Plutarch’s merits as a historical writer are seriously impaired by his readiness to believe everything that comes to him through tradition or record. Still one ought not to blame him for not being what he does not profess to be. His main purpose is not to attain historical truth, but to discover what will “point a moral, or adorn a tale.” Had he been other than he was he would never have been so assiduously read. Plutarch fully recognized the importance of the family in the social fabric. This is the more to his credit for the reason that the trend of public opinion was against him in this respect. All the evidence we have goes to show that he was a judicious father, a loving husband, a dutiful son, and an affectionate brother. He is thus a zealous defender of the virtues he himself exemplified. A knowledge of his character, as shown by his conduct, contributes not a little to the pleasure the modern reader finds in the perusal of his pages. How often, alas! do we discover on closer examination a great gulf between what men write and what they do! How often does a knowledge of the private life of a great writer mar the interest we take in what he writes! Though a man of kind heart and polished manners, judged by the standard of his time, Plutarch was no reformer. Indeed, no reform was possible by means of his didactic method. He does not denounce vigourously the corruptions of his time. He is far from employing the drastic speech of his Roman contemporaries. It is probable that in his secluded home he did not know or even suspect the moral degradation of the world around him; it is certain he had not fathomed it. He knows something of the Jewish religion, and might have known more, had he cared to inform himself. He might have heard Paul’s preaching; and Christianity had gained a firm foothold in Greece before Plutarch’s death. But he was too much of a Greek to take any interest in what had no relation either to Greek religion or tradition. The new faith in virtue of its origin, was foolishness to him. He considered the Hellenic religion good enough for anybody and everybody. It might indeed need purification from some of its grosser elements and exotic excrescences; but more than this was wholly unnecessary.