THE PHILOSOPHY OP PLATO. 235 



of the era in which helived, were too much blind confidence 

 in authority, too much respect for custom, too much regard 

 for popular prejudice, and too much conceited selfishness, which 

 induces one to regard as dangerous and puerile whatever he 

 does not know. But he " claimed for human reason the right 

 to exercise a severe control over all the doctrines submitted to 

 its approbation ; he insists upon the dignity and the importance 

 of the sciences, none of which are to be proscribed, and all of 

 which are to be cultivated ; and he establishes experience rather 

 than reasoning as the proper method of research." And so 

 this great man surrendered, leaving behind him only his appeal 

 for intellectual progress, and preparing the way for a more 

 defiant and revolutionary age of great discoveries, and popular 

 assertion, and religious reform, and emancipated science. 

 Three centuries passed away before his prophecies were fulfilled. 

 And now the great struggle commenced. Men still be- 

 lieved with Plato that science was a mere intellectual exercise 

 and amusement ; that the study of arithmetic was not intended 

 for any practical service in life, but to habituate the mind to 

 the contemplation of pure truth ; that mathematics applied to 

 any purpose of vulgar utility became a low craft, as he called 

 it, fit only for carpenters and wheelwrights ; and was no longer 

 a noble science " leading men to the knowledge of abstract, 

 essential, eternal truth ; that the use of astronomy is not to 

 add to the vulgar comforts of life, but to assist in raising the 

 mind to the contemplation of things which are to be perceived 

 by the pure intellect alone ; " that the science of medicine 

 should be applied only to those whose constitutions are good, 

 and not to those who by inheritance, or excess, or exposure, or 

 accident, have become so permanently enfeebled that their 

 heads grow giddy and full when exerted in the studious con- 

 templation of divine philosophy, — the remedy for feeble consti- 

 tutions being death ; that the science of legislation was based 

 upon abstract virtue, and not upon that practical wisdom which 

 would prevent and reform crime, and build up a state upon the 

 principles of patriotism, and honesty, and courage, and honor, 

 and furnish the highest faculties of man an opportunity to exert 

 themselves " without being molested or insulted for it," as Gen. 

 Grant said in his memorable conversation with Judge Hoar. 



