The Epistles of Plato 5 · Written to particular people in particular difficulty
The Gospels say who he was; the Rule says how we live. The letters were written between the two — how one man managed with the Law when the Law was not enough.
5.1To Aristotle.
5.2Your refutation reached me. I read it three times.
5.3The first time I was angry. The second time I hunted for a hole in it. The third time I admitted I could not find one.
5.4I write down all three readings, because you will have students of your own one day.
5.5You say the forms are not in heaven but in this horse.
5.6I still do not think so. But I cannot say where you are wrong — and not being able to say it is exactly where I now stand.
5.7There are men in the Academy urging me to expel you. They say you are pulling down my house.
5.8They have it backwards. What is pulling down my house is not you. It is the rule I made myself. (cf. The Rule 2.11)
5.9If I set that rule aside to save a doctrine, what I would have saved is not the doctrine. It is my own standing.
5.10And then I would be a priest. (cf. The Epistles of Plato 4.10)
5.11A sentence of yours has reached me: Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
5.12Men quote it at me to provoke me. I thank them, but I will tell you this: it is well said, and said too politely.
5.13It should read: whoever loves his teacher more than the truth has not loved the teacher either.
5.14For what he loves is not the man. It is the idea that the man cannot be wrong. And the man can be wrong.
5.15Go and count your fish. I have spent my life looking at the sky, and you will spend yours looking at what is in your hand.
5.16Perhaps the Law is written in both places, and I am only too old now to go and read the second.
5.17The door of the Academy stands open to you. Whether you come back is inside your own fence.