or as a blessed fact of history. He did not know the One Who could say: "I am the

Resurrection and the Life." He knew nothing of John 3: 16. Christians, however, have

had all these advantages, and are truly culpable if they follow the teaching of Plato, and

despise the revelation of God.

Morality, in the teaching of Plato, is generally more a matter of the head than of the

heart, but it is not merely abstract, as a study of his "Republic" will show. He would

have Reason in supreme control, with the heart fortified by courage, and so enabled to

choose aright, to resist evil, and if needs be to endure pain, with temperance regulating

the appetite, and the whole bound and related by justice. This is a good ideal, but man by

nature is under the dominion of sin, and abstract reason cannot control him, nor can he

find strength to resist evil and follow good. While Plato's statements may be faultless,

they are fruitless, because they are powerless. Man needs a Redeemer, and he needs

newness of life, before he can serve in newness of spirit. The failure of the Jew in a more

perfect state than Plato's republic, and under a more perfect law than Plato's ethics, is a

warning for all time.

We make no apology for the very sparse account we offer of this great philosopher.

The very fullness of his teaching renders any such account as this hopelessly inadequate.

If we were to deal with one point only and explain what is meant by the "idea" in the

Platonic system, it would mean several books, with explanations of terms at every point.

Let it suffice that we have not left his labours unrecorded, and that we have no need to

spend years of study before we can arrive at the abstract "Good", which was Plato's

Ultimate. Let it suffice that we have found all our "Good", and all our "Goal", as we

have found all our wisdom, courage and control, in a living Head, Jesus Christ our Lord.

If Plato is the idealist in the Socratic school, Aristotle is the realist. While Plato is

literary, Aristotle is scientific and his knowledge encyclopædic.  It is not easy to

subdivide Aristotle's teaching into sections, but roughly we may say that it falls into three

groups, represented by logic, physics, and ethics or morals.

In B.C.343 Aristotle was called to Macedonia by Philip to undertake the

education of his son, then a boy of fourteen. This son was afterwards to be known as

Alexander the Great, and is referred to by Daniel the prophet.

Aristotle's Organon is the basis upon which his fame as the inventor of deductive

logic rests, and it was as a rival to this that Bacon wrote his Novum Organon, thus

earning the title of the inventor of inductive logic* (* - See "The Syllogism" in the Series:

"With all thy getting, get understanding", Volume XXIII, page 129). In ethics, Aristotle

opposed the doctrine of the Stoics, arguing that we cannot be indifferent to external