SOCRATES. 41 



result of which was a matured and solid experience, and a degree of 

 sagacity, which seemed at times to be almost more than human. The 

 cracle which is said to have been delivered by the Pythian priestess, 

 declaring Socrates to be the wisest of mankind, is well known : but 

 there is good reason to suspect that it was a forgery, probably invented 

 by Chaerephon, or by some other disciple of Socrates, after his master's 

 death. It was, however, reported very soon after that event ; and at 

 any rate serves to show the prevailing opinion in Greece respecting 

 the superior wisdom of the deceased philosopher. Great, however, as 

 that wisdom was, it was not greater than his modesty. The following 

 observations, which Cicero has put into the mouth of Varro in his first 

 book of * Academic Questions,' place in a strong light the good sense 

 and modesty of Socrates : " It is agreed on all hands, and, I think, 

 justly, that Socrates was the first person, who called away philosophy 

 from the study of occult things, purposely concealed by nature herself, 

 in which all the philosophers before him had been occupied, and in- 

 troduced her to common life : making virtue and vice, good and evil, 

 the objects of his inquiry ; but esteeming the higher branches of natural 

 philosophy (ccelestia^) far removed from our cognizance, or at all events, 

 if they were ever so well understood, of no importance towards living 

 well. In all his discourses, which have been committed to writing by 

 those who heard him, with great variety and copiousness of language, 

 his method of disputing is, to affirm nothing himself, but to refute 

 others : he professes to know nothing, except the fact itself of his 

 knowing nothing : and says, that in this respect he excels other men, 

 who fancy that they know that which they do not know ; whereas all 

 his own knowledge consisted in the consciousness of knowing nothing ; 

 and he supposes that Apollo had pronounced him to be the wisest of 

 mankind, 1 because the whole of true wisdom consists in a man's not 

 thinking himself to know that of which he is ignorant. This being 

 the constant tenor of his discourses, and his fixed opinion, all his 

 eloquence was expended in praising virtue, and in exhortmg all men 

 to the study of virtue ; a fact sufficiently evident from the writings of 

 the Socratic philosophers, and especially of Plato." It need hardly 

 be remarked that this confession of ignorance, on the part of Socrates, 

 was very different from the universal doubt and uncertainty professed 

 by the sceptics ; his object being simply to inspire mankind with a 

 distrust of that intuitive kind of knowledge to which the sophists laid 

 claim, and to teach them that the road to true wisdom must be pur- 

 sued through all the successive steps of patient investigation. 



With regard to his religious opinions, Socrates appears to have been His religion, 

 firmly convinced of the existence of a Supreme Being, and of his 

 superintending providence over the affairs of men. He was never 

 heard, says Xenophon, to say anything which savoured of impiety ; 



1 These words, it must be remembered, are put into the mouth of Socrates by 

 Plato, and afford one proof, amongst many, that it is unsafe to place much reliance 

 upon the accuracy of his representations. 



