Plato, something which all the popular knowledge, the lectures and
institutions of the day, and even good books themselves, cannot give, a
boon more precious than learning; namely, the art of learning. That
instead of casting into his lazy lap treasures which he would not have
known how to use, she has taught him to mine for them himself; and has
by her wise refusal to gratify his intellectual greediness, excited his
hunger, only that he may be the stronger to hunt and till for his own
subsistence; and thus, the deeper he drinks, in after years, at
fountains wisely forbidden to him while he was a Cambridge student, and
sees his old companions growing up into sound-headed and sound-hearted
practical men, liberal and expansive, and yet with a firm standing-
ground for thought and action, he learns to complain less and less of
Cambridge studies, and more and more of that conceit and haste of his
own, which kept him from reaping the full advantage of her training.

These Lectures, as I have said, are altogether crude and fragmentary--
how, indeed, could they be otherwise, dealing with so vast a subject,
and so long a period of time? They are meant neither as Essays nor as
Orations, but simply as a collection of hints to those who may wish to
work out the subject for themselves; and, I trust, as giving some
glimpses of a central idea, in the light of which the spiritual history
of Alexandria, and perhaps of other countries also, may be seen to have
in itself a coherence and organic method.

I was of course compelled, by the circumstances under which these
Lectures were delivered, to keep clear of all points which are commonly
called "controversial." I cannot but feel that this was a gain, rather
than a loss; because it forced me, if I wished to give any
interpretation at all of Alexandrian thought, any Theodicy at all of her
fate, to refer to laws which I cannot but believe to be deeper, wider,