SOCRATES, the celebrated Greek philosopher, was b. at Athens in the year 469 73.0. His father, Sophroniskos, was a sculptor; and he followed the same profession in the early part of his life. His mother, Phsenaretc. was a midwife, to which avocation he was wont to compare his own peculiar method of conversational teaching. His flintily was respectable in descent, but humble in point of means. His physical consti tution was robust to an extraordinary degree, enabling him to endure the hardest mili tary service, and to live his own chosen life of superiority to all wants above the barest necessaries of life. While his ordinary diet was simple and abstemious, he could, on religious festivals or social occasions, drink more wine than any one else without being intoxicated. He had the usual education of an Athenian citizen, tehich included not only a knowledge of the mother-tongue, and readings in the Greek poets, but also the elements of arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, as then known. As a young man, he frequented the society of the physical philosopher, Archelaus (a disciple of Anaxagoras); but the philosophers that did most to determine his own special turn of mind must have been Parmenides and "the double-tongued and all-objecting Zeno." Excepting in connection with his philosophical career, few circumstances of his life are known. He served as a hoplite, or heavy-armed foot soldier, at the siege of Potidtea, at the battle of Delium, and at Amphipolis, and his bravery and endurance were greatly extolled by his friends. On two memorable occasions, he stood forward in political life. After the battle of Arginusa, in 406, the ten generals in command were publicly arraigned for neglecting to obtain the bodies of the killed to receive the rites of interment. The clamor for their condemnation was so great, that the court wished to proceed in viola tion of the legal forms; but Socrates, as the presiding judge, firmly refused to put the question. The other occasion was during the•,yranuy of the Thirty, who took up the policy of compelling a number of influential citizens to take a part in their illegal murders and confiscations; but Socrates withstood them at the peril of his own life.
Somewhere about the middle period of his life, he relinquished his profession as a statuary, and gave himself up to the career that made him famous. Deservedly styled a philosopher, he neither secluded himself for study, nor opened a school for the regular instruction of pupils. He disclaimed the appellation of teacher; his practice was to talk or converse, "to prattle without end,'-' as his enemies said. "Early in the morning, he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools where youths were receiving instruction ; he was to be seen in the market-place at the hour when most crowded, among the booths and tables where goods were exposed for sale. His whole day was usually spent in this public manner. He talked with any one, young or old, rich or poor, that sought to address him, and in the hearing of all who chose to stand by. He visited all persons of interest in the city, male or female; his friendship
with Aspasia is well known; and one of the most interesting chapters of Xenophon s Memorabilia recounts his visit to and dialogue with Theodote—a beautiful hettera, or female companion. Nothing could be more public, perpetual, and indiscriminate as to persons than his conversation; and as it was engaging, curious, and instructive to hear, certain persons made it their habit to attend him. in public as companions and listeners. These men, a fluctuating body, were commonly known as his disciples or scholars, though neither he nor his personal friends ever employed the terms teacher, and dew • )',.; to describe the relation between them."—Grote's Greece, chap.
Another peculiarity of Socrates was his persuasion of a special religious mission. He had been accustomed all his life to hear what he considered a divine voice, or preter natural sign, which came to him solely as a prohibition or warning, and never as an instigation to act. In deference to it, lie had kept back from entering public life, and it caused him to refrain from premeditating the defense that he made on his trial. Nor was this all; relying, like his countrymen, on divine intimations by dreams and oracles, lie believed that his mission had been signified to him by these. One oracular intimation in particular he described in his defense as the turning-point of his life. An admirer and friend of his, Chterephon, about the time when he began to have some repute as a wise man, consulted the oracle at Delphi as to whether any man was wiser than Socrates. The priestess replied: •' None." The answer, he said, perplexed him very much; for he was conscious to himself that he possessed no wisdom on any subject, great or small. At length, lie resolved to pot the matter to the test by taking measure of the wisdom of other persons as compared with his own. Selecting a leading politician, accounted wise by himself and others, he put a series of questions to him, and found his supposed wisdom was no wisdom at all. He next tried to demonstrate to the politician himself how much lie was deficient; hut found him impracticable on this head, refusing to be convinced. fie then saw a meaning in the oracle, to the effect that his superiority to others lay not in his wisdom, 'but in his being fully conscious of his ignorance. He tried the same experiment on other politicians and rhetors, then on poets, and lastly on artists and artisans, and with the same result. Thereupon, he considered it as a duty imposed upon him by the Delphian god to cross-question men of all degrees as to their knowl edge, to make them conscious of their ignorance. and thereby put them in the way of becoming wise. We shall see presently wherein this low view of the human intelligence differed from the contemptuous tone of a mere satirist.