Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 1904, Vol. 15
Note here the effective imagery by which a common metaphysical notion the inorganic character of evil - has been transformed. Note also in the preceding passage an idea fundamental in Boethius' concep tion of the history of philosophy. To him, Plato and Aristotle form a kind of philosophical orthodoxy, of which the later schools had appro priated mere broken lights. It is, indeed, this Roman passion for order, authority, which led Boethius to form his great idea of reconciling Plato and Aristotle.1 Had he lived to achieve this end, he might well have gone farther, as his theological writings already indicate, and anticipated St. Thomas in harmonizing Plato, Aristotle, and Christian doctrine in one imposing system. The idea of such a harmony, at any rate, is as clearly expressed in Boethius as in St. Thomas 2 it cannot be too often' repeated that Boethius was the first of the scholastics. Now the recognition of this fact, to which the present passage partially helps us, is a clue to the spirit and aim of the Consolatio no greater mistake could be made than to compare Boethius' intellectual methods with those of Cicero.
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