64 History of Philosophy. 



cence, that it can produce beneficial results ; and if every theory 

 were nipped in the bud, because no immediate advantage was to be 

 derived from its study, the advancement of arts and manufactures 

 must needs cease ; at least in so far as they depend on the aid of 

 science. For many years astronomy may have been a toy for the 

 minds of speculators to play with. Deprive us now of the benefits we 

 derive in our present state of civilization from its cultivation ; and we 

 should at once be thrown half way back to a condition of barbarism. 

 But the excessive redundancy of theories which were then continually 

 brought forward by new aspirants to honour in the kingdom of philo- 

 sophy, and the frequent instability of the grounds on which those the- 

 ories rested for support, may be urged as a justification of the suspi- 

 cion with which Socrates regarded the idea of abstraction in phi- 

 losophy. 



The moral science, however, which Socrates professed to encou- 

 rage was a sufficiently comprehensive term ; for it included within its 

 limits all that appertains to the amelioration of the condition of man 

 and his happiness regarded as asocial being. Truth, goodness, and 

 beauty, are the never-failing attributes which are to be sought for in 

 a man, who, according to the Socratic system, was to be set up as a 

 model for imitation. 



Secondly. Socrates was not satisfied with laying bare the errors 

 and fallacies of the ideal systems which had been formed by his pre- 

 decessors, and proving that the existing theories were unsubstantial, 

 vague, and untrue ; he laboured earnestly and effectively to impress 

 on the minds of his disciples the necessity of abandoning all previously 

 acquired ideas, and trusting to their own industry and ingenuity for 

 the deduction of great moral truths from first principles. 



It is true that this mode of reasoning is not applicable to mathematical 

 or physical science, for there the discoveries and experience of our 

 predecessors are so many steps of vantage ground gained, which raise 

 us on an eminence whence we may take a wider survey of the field of 

 our search, and thus have a better chance of discovering the object 

 we are in quest of. But this mode of reasoning would apply even 

 here, if the previous discoveries of former geometers and philosophers 

 were proved to be the results of wrongly directed enquiries. If the 

 rules or data derived from the experience of former observers turned 

 out to be erroneous, if it appeared that their judgment had been mis- 

 directed by ignorance or false notions, it would then become neces- 

 sary at once to divest ourselves of all preconceived ideas and preju- 

 dices, and having endeavoured to establish a correct base of opera- 

 tions laid down from true and exact data, to erect a superstructure on 

 so sure a foundation and of such strong materials as would be enabled 

 to withstand every attack, and alike, to set at defiance the regular assaults 

 of sound argument and the insidious blows of ingenious sophistry. 

 Such was the opinion and practice of Socrates with regard to moral 

 cultivation. He stripped the gorgeous bowers of philosophy of the 

 gaudy foliage, in which folly and fancy had clothed them; and having 

 exposed the naked limbs of truth, he again dressed them in the sober 

 and substantial garments of reason and common sense. 



Thirdly. Having proved the fallacy of the then existing systems of 



