Life it was which interested those men and next to living, art. Life, therefore, in all its endless varieties, they studied and following the method of reasoning which Socrates had originated and made popular, they achieved some very remarkable results. That sometimes in their zeal for a perfect spiritual world they went to absurd extremes was regrettable, but no more than human. But Plato is the only one among all the teachers of antiquity who from sheer love for a perfect world ever came to preach a doctrine of intolerance. This young Athenian, as is well known, was the beloved disciple of Socrates and became his literary executor. In this capacity he immediately gathered all that Socrates had ever said or thought into a series of dialogues which might be truthfully called the Socratian Gospels. When this had been done, he began to elaborate certain of the more obscure points in his master’s doctrines and explained them in a series of brilliant essays. And finally he conducted a number of lecture courses which spread the Athenian ideas of justice and righteousness far beyond the confines of Attica. In all these activities he showed such whole-hearted and unselfish devotion that we might almost compare him to St. Paul. But whereas St. Paul had led a most adventurous and dangerous existence, ever traveling from north to south and from west to east that he might bring the Good Tidings to all parts of the Mediterranean world, Plato never budged from his comfortable garden chair and allowed the world to come to him. Certain advantages of birth and the possession of independent wealth allowed him to do this. In the first place he was an Athenian citizen and through his mother could trace his descent to no one less than Solon. Then as soon as he came of age he inherited a fortune more than sufficient for his simple needs. And finally, his eloquence was such that people willingly traveled to the Aegean Sea if only they were allowed to follow a few of the lectures in the Platonic University. For the rest, Plato was very much like the other young men of his time. He served in the army, but without any particular interest in military affairs. He went in for outdoor sports, became a good wrestler, a fairly good runner, but never achieved any particular fame in the stadium. Again, like most young men of his time, he spent a great deal of his time in foreign travel and crossed the Aegean Sea and paid a short visit to northern Egypt, as his famous grandfather Solon had done before him. After that, however, he returned home for good and during fifty consecutive years he quietly taught his doctrines in the shadowy corners of a pleasure garden which was situated on the banks of the river Cephissus in the suburbs of Athens and was called the Academy.