“The movement of modern philosophy is back towards the position of the old Ionian philosophers, but strengthened and clarified by sound scientific ideas.  If I publish my criticism on Comte, I should have to re-write it as a summary of philosophical ideas from the earliest times.  The thread of philosophical development is not on the lines usually laid down for it.  It goes from Democritus and the rest to the Epicureans, and then the Stoics, who tried to reconcile it with popular theological ideas, just as was done by the Christian Fathers.  In the Middle Ages it was entirely lost under the theological theories of the time; but reappeared with Spinoza, who, however, muddled it up with a lot of metaphysics which made him almost unintelligible.

“Plato was the founder of all the vague and unsound thinking that has burdened philosophy, deserting facts for possibilities, and then, after long and beautiful stories of what might be, telling you he doesn’t quite believe them himself.

“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.