Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

420 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDfirst, the choice of fitting subjects for it, and whatis therein implied, the imposition of a moral disciplineupon them regulating their life to the endin view; secondly, the master's oral instructionconveying gradually and with authority to mindsso prepared the doctrine to be received; andthirdly, the committing such doctrine to writing,which shall serve to remind the disciple of whathe has been taught. And this was what he carriedinto effect.74 He fixed himself at the Academia,over which he presided for forty years : he wassucceeded therein by his nephew Speusippus, whoheld his chair for eight years ; Xenocrates followedin the same post during twenty-five years ;and the line was continued afterwards by Polemon,Grantor, Crates, Arcesilaus, and others in uninterruptedseries. Plato thus established the methodof Greek philosophy, and his example herein wasfollowed by Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus.His great disciple Aristotle came to him at theage of seventeen, and studied under him duringtwenty years. At a later age, when, after completingthe education of Alexander, he fixed himselfin middle life at Athens, he set up there asecond philosophical school at the Lyceum on its74 Grote observes, Plato, i. 216 : " Plato was not merely a composerof dialogues. He was lecturer and chief of a school besides. The pre-sidency of that school, commencing about 386 B.C., and continued by him\vith great celebrity for the last half (nearly for*y years) of his life, washis most important function. Among his contemporaries he must haveexerted greater influence through his school than through his writings."