Note 156 — Chapter I · Introduction

Or else for no historical period at all. As pointed out to me by my colleague Professor W. G. de Burgh, Plato’s order is confessedly an order of ascending injustice (Rep. VIII. 545a; cp. 344a), in introducing which he invokes the muses of Homer and asks them not to be too serious (545e). Plato’s evidence on this point need not be taken so literally as that of the historically minded Aristotle.