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sound mind ? what is courage or cowardice ? what is a city ? 

 what is the character fit for a citizen ? what is authority over 

 men? what is the character befitting the exercise of such 

 authority ? and other similar questions. Men who knew these 

 matters he accounted good and honourable : Men who were 

 ignorant of them he compared to slaves. [Mem. i. 1, 16.] 



Socrates was the true founder of the science of modern 

 logic, and also of ethical philosophy. " To him, the precept, 

 inscribed in the Delphian temple, 'Know thyself was the 

 holiest of all texts, which he interpreted to mean. Know what 

 sort of a man thou art, and what are thy capacities, in refe- 

 rence to future use." With respect to his theory of morals, 

 it must be admitted to be imperfect. " He resolved all virtue 

 into knowledge or wisdom, all vice, into ignorance or folly," 

 leaving too much out of view, as Aristotle remarked, the 

 feelings {Tta^os) and the habits ('>j9oy). Acting promptly 

 himself, according to the dictates of his own judgment, he did 

 not perhaps sufficiently recognise the possibility of knowing 

 the better course and yet following the worse. The funda- 

 mental idea of his reasoning was the analogy of each man's 

 social life and duty to a special profession or trade. An arith- 

 metician, he argued, may cast up figures incorrectly hy design, 

 but he can do it correctly if he chooses, while one ignorant of 

 arithmetic cannot do it correctly, however desirous. So, if a 

 man knows what is just, honourable, and good, yet commits 

 acts of a contrary character, he comes nearer to being a just 

 man than one who cannot distinguish just acts from unjust. 

 Morally speaking, we should be tempted to reverse this posi- 

 tion, and to maintain that he who desires and means to do 

 justly, however ignorant and blundering, has a more essential 

 and important characteristic of a just man, than he who knows 

 what is right and does it not. Like most moral philosophers, 

 however, Socrates did not keep within the limits of his theory 

 of morals, in his practical precepts. 



The chief political charge brought against Socrates at his 



