"A certain time since it was heresy to breathe a word against Plato; but I have a nice story of Sir Henry Holland. He used to have all the rising young men to breakfast, and turn out their latest ideas. One morning I went to breakfast with him, and we got into very intimate conversation, when he wound up by saying, 'In my opinion, Plato was an ass! But don't tell any one I said so.'"
We talked on geographical teaching; he began by insisting on the need of a map of the earth (on the true scale) showing the insignificance of all elevations and depressions on the surface. Secondly, one should take any place as centre, and draw about it circles of 50 or 100 miles radius, and see what lies within them; and note the extent of the influence exerted by the central point. At the same time, one should always compare the British Isles to scale. For instance, the Aegean is about as big as Britain; while the smallness of Judaea is remarkable. After the Exile, the Jewish part was about as big as the county of Gloucester. How few boys realise this, though they are taught classical geography.
"The real chosen people were the Greeks. One of the most remarkable things about them is not only the smallness, but the late rise of Attica, whereas Magna Graecia flourished in the eighth century. The Greeks were doing everything—piracy, trade, fighting, expelling the Persians. Never was there so large a number of self-governing communities.
"They fell short of the Jews in morality. How curious is the tolerant attitude of Socrates, like a modern man of the world talking to a young fellow who runs after the girls. The Jew, however he fell short in other respects, set himself a certain standard in cleanliness of life, and would not fall below it. The more creditable to him, because these vices were the offspring of the Semitic races among whom the Jew lived.
"There is a curious similarity between the position of the Jew in ancient times and what it is now. They were procurers and usurers among the Gentiles, yet many of them were singularly high-minded and pure. All too with an intense clannishness, the secret of their success, and a sense of superiority to the Gentile which would prevent the meanest Jew from sitting at table with a proconsul.
"The most remarkable achievement of the Jew was to impose on Europe for eighteen centuries his own superstitions—his ideas of the supernatural. Jahveh was no more than Zeus or Milcom; yet the Jew got established the belief in the inspiration of his Bible and his Law. If I were a Jew, I should have the same contempt as he has for the Christian who acted in this way towards me, who took my ideas and scorned me for clinging to them."
[January 21.
Yesterday evening he again declared that it was very hard for a man of peace like himself to have been dragged into so many controversies.] "I declare that for the last twenty years I have never attacked, but always fought in self-defence, counting Darwin, of course, as part of myself, for dear Darwin never could nor would defend himself. Before that, I admit I attacked —, but I could not trust the man." [A pause.] "No, there was one other case, when I attacked without being directly assailed, and that was Gladstone. But it was good for other reasons. It has always astonished me how a man after fifty or sixty years of life among men could be so ignorant of the best way to handle his materials. If he had only read Dana, he would have found his case much better stated than ever he stated it. He seemed never to have read the leading authorities on his own side."
[Speaking of the hesitation shown by the Senate of London University in grappling with a threatened obstacle to reform, he remarked]: "It is very strange how most men will do anything to evade responsibility."
[January 23.