PREFACE. 



xx.x 



He was felf-taught in Philofophy ; for though he is fliid to have 

 heard Archelaus, a philolbpher of the Ionic School, it does not appear 

 that he learned any thing from him ; and though he read fome 

 books of Anaxagoras, Plato informs us *, that he was not at all the 

 wifer for them. Now, if a man who philofophifcs without the 

 affiftance of learning, either from books, or what is better, from the 

 inflrudion of living Mafters, and pretends to invent himfelf a Syi- 

 tem of Philofophy, he is very lucky, if he attains to that knowledge 

 which alone Socrates profefled to have. I mean, the knowledge that 

 he knows nothing : And as I believe Socrates was not ironical in this 

 profeffion, it gives me the highefl opinion of his underftanding; 

 though it was not, as is commonly beHeved, fo very modeft a 

 profeflion ; but on the contrary, it was pretending to more than 

 ordinary wifdom ; for it was, in effed:, faying, that he was not liable 

 to error, which confifts only in thinking we know, when we do not 

 knaw ; for if we only do not know, we are ignorant, but not in an 

 error. 



This example of Socrates, a man of fuch excellent parts, and who 

 fpent his whole life in the fearch of knowledge, convinces me of the 

 truth of what I have faid above. That Philofophy never could have 

 been the growth of Greece, but muft have been imported from fuch 

 a country as Egypt. But thus much Pdlofophy owed to Socrates, 

 that he excited men's curiofity, and defire to be inflruded in it ; 

 and if he could not teach them himfelf, he made them apply to others 

 that could ; and by his admirable method of Dialogue and Interroga- 

 tion, he prepared men's minds for Philofophy, ,by fliowing them 

 that they were ignorant of what it was moft neceflary for them to 

 know ; for men muft be firft convinced that they do not know a 

 thing, before they will learn it : And at the fame time he Ihowed 



* In PhcedonCi p. 72. Edit. Ficini. 



them. 



