In like manner, when an historian, speaking of a
character well known and established on satisfactory testimony, imputes
to it things incompatible with that character, we reject them without
hesitation, and assent to that only of which we have better evidence.
Had Plutarch informed us that Caesar and Cicero passed their whole lives
in religious exercises, and abstinence from the affairs of the world,
we should reject what was so inconsistent with their established
characters, still crediting what he relates in conformity with our ideas
of them. So again, the superlative wisdom of Socrates is testified
by all antiquity, and placed on ground not to be questioned. When,
therefore, Plato puts into his mouth such paralogisms, such quibbles on
words, and sophisms, as a school-boy would be ashamed of, we conclude
they were the whimsies of Plato's own foggy brain, and acquit Socrates
of puerilities so unlike his character. (Speaking of Plato, I will add,
that no writer, ancient or modern, has bewildered the world with more
_ignes fatui_, than this renowned philosopher, in Ethics, in Politics,
and Physics. In the latter, to specify a single example, compare his
views of the animal economy, in his Timasus, with those of Mrs. Bryan in
her Conversations on Chemistry, and weigh the science of the canonized
philosopher against the good sense of the unassuming lady. But Plato's
visions have furnished a basis for endless systems of mystical theology,
and he is therefore all but adopted as a Christian saint.
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