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Whatever strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing

philosophy to poetry, which to us seem to have so many elements

in common, the strangeness will disappear if we conceive of

poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as equivalent to

thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word 'idea,'

which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is

associated in our minds with an element of subjectiveness and

unreality. We may note also how he differs from Aristotle who

declares poetry to be truer than history, for the opposite

reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like

history, with particulars (Poet).