o; but the disciple and the
master could not possibly agree in their doctrines: they were of
opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect,
and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and
of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a
theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of
diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them;
his "Republic" is as chimerical as Rousseau's ideas, or Sir Thomas
More's Utopia.

Rapin, the critic, has sketched an ingenious parallel of these two
celebrated philosophers:--

"The genius of Plato is more polished, and that of Aristotle more vast
and profound. Plato has a lively and teeming imagination; fertile in
invention, in ideas, in expressions, and in figures; displaying a
thousand turns, a thousand new colours, all agreeable to their subject;
but after all it is nothing more than imagination. Aristotle is hard and
dry in all he says, but what he says is all reason, though it is
expressed drily: his diction, pure as it is, has something uncommonly
austere; and his obscurities, natural or affected, disgust and fatigue
his readers. Plato is equally delicate in his thoughts and in his
expressions. Aristotle, though he may be more natural, has not any
delicacy: his style is simple and equal, but close and nervous; that of
Plato is grand and elevated, but loose and diffuse. Plato always says
more than he should say: Aristotle never says enough, and leaves the
reader always to think more than he says. The one surprises the mind,
and charms it by a flowery and sparkling character: the other
illuminates and instructs it by a just and solid method. Plato
communicates something of genius, by the fecundity of his own; and
Aristotle something of judgment and reason, by that impression of good
sense which appears in all he says. In a word, Plato frequently only
thinks to express himself well: and Aristotle only thinks to think
justly."

An interesting anecdote is related of these philosophers--Aristotle
became the rival of Plato. Literary disputes long subsisted betwixt
them. The disciple ridiculed his master, and the master treated
contemptuously his disciple. To make his superiority manifest, Aristotle
wished for a regular disputation before an audience, where erudition and
reason might prevail; but this satisfaction was denied.

Plato was always surrounded by his scholars, who took a l