192 Philosophy of Botany. 



itable delusion. Like a metempsychosis of the soul of Soc- 

 rates, his chief disciple, Plato, continued and embellished the 

 work of his master. To the bent of mind attained in the so- 

 ciety of Socrates within eight or ten years he added all that 

 could be obtained from the philosophers of Egypt. Cyrene. 

 Persia, and Tarentum. Of noble and illustrious parentage, 

 he numbered Solon among his ancestors ; also possessing the 

 advantage of wealth, he concluded to establish a school in the 

 grove of Hecademus. There he devoted himself to science, 

 and spent the last years of a long life in the instruction of 

 youth, and, arriving at the eighty-first year of his age, died from 

 gradual decay of nature. His portrait is preserved to this day 

 in antique gems, but the most lasting monuments of his genius 

 are his writings, which have been transmitted without material 

 injury to the present time. 



The powerful effect of the writings of Plato is equally pro- 

 duced by their external form as by their internal value. The 

 elegant world of letters which so readily sacrifices the essence 

 of a literarv production to the form in which it is presented 

 would never have paid such homage to Plato had it not been 

 for the art of presentation and introduction of his ideas, which 

 he knew how to handle in a masterly way. Even when he 

 chastises his sophistic adversaries with pungent ridicule, he 

 never passes beyond the limits of decency and dignity. 



All his works are rendered in dialectic form, displaying an 

 equally philosophical and poetical style. Various as were the 

 models of literary style which he had before him., to none, how- 

 ever, was he more indebted than to Aristophanes, the come- 

 dian, in depicting the life and actions of men. He also made 

 much use of Indian and Egyptian myths and mysteries, and 

 handled with great caution in those discussions questions 

 which penetrated into the field of the religious faith of his coun- 

 trymen. Many sentences are obscure and ambiguous to avoid 

 conflict. He knew of the dismal fate which shortly before his 

 day had overtaken Anaxagoras ; Diagoras. of Melos; Prota- 

 goras, of Abdera ; and Prodicus, of Keos — all of whom were 

 prosecuted for alleged irreverence against the gods. The lat- 

 ter was first banished, his writings publicly burned and their 

 possession and sale interdicted, and he himself condemned ul- 



