Note 187 — TABLE I.

Plato and Socrates are a double star in the sky of Philosophy that the strongest telescopes have failed to resolve. Socrates wrote nothing, but talked much. Plato was a pupil of his, and makes Socrates the chief character in his writings. Ten schools of philosophy claimed Socrates as their head, but Plato alone represented the master with fulness. Considering the times in which he lived, the grandeur of his thought, the power of his imagination, and the nobility, elegance, originality, and beauty of his writings, Plato has no superior in the whole range of literature. With Plato, ideas are the only realities, things are imperfect expressions of them, and all knowledge is reminiscence of what the soul learned when it was in the land of spirit, face to face with ideas unveiled. Read his dialogues, especially "Phædo" and the "Republic." (Greece, 429-348 b. c.)