Know Thyself 87 



tinued down to this very day is a system of subjective 

 egoism. It never has recognized and is not capable of 

 recognizing the real nature of human interdependence. 

 It never has felt nor can it feel the full measure of 

 man's obligation to man. That virtue which in the 

 Socratic system is the concomitant of knowledge is not 

 full and practical virtue. It is a virtue diluted with 

 mock humility and aloofness from human affairs. 



One other consequence of the Socratic theory of life 

 must be noticed, though it will have to be touched even 

 more cursorily than those previously noticed. Soc- 

 rates "had it in for" the poets quite as well as for the 

 wise men, i. e., the philosophers of nature. Why was 

 this? That he should have had a grudge against the 

 comic poets is not surprising, for he had felt the sting 

 of their ridicule. But why did he pronounce the great 

 tragedians and the others of his time as without wis- 

 dom, and so, according to his theory, without virtue? 

 Because they too were too much occupied with other 

 things than concepts. Like the physicists, they treated 

 the world outside of and beyond themselves with too 

 much consideration. Even their gods were more exter- 

 nal and objective than he could tolerate. The point 

 of consequence in this for us is that a great poet, as 

 Shakespeare for example, deals with externality no 

 less than does the physical scientist. The poet is an 

 interpreter of nature of sensuous nature no less 

 than is the naturalist. To him other selves are as real 



