SOCRATES 



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SOCRATES 



say, after a long time hundreds of years or 

 hundreds of centuries these laws will all be 

 manifest :' the biologist will be able to formu- 

 late rules as fixed and as changeless as the 

 ratio of one number to another, and in that 

 day biology will become an exact science ; and 

 when biology is exact, sociology, too, may be 

 exact. 



The four classes in the formal study of so- 

 ciology each class, in turn, is divided and sub- 

 dividedare (1) descriptive sociology, which 

 includes all the preliminary work of stating 

 observed phenomena; (2) social psychology, 

 which covers the study of the mind of primi- 

 tive man, the mental workings of the masses, 

 from the mob to the nation; (3) social ethics, 

 the formation of theories, hypotheses and judg- 

 ments on human conduct and the definition of 

 social aims; and (4) social technology, the ap- 

 plication of known social facts to the bettering 

 of social conditions. The true sociologist, lov- 

 ing his science, might well take his motto from 

 Terence: Humani nil a me alienum puto "I 

 consider nothing human to be unimportant to 

 me." 



Consult Strong's New World-Religion ; Hayes' 

 Introduction to the Study of Sociology; Blackmar 

 and Gillins' Outlines of Sociology. 



Related Subjects. In connection with this 

 discussion of sociology, the reader will find much 

 that is of interest in the articles on the contribut- 

 ing sciences named above. He may also consult 

 the following: 



Illiteracy 



Juvenile Court 



Marriage 



Mothers' Pensions 



Old Age Pensions 



Oneida Community 



Pauperism 



Polygamy 



Population 



Prohibition 



Registration of Births, 



Deaths and Marriages 

 Socialism 

 Socfal Settlements 

 Suicide 

 Temperance 



Alcoholic Drinks 

 Census 

 Charity 

 Child Labor 

 Children, Societies for 

 Communism 

 Community Interests 

 Crime 

 Debt 

 Divorce 



Emigration and 

 Immigration 

 Environment 

 Eugenics 



George Junior Republic 

 Heredity 

 Hull House 



Tenement 



SOCRATES, sok'rateez (469-399 B.C.), one 

 of the greatest of the Greek philosophers, was 

 bora in Athens. He received only a meager 

 education in his youth, but .later became fa- 

 miliar with the best philosophy and thought 

 that the highly-cultured Athenian society could 

 offer. For a time his career was that of sculp- 

 tor, but soon he began to walk the streets and 

 market places, talking to anyone he might meet 

 regarding his soul and the moral life of man 



Socrates * * * 

 Whom, well inspired, the ora- 

 cle pronounced 

 Wisest of men. 



MII.TON : Paradise 

 Regained. 



in general. From 432 to 429 B. c. he served in 

 the campaign of Potidaea, fought at Delium in 

 424 and at Amphipolis in 422. He refused to 

 take further part in public affairs after the 

 naval battle of Arginusae, when the mob un- 

 justly demanded 

 the death of ten 

 generals who had 

 been unable to 

 bury the dead ; 

 likewise, he op- 

 posed tyranny 

 when the thirty 

 tyrants com- 

 manded him to 

 help bring 

 about the arrest 

 of the innocent 

 Leon of Salamis. 



As a teacher, 

 Socrates was not 

 popular among 

 the citizens of 

 Athens. His 

 personal appearance was against him, for he 

 was bald, had thick lips, a flat nose, ungainly 

 figure and beggarly costume. He tried to re- 

 duce his wants to a minimum in order thus 

 more closely to resemble the gods in their per- 

 fection. His wife Xanthippe has passed into 

 tradition, possibly without proper basis of truth, 

 as a scolding, arrant shrew whom he endured as 

 a form of self-discipline. 



He had many illustrious friends, among them 

 Plato, Crito, Alcibiades, Xenophon, Phaedon, 

 Euclid of Megara and Aristippus. However, 

 his chief work was among the Athenian youths, 

 whom he felt called upon to conduct through 

 love to a nobler moral life. Self-knowledge 

 was his ideal ; "Know thyself," his maxim. To 

 him wickedness was the result of ignorance. 

 The good, the useful and the beautiful were 

 declared by him to be identical. No man is 

 willingly bad, he argued, and virtue in itself 

 can be taught. The best rulers are those who 

 are wisest, not the best educated, necessarily, 

 for they will most readily know how to make 

 the people happy. 



His method, known as the Socratic, became fa- 

 mous throughout the Mediterranean countries. 

 It was an art of cross-examination which lured 

 even the wisest into contradictions. He veiled 

 his own knowledge behind a professed igno- 

 rance and by a series of carefully directed 

 questions brought out from his hearers the 

 truth he sought. 



