ABSTRACT
Plato, himself a companion of Socrates, founded the Academy at Athens about 380 BC; and if he did not impress his own teaching upon it with absolute fixity, still the school flourished under a succession of leaders, always proud of the fame of its founder, and rendering him at least a nominal allegiance. From the Academy branched off the school of the Peripatetics, founded by Plato's pupil Aristotle about 3 50 BC. After Aristotle's death, this school gravitated towards the Academics, and in later centuries there seemed little difference, if any, between the two. The old Academy chiefly developed the ethical side of Plato's teaching, finding that the path of virtue is indicated by the natural capacities of the individual. But with the first successes of Stoicism the Academy revived its dialectical position, in strong opposition to the dogmatism of the new school.
