To sum up. Plato is the great founder of idealism, the initiator of all subsequent truths in philosophy. {248} But, as always with pioneers, his idealism is crude. It cannot explain the world; it cannot explain itself. It cannot even keep true to its own principles, because, having for the first time in history definitely enunciated the truth that reality is the universal, it straightway forgets its own creed and plunges back into a particularism which regards the Ideas as existent individuals. It was these defects which Aristotle set himself to rectify in a purer idealism, shorn of Plato's impurities. {249} CHAPTER XIII ARISTOTLE 1. Life, Writings, and general character of his Work. Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. at Stagirus, a Grecian colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life and destinies. While he was still a boy his father died, and he was sent by his guardian, Proxenus, to Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to complete his education. He was then aged seventeen. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending the latter's lectures for a period of twenty years. In subsequent times, Aristotle's detractors, anxious to vilify his character, accused him of "ingratitude" to his master, Plato. It was said that Plato's old age had been embittered by dissensions in the school caused by the factious spirit of Aristotle. That there is no ground for attaching any blame to Aristotle for the troubles of Plato, which either did not exist or have been grossly exaggerated, is evident both from the facts within our knowledge and from the reference to Plato in Aristotle's works. It is not likely that, had Aristotle rendered himself genuinely objectionable, he could have remained for twenty years in {250} the Academy, and only left it upon the death of Plato. Moreover, although Aristotle in his works attacks the teaching of Plato with unsparing vigour, there is nowhere to be found in these attacks any suggestion of acrimony or personal rancour. On the contrary, he refers to himself as the friend of Plato, but a greater friend of the truth. The fact, in all probability, is that a man of such independent and original mind as Aristotle did not accord to Plato the kind of blind adoration and hero-worship which he may have received from the inferior intellects in the school. As is so often the case with young men of marked ability, the brilliant student may have suffered from the impatience and self-assertion of youth. There was certainly nothing worse.