k, or the twilight through
which he passes on his way to the light. He will use even the beauties
of earth only "as steps along which he mounts upward for the sake of
that other beauty."

[Sidenote: Aristotle's Hierarchy of Substances in Relation to
Platonism.]

Sect. 162. We have met, then, with two distinct philosophical doctrines
which arise from the conception of the _absolute_, or the philosopher's
peculiar object: the doctrine of the _absolute being_ or _substance_,
and that of the _absolute ideal_ or _good_. Both doctrines are realistic
in that they assume reality to be demonstrated or revealed, rather than
created, by knowledge. Both are rationalistic in that they develop a
system of philosophy from the problem of philosophy, or deduce a
definition of reality from the conception, of reality. There remains a
third doctrine of the same type--the philosophy of Aristotle, the most
elaborately constructed system of Greek antiquity, and the most potent
influence exerted upon the Scholastic Philosophy of the long mediaeval
period. This philosophy was rehabilitated in the eighteenth century by
Leibniz, the brilliant librarian of the court of Hanover. The
extraordinary comprehensiveness of Aristotle's philosophy makes it quite
impossible to render here even a general account of it. There is
scarcely any human discipline that does not to some extent draw upon it.
We are concerned only with the central principles of the metaphysics.

Upon the common ground of rationalism and realism, Plato and Aristotle
are complementary in temper, method, and principle. Plato's is the
genius of inspiration and fertility, Aristotle's the genius of
erudition, mastery, and synthesis. In form, Plato's is the gift of
expression, Aristotle's the gift of arrangement. Plato was born and bred
an aristocrat, and became the lover of the best--the uncompromising
purist; Aristotle is middle-class, and limitlessly wide, hospitable, and
patient in his interests. Thus while both are speculative and acute,
Plato's mind is intensive and profound, Aristotle's extensive and
orderly. It was inevitable, then, that Aristotle should find Plato
one-sided. The philosophy of the ideal is not worldly enough to be true.
It is a religion rather than a theory of reality. Aristotle, however,
would not renounce it, but construe it that it may better provide for
nature and history. This is the significance of his new terminology.
Matter, to which Plato reluctantly conc