Whosoever, taught by wise men, shall admit
this as the prime cause of the origin and foundation of the world,
will be in the truth." "All things are for the sake of the good, and
it is the cause of everything beautiful." This dogma animates and
impersonates his philosophy. The synthesis which makes the character
of his mind appears in all his talents. Where there is great compass
of wit, we usually find excellencies that combine easily in the living
man, but in description appear incompatible. The mind of Plato is not
to be exhibited by a Chinese catalogue, but is to be apprehended by
an original mind in the exercise of its original power. In him the
freest abandonment is united with the precision of a geometer. His
daring imagination gives him the more solid grasp of facts; as the
birds of highest flight have the strongest alar bones. His patrician
polish, his intrinsic elegance, edged by an irony so subtle that it
stings and paralyzes, adorn the soundest health and strength of frame.
According to the old sentence, "If Jove should descend to the earth,
he would speak in the style of Plato.
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