[36] Compare the advice of the younger Pliny—“Read much rather than many books.” (Letters vii., 9 in the excellent revision of Mr. Bosanquet, Bell and Daldy, 1877) and Gibbon’s just remarks (Miscellaneous Works).
[37] See this finely and wittily illustrated in Micromégas (one of the most exquisite satires ever written), where the philosopher of the star Sirius proposes the same questions to the contending metaphysicians and savans of our planet.
[38] This essay ranks among the most valuable productions that have come down to us from antiquity. Its sagacious anticipation of the modern argument from comparative physiology and anatomy, as well as the earnestness and true feeling of its eloquent appeal to the higher instincts of human nature, gives it a special interest and importance. We have therefore placed it separately at the end of this article.
[39] Περὶ τοῦ Τὰ Ἄλογα Λογῶ Χρῆσθαι—“An Essay to prove that the Lower Animals reason.”
[40] This essay is remarkable as being, perhaps, the first speculation as to the existence of other worlds than ours.
[41] As regards this complete silence of Plutarch, it may be attributed to his eminently conservative temperament, which shrank from an exclusive system that so completely broke with the sacred traditions of “the venerable Past.” Besides, Christianity had not assumed the imposing proportions of the age of Lucian, whose indifference is therefore more surprising than that of Plutarch.
[42] See, for example, the Isis and Osiris, 49. And yet, with Francis Bacon, and Bayle, and Addison, he prefers Atheism to fanatical Superstition.
[43] Of the many eminent persons who have been indebted to, or who have professed the greatest admiration for, the writings of Plutarch are Eusebius, who places him at the head of all Greek philosophers, Origen, Theodoret, Aulus Gellius, Photius, Suidas, Lipsius. Theodore of Gaza, when asked what writer he would first save from a general conflagration of libraries, answered, “Plutarch; for he considered his philosophical writings the most beneficial to society, and the best substitute for all other books.” Amongst moderns, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and especially Rousseau, recognise him as one of the first of moralists.
[44] See Milton (Paradise Lost, xi.), and Shelley (Queen Mab).
[45] Cf. Pope:—“Of half that live, the butcher and the tomb.”—Moral Essays.