renaic. He then returned to Athens, his travels having occupied
a period of about ten years.

With the return of Plato to Athens we enter upon the third and last
period of his life. With the exception of two journeys to be mentioned
shortly, he never again left Athens. He now appeared for the first
time as a professional teacher and philosopher. He chose for the scene
of his activities a gymnasium, called the Academy. Here he gradually
collected round him a circle of pupils and disciples. For the rest of
his life, a period of about forty years, he occupied himself in
literary activity, and in the management of the school which he had
founded. His manner of life was in strong contrast to that of
Socrates. Only in one respect did he resemble his master. He took no
fees for his teaching. Otherwise the lives of the two great men bear
no resemblance to each other. Socrates had gone out into the highways
and byways in search of wisdom. He had wrangled in {168} the
market-place with all comers. Plato withdrew himself into the
seclusion of a school, protected from the hubbub of the world by a
ring of faithful disciples. It was not to be expected that a man of
Plato's refinement, culture, and aristocratic feelings, should
appreciate, as Socrates, the man of the people, had done, the
rough-and-tumble life of the Athenian market-place. Nor was it
desirable for the advancement of philosophy that it should be so. The
Socratic philosophy had suffered from the Socratic manner of life. It
was unmethodical and inchoate. Systematic thought is not born of
disputes at the street corner. For the development of a great
world-system, such as that of Plato, laborious study and quiet
seclusion were essential.

This period of Plato's mastership was broken only by two journeys to
Sicily, both undertaken with political objects. Plato knew well that
the perfect State, as depicted in his "Republic," was not capable of
realization in the Greece of his own time. Nevertheless, he took his
political philosophy very seriously. Though the perfect republic was
an unattainable ideal, yet, he thought, any real reform of the State
must at least proceed in the direction of that ideal. One of the
essential principles of the "Republic" was that the rulers must also
be philosophers. Not till philosopher and ruler were combined in one
and the same person could the State be governed upon true principles.
Now, in the year 368 B.C., Dionysius the Elder died, and Di