th its high
wall and graveled walks and delicate shrubbery, and shouted aloud in
protest, "The whole world of mountain, valley and plain should be our
Academy, not this pent-up Utica that contracts our powers."

Then followed an argument as to the relative value of talking about
things or doing them, or Poetry versus Science.

Poetry, philosophy and religion are very old themes, and they were old
even in Plato's day; but natural science came in with Aristotle. And
science is only the classification of the common knowledge of the common
people. It was Aristotle who named things, not Adam. He contended that
the classification and naming of plants, rocks and animals was quite as
important as to classify ideas about human happiness and make guesses at
the state of the soul after death.

Of course he got himself beautifully misunderstood, because he was
advocating something which had never been advocated before. In this lay
his virtue, that he outran human sympathy, even the sympathy of the
great Plato.

Yet for a while the unfolding genius of this young barbarian was a
great joy to Plato, as the earnest, eager intellect of an ambitious
pupil always is to his teacher. Plato was great in speculation;
Aristotle was great in observation. Well has it been said that it was
Aristotle who discovered the world. And Aristotle in his old age said,
"My attempts to classify the objects of Nature all came through Plato's
teaching me first how to classify ideas." And forty years before this
Plato had said, "It was Socrates who taught me this game of the
correlation and classification of thoughts."

* * * * *

The writings of Plato consist of thirty-five dialogues, and one essay
which is not cast in the dramatic form--"The Apology." These dialogues
vary in length from twenty pages, of, say, four hundred words each, to
three hundred pages. In addition to these books are many quotations from
Plato and references to him by contemporary writers. Plato's work is as
impersonal as that of Shakespeare. All human ideas, shades of belief,
emotions and desires pass through the colander of his mind. He allows
everybody to have his say.

What Plato himself thought can only be inferred, and this each reader
does for himself. We construct our man Plato in our own image. A
critic's highest conception of Plato's philosophy is the highest
conception of the critic's own. We, however, are reasonably safe in
assuming tha