Socrates and his Epoch. 51 



declares his regret that he was not sufficiently versed in the na- 

 tural sciences to have frequent occasion ol' applying it. 



Socrates was born in 469, and died in 399, three years after 

 the war of the Peloponnesus. He was contemporary with 

 Pericles, Alcibiades, Xenophon, and Hippocrates. 



The pupils of Socrates, after the death of their master, left 

 Athens, where their residence was not without danger, and re- 

 tired to Megara, and some other cities, to continue the philoso- 

 phical labours in which they were engaged. They founded 

 different schools. Of these, the best known are the Cyrenaic 

 School, the School of Megara, the Cynic School, and, especially, 

 the Academic School, whose influence has been so powerful. 



Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic sect, asserted that the 

 object of philosophy was to teach man to find the true good, 

 which he placed in virtue ; and maintained that it could only 

 be acquired by overcoming all the propensities. 



The Cyrenaic sect, founded by Aristippus, also engaged in 

 the search of the chief good ; but held that it was by moderate- 

 ly indulging the natural propensities that man could obtain it. 



The Megaric sect trode in the steps of the Eleatic school, and 

 lost itself in the subtleties of dialectics. 



The Academic sect was founded by Plato, the youngest of the 

 disciples of Socrates. Plato was only twenty-nine years old when 

 his master died. After in vain attempting to defend him, he 

 retired to Megara, and then to Cyrene. Anxious to apply the 

 time of his exile to the best purpose, he resolved to travel. He 

 went first to Egypt, and there became a pupil of the priests ; 

 who, notwithstanding the state of degradation to which they 

 had been reduced in the reign of Cambyses, still retained traces 

 of their ancient science. He passed from thence to Magna 

 Graecia, and studied at the school of the Pythagoreans under 

 Tiraceus of Locris and Archytas of Tarentum. Before leaving 

 Megara, he had exercised himself in dialectics under Euclid, 

 who had been like himself a pupil of Socrates, but at an earlier 

 period. Thus when, on his return to Athens, he opened a new 

 school, he had derived from those which already existed, all 

 that could be useful to him for arranging his doctrine, and pre- 

 senting it under the most advantageous form. , 



The natural bias of Plato''s mind inchned him to poetry and 



