Note 119 — ON INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSICS AND THE SCIENCES.[113]

In emphasising here the weak sides of the writings of Plato and Aristotle, forced on my attention while reading them in German translations, I, of course, have no intention of underrating the great merits and the high historical importance of these two men. Their importance must not be measured by the fact that our speculative philosophy still moves to a great extent in their paths of thought. The more probable conclusion is that this branch has made very little progress in the last two thousand years. Natural science also was implicated for centuries in the meshes of the Aristotelian thought, and owes its rise mainly to having thrown off those fetters.