The next contribution to the progress of the stylistic method was rather slight, the reason being that it came from the author of a dissertation, whose interest, primarily philological, was only incidentally concerned with the chronology of Plato's dialogues. Kugler's criticism of Dittenberger has already been mentioned, but in addition to this he made use of the statistics of τoι which he had compiled to attempt his own solution of the problem. The chronological divisions marked in his tables (pp.29–30) are those of Dittenberger, the three dialogues omitted by the latter being added at the top. At the same time an advance is made over previous work in the separate treatment of individual books of the Rep. and Laws, though the way had already been pointed out by Frederking.

Kugler's figures have not all been verified, but a sample test (Thesis p. 53) showed them to be reasonably accurate. Referring to his tables he noted:

1. The ratio of μέντοι to τοινυν varies considerably.

2. This reaches its extreme in Rep. vni and Laws v, vm, xi, where μέντοι is missing altogether.

3. In some dialogues there is a greater variety in the combinations of xoi than in others. In Tim. and Crit. there is only one type, in Laws books I, V, VI, XI, XII only two, in Rep. VIII and Laws VIII, IX three; in the Gorg. by contrast there are eight.

4. […]