'I partly understand,' he replied; 'you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or sciences, whichever is to be the name of them; and the latter conceptions you refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle, although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.' You understand me very well, I said.

And now to those four divisions of knowledge you may assign four corresponding faculties--pure intelligence to the highest sphere; active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the fourth, the perception of shadows--and the clearness of the several faculties will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related...
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.