jects were treated of by Xenocrates in an able and interesting manner, we may infer from the fact that Aristotle thought it worth his while to write commentaries on some of these treatises. Xenocrates is said to have insisted particularly on the distinction laid down by Plato between αἴσθησις, δόξα, and ἐπιστήμη. By αἴσθησις he probably understood the relative and contingent truths of the senses; by δόξα the relative and contingent truths of the understanding; and by ἐπιστήμη the absolute and necessary truths of the reason—the truths, i.e., for all, and not merely for some, intelligence.
52. The name of Polemon must be ever associated with that of Xenocrates in the history of philosophy. Polemon was notorious for his profligacy and dissipation; but happening one day to enter the Academy with a crowd of gay companions with whom he had been revelling, he was so much struck by the discourse of Xenocrates, who was lecturing on the advantages of temperance, that he tore from his head the chaplet of flowers with which he was crowned, and determined then and for ever to renounce his former way of life. He continued true to his resolution: he became the most temperate of the temperate, and studied philosophy so assiduously that he became the successor of Xenocrates in the presidency of the Academy in the year 314 B.C. He died in 273, having been born about 345.
