Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their
profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato.
They give the tone while at school, and few in their after years have
occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority
apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him, his
sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In
truth, he is one of the race of genuine sophists, who has escaped the
oblivion of his brethren, first, by the elegance of his diction, but
chiefly by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body
of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind is for ever presenting the
semblances of objects which, half seen through a mist, can be defined
neither in form nor dimension. Yet this, which should have consigned
him to early oblivion, really procured him immortality of fame and
reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ
levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw
in the mysticisms of Plato materials with which they might build up
an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit
everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce
it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from
the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but
thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on
them: and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.
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