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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Aristotle. But we cannot argue, either from the Metaphysics, or from any
other of the philosophical treatises of Aristotle, to the dialogues of
Plato until we have ascertained the relation in which his so-called works
stand to the philosopher himself. There is of course no doubt of the great
influence exercised upon Greece and upon the world by Aristotle and his
philosophy. But on the other hand almost every one who is capable of
understanding the subject acknowledges that his writings have not come down
to us in an authentic form like most of the dialogues of Plato. How much
of them is to be ascribed to Aristotle's own hand, how much is due to his
successors in the Peripatetic School, is a question which has never been
determined, and probably never can be, because the solution of it depends
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