38 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



service to his country, to inspire every class of citizens with just and 

 correct notions of the best method of practising their callings, and of 

 discharging the duties incident to them. 1 Indeed, this was an object 

 of which he never lost sight; rightly thinking, that upon the con- 

 scientious and diligent behaviour of each individual in his particular 

 station and calling, depended the safety and prosperity of the whole 

 commonwealth. In the same strain he taught his hearers, that he 

 who was the best manager of his own affairs, was likely to be the 

 best administrator of the affairs of the republic. 



We have before observed, that Socrates did not deliver lectures like 

 the sophists, but conducted his discourses upon subjects of practical 

 philosophy in the way of question and answer. His usual method 

 was, to apply to the person, whom he wished to bring over to his own 

 opinion, with a pretended ignorance, as one who desired to obtain in- 

 formation ; and without asserting anything himself, he would put to 

 him, in succession, a series of questions, which admitted but of one 

 answer; and so, by degrees, would bring him to acknowledge the 

 truth which Socrates wished to establish. He always began by gain- 

 ing the assent of his adversary to some unquestionable propositions : 

 these he artfully connected with some of a more dubious kind, and 

 then, by tying down his opponent to his former concessions, he proved 

 his own point. 



The ' irony ' This Socratic mode of disputation the Greeks called eip&veia, 

 of Socrates, "irony," from eipwv, "a person who dissembles his real knowledge 

 or opinions ;" one who pretends to know nothing of what he really 

 does know. 2 Horace calls a person of this sort dissimulator opis pro-* 

 price. To this ironical or bantering mode of disputation the Athenians 

 in general seem to have been partial ; in the case of Socrates it gave 

 so much offence to some, that they called him " the Attic buffoon, or 

 jester." Aristotle contrasts the boasting pretender, who, for the sake 

 of fame or profit, affects accomplishments which he does not possess, 

 with the etpwv, him who dissembles his powers, and disparages his 

 own qualifications, " for the sake of appearing more amiable and 

 pleasing ; for," he observes, " persons of this description seem to 

 speak, not for the sake of gain, but from a wish to avoid ostentation. 

 And in particular, they reject all pretences to fame ; as was the case 

 with Socrates." 



Being well aware that the sophists were a principal cause of that 

 deterioration in the character of his countrymen which he so often 



1 He carried this custom so far, as not only to give advice to Parrhasius, the 

 celebrated painter, and Clito, the sculptor, upon the best method of communicating 

 to their representations of the human form an expression of moral sentiment; but 

 he conversed with Theodote, a courtesan, upon the most efficacious methods of 

 alluring lovers. 



2 Aristoph. Av. 1209. Kara vfo'iets wuXa.; E/o-JjA^sj !; <ro TU^O;, u f*ia/>ura,79i ] 

 I. Oi/x oT3a, fta. A<" tyuyt XKTO, vroia$ rwXa;, n'. "Hxovir&f ayrjjf, olov il^uv&vtra.i ; 

 " By what gates did you get into the city, you" baggage ? /. I protest I don't 

 know by what gates. P. D' ye hear how she banters us ?" 



