SOCRATES, s,3'-crei -tes, the famous Athenian philosopher, son of the Athenian statuary Sophroniscus and the midwife Phmnarete, and husband of the shrew XanthippE, born B.C., served in the battles at Potidma, Delium, and Amphipalis, and was a senator, 406. He was brought up as a statuary, but abandoned his profession to become a teacher of a most unique character, unparalleled in history, and only possible in the then state of society, when all the citizens had a certain amount of educa tion, and lived quite a public life in the Agora. Socrates professed that he himself knew nothing, and the great mission of his life, which he believed to be imposed on him by the gods, was to expose the false persuasion of knowledge which was universal : this he did by his Socratic dialectic, i.e., cross-examining a person on his alleged knowledge of any subject, and gradually bringing him to confess his ignorance ; but Socrates himself had no positive solution to offer for the difficulties he made patent, and hence his unpopularity at • Athens ; for, like,the Sophists whom he opposed, he generated a sceptical spirit. Socrates be lieved himself to be inspired by a damon, or inward spiritual voice, a divine agency, which by different workings and manifestations con veyed to him special revelations ; he also believed in dreams, &c., and conformed to the polytheistic worship of the time. Being hated by all parties, he was at length accused, 3o% by the orator Lycon, the tragic poet Meletus, and the demagogue Anytus, of corrupting the youth, and of substituting new for the tutelary deities of the state. He was condemned, and on his boldly refusing to acquiesce in a greater punishment than a fine of 6o mina (one talent, or £243. 555. sterling), he was sentenced to
death. The sentence could not be carried out for thirty days, till the, return of the periodical Theoric mission to Delos ; at the expiration of that time he was obliged to drink thtpikee,,,,_ bowlful of hemlock, rits last moments posure, and m bonversations with his disciples On the immortality of the soul. The personal appearance of Socrates was striking : he had a flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes, like a Silenus ; he went barefooted at all seasons, and was capable of bearing great physical fatigue. His value in the history of philosophy is that he "brought down philosophy from heaven," he revolutionized the method and the object of philosophic inquiry, directing philosophy away from physics to social, political, and ethical topics. He combated commonplace, and sub stituted morality from ethical grounds for the morality of custom and habit ; for this new morality the determination of conceptions was necessary ; hence the origination of the method of Induction, and the giving of strict Logical Definitions must be ascribed to him. His only positive doctrinal sentence transmitted to us is that "Virtue is knowledge :" in his view the good action followed as necessarily from the know ledge of the good as a logical conclusion from its premise. His disciples branched into the schools of Antisthenes the Cynic, Aristippus the Cyrenaic, Euclides the Megarian, and Plato the Academic.