Know Thyself 25 



do and believed he was doing, we must, I think, recog- 

 nize that he did two things that will endure forever and 

 be true for all realms of knowledge. He drove home 

 the truth that since all knowledge is man's knowledge 

 is wrought out by man for man the human element 

 can never be eliminated from it no matter how purely 

 objective it may seem to be; and that the process of 

 knowledge-getting itself must be critically examined in 

 order that knowledge may be trustworthy. What 

 greater service has ever been rendered mankind, what 

 service is more needed in this very day, than that of 

 convicting us of that "shameful ignorance which con- 

 sists in thinking we know when we do not know" ? 



But while acknowledging Socrates' great merit in 

 recognizing the necessity of critically examining the 

 process of knowledge-getting, we must not be blind to 

 the disastrous incompleteness of the results he reached 

 by his own efforts. The theory of knowledge which he 

 evolved was a theory of only one-half of knowledge. 

 Know thyself, meant to him know thyself subjectively 

 only. It did not mean know thyself objectively. It 

 meant know half of thyself, not thy whole self. 



Recall the interpretation he put upon the Delphic 

 oracle's pronouncement that he was the wisest of men. 

 He was wise, he said, because he knew he knew nothing, 

 whereas others reputed to be wise did not know their 

 own ignorance. But what sort of ignorance was it in 

 which he gloried? Why, ignorance of everything ex- 

 cept himself and "himself" taken subjectively. Refut- 



