After this the descent
was rapid, till sculptors began to work inveterate likenesses of perriwigs
in marble,--as see Algarotti's tomb in the cemetery at Pisa,--and painters
did nothing but copy, as well as they could, the external face of nature.
Now, in this age, we have a sort of reviviscence,--not, I fear, of the
power, but of a taste for the power, of the early times.
_June_ 26. 1830.
SENECA.
You may get a motto for every sect in religion, or line of thought in
morals or philosophy, from Seneca; but nothing is ever thought _out_ by
him.
_July_ 2. 1830.
PLATO.--ARISTOTLE.
Every man is born an Aristotelian, or a Platonist. I do not think it
possible that any one born an Aristotelian can become a Platonist; and I am
sure no born Platonist can ever change into an Aristotelian. They are the
two classes of men, beside which it is next to impossible to conceive a
third. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute; the other
considers it a power. I believe that Aristotle never could get to
understand what Plato meant by an idea. There is a passage, indeed, in the
Eudemian Ethics which looks like an exception; but I doubt not of its being
spurious, as that whole work is supposed by some to be.
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