Pagina 253 di 1391

Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the

philosopher. In language which seems to reach beyond the horizon

of that age and country, he is described as 'the spectator of all

time and all existence.' He has the noblest gifts of nature, and

makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed in

the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the

graces of a beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he

fear death, or think much of human life. The ideal of modern

times hardly retains the simplicity of the antique; there is not

the same originality either in truth or error which characterized

the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen,

nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance; nor

does he regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by

regular stages to the idea of good.