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Emerson says: "Plato is philosophy and philosophy Plato, at once the glory and the shame of mankind; since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories. No wife, no children had he; and the thinkers of all civilized nations are his posterity and are tinged with his mind. His broad humanity transcends all sectional lines. Like every great man he consumes his own time. What is a great man, but one of great affinities, who takes up into himself all arts, sciences, all knowables, as his food? He can spare nothing; he can dispose of everything. Of patrician connection, he is said to have had an early inclination for war, but in his twentieth year, meeting with Socrates, was easily dissuaded from this pursuit, and remained for ten years his scholar, till the death of Socrates. Absent then some say thirteen years, returning to Athens, he gave lessons in the Academy, to those whom his fame drew thither; and died, as we have received it, in the act of writing, at 81 years. The writings of Plato have preoccupied every shelf of learning, every lover of thought, every church, every poet—making it impossible to think on certain levels except through him."

After referring to the then known wisdom and its sources,