429. Conclusion. -- There is nothing in the Platonic revival of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries resembling the revival of Aristotle in the scholasticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth. The Platonists of the Renaissance went to Plato for enlightened recreation rather than for instruction. Their Platonism is largely Neo-Platonism, and their pretence of reducing Plato to Plotinus proves that they understood aright neither the one nor the other. The same may be said of Cardinal Bessarion's idea about the fundamental agreement of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Somewhat similar fancies had been entertained by certain Alexandrians of the Grecian decadence, who display a like sterility of thought and a like ignorance of history (88).

The Aristotelianism of the Renaissance, set up in opposition to Platonism, displays the same characteristic shortcomings.