and he is equally incapable of grasping the whole. He does not take words in their simple meaning or sentences in their natural connexion. He is thinking, not of the context in Plato, but of the contemporary Pythagorean philosophers and their wordy strife. He finds nothing in the text which he does not bring to it. He is full of Porphyry, Iamblichus and Plotinus, of misapplied logic, of misunderstood grammar, and of the Orphic theology.