SOCEATES. ' 



FROM B. C. 469 TO B. C. 399. 



THE biography of this remarkable person, who occupies so conspicuous 

 a station in the history of the human mind, will be conveniently in- 

 troduced by a short sketch of the previous history of philosophy in 

 Greece. 



The earliest philosophy of the Greeks, which was derived to them Philosophy 

 through Ionia, from Asia, consisted in devising both names and p^J early 

 attributes for the various deities, who were supposed to preside over 

 the different departments of the universe ; and in conveying to a 

 simple people a system of theology and ethics in allegorical poems. 

 Many fragments of these were incorporated into the works of Homer 

 and Hesiod ; and some are to be found in the more ancient oracular 

 verses which are quoted by the Greek historians. The ' Theogonia ' of 

 Hesiod was no doubt taken, as to its principal features, from the cos- 

 mogony of some more ancient philosophical poet ; and it is to be re- 

 marked, that this philosophy, such as it was, and from whatever 

 source derived, was coeval with the language in which it was taught ; 

 for the names of the deities are not borrowed from the oriental mytho- 

 logy, which probably supplied many of the deities themselves ; but 

 are Greek names, significant of the attributes which they were intended 

 to personify. Thus, void space is termed Xaoe, from the verb Xaw, 

 ' to yawn,' Ai0//p, ' the sky,' is from a't'Ow, 'to be bright.' 



Certain of these poets or philosophers, for the professions were not 

 then distinct, were employed professionally by some of the Grecian 

 states, to compose useful mythological poems and hymns, appropriate 

 to the worship of various deities: in particular we may mention 

 Pamphus, and Orpheus, an imitation of whose hymns was in after 

 ages forged by some falsary. 1 



These were the masters of wisdom to the earliest Greeks, who for 

 many ages had no philosophical writings in prose. Theognis con- 

 signed his moral and political precepts to elegiac verse ; and the same 

 kind of composition afforded even to Solon a vehicle for instruction of 

 the most important kind to his fellow-citizens. It was not till history 



1 It is amusing to see so grave a writer as Brucker seriously deducing a summary 

 of the Orphic philosophy from these spurious fragments, many of which are of a 

 date but little, if at all, anterior to the Christian era. An attempt was made in the 

 fifth century before Christ to revive what was pretended to be the philosophy of 

 Orpheus; and certain mystagogues seem to have made the initiation of votaries a 

 gainful trade. But it appears, from some expressions iu Euripides, that the credit 

 of this sect was, even in his time, at a very low ebb. 



