From the garret-window of the farm-house I followed the fierce battle for another half-hour, and saw that the Germans suffered enormous losses, but achieved no gains. At last I had to leave this place too, because shells fell again quite near to the house. I stayed another ten minutes near an ambulance, where they were quite unable to attend to the numerous wounded men. Most of them got an emergency dressing, and were advised to go higher up and try to get better attention there.
Many refugees returned to Louvain that morning simply driven by hunger. I myself lived still on the breakfast I had at Maastricht on the previous day, and badly wanted something to eat, but still more a cup of hot coffee, to warm my chilled body. I was able to get the coffeewithout milk or sugarfrom a peasant along the road, but food was out of the question. Most of the people had nothing left, others saved a piece of bread as hard as a brick for the moment when hunger might drive them to extreme distress. Whatever sums I offered, nothing could be had before I came to Tirlemont, where I was able to buy three eggs.
This matter of shrinkage is indeed the only condition in pattern-making which is governed by anything near a constant rule, and even shrinkage requires sometimes to be varied to suit special cases. For small patterns whose dimensions do not exceed one foot in any direction, rapping will generally make up for shrinkage, and no allowance is required in the patterns, but pattern-makers are so partial to the rule of shrinkage, as the only constant one in their work, that they are averse to admitting exceptions, and usually keep to the shrink rule for all pieces, whether large or small.Now it was by this side of Platonism that Aristotle also had been most deeply fascinated. While constantly criticising the ideal theory, he had, in truth, accepted it under a modified form. His universal classification is derived from the dialectic method. His psychology and theology are constructed on287 the spiritualistic basis of the Academy, and out of materials which the founder of the Academy had supplied. It was therefore natural that Plotinus should avail himself largely of the Stagirites help in endeavouring to reproduce what a tradition of six centuries had obscured or confused. To reconcile the two Attic masters was, as we know, a common school exercise. Learned commentators had, indeed, placed their disagreement beyond all dispute. But there remained the simpler course of bringing their common standpoint into greater prominence, and combining their theories where this seemed possible without too openly renouncing the respect due to what almost all considered the superior authority of Plato. To which of the two masters Neo-Platonism really owed most is a question that must be postponed until we have made ourselves acquainted with the outlines of the system as they appear in the works of Plotinus.
