I do not propose here to discuss the accuracy and the justice of his picture of the Platonic philosophy, or how far it harmonises with received conceptions. There are points, for instance, in his presentment of the Platonic doctrine, with which it is easy to disagree; I merely intend to indicate the conception which Pater formed and expressed, the angle at which the idea impinged upon his own mind. He intended it primarily to be a useful book, an educational work. He says in his preface that his aim was to interest young students of philosophy; and he says at the outset of the book, “The business of the young scholar ... in reading Plato, is not to take his side in a controversy, to adopt or refute Plato’s opinions, to modify, or make apology for, what may seem erratic or impossible in him; still less, to furnish himself with arguments on behalf of some theory or conviction of his own. His duty is rather to follow intelligently, but with strict indifference, the mental process there, as he might witness a game of skill.” His own object, therefore, in the book is not primarily philosophical; it is rather critical and historical—to put Plato in his proper place and to see the relation which he bore to his age. Indeed it would be misleading to speak of Pater as a philosopher in the technical sense of the word, namely, as one who publishes systematic or consecutive thoughts upon the ultimate nature of things. Pater was merely philosophically cultured, and the most we can say of his philosophy is that his mental attitude is to a considerable extent determined by his interest in the study of philosophical opinions. He was, then, a philosopher in the sense that Ruskin, for instance, was not a philosopher; but Pater would not be accepted among critical writers as a philosopher in the technical sense.