If any one is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic education
of after-life, some such counsels as the following may be offered to
him:—That he shall choose the branch of knowledge to which his own mind
most distinctly inclines, and in which he takes the greatest delight,
either one which seems to connect with his own daily employment, or,
perhaps, furnishes the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the
speculative side the profession or business in which he is practically
engaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Bacon the
friends and companions of his life. He may find opportunities of
hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He may select for enquiry
some point of history or some unexplained phenomenon of nature. An hour
a day passed in such scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as
many facts as the memory can retain, and will give him ‘a pleasure not
to be repented of’ (Timaeus). Only let him beware of being the slave of
crotchets, or of running after a Will o’ the Wisp in his ignorance, or
in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts of a poet or assuming
the air of a philosopher. He should know the limits of his own powers.
Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from
one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests
in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be
realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, ‘This is part of another
subject’ (Tim.); though we may also defend our digression by his
example (Theaet.).