In every man's writings there is something like himself and unlike others, which gives individuality.

To appreciate this latent quality would require a kindred mind, and minute study and observation.

There are a class of similarities which may be called undesigned coincidences, which are so remote as to be incapable of being borrowed from one another, and yet, when they are compared, find a natural explanation in their being the work of the same mind.

The imitator might copy the turns of style--he might repeat images or illustrations, but he could not enter into the inner circle of Platonic philosophy.

He would understand that part of it which became popular in the next generation, as for example, the doctrine of ideas or of numbers: he might approve of communism.