THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 141 
rst. The Importance of Dialectic.—This was a necessary result of 
the Socratic method of arriving at true inward knowledge or concep- 
tions. By question and answer the delusions of the senses had to 
be overthrown ; individual views were to be brought into universal 
conformity by means of explanation, and fixed definitions established. 
2nd. His Independence of the External.—The external world 
would naturally present but secondary charms to one who possessed 
within himself the means of true virtue and happiness. Thus we 
find Socrates at all times ready to undergo all hardships without 
complaint, and ever treating with contempt the foolish pleasures 
of sense. 
gra. Fis Urbanity.—With Socrates the proper study of man- 
kind was man. He little wished “To muse o’er flood or fell.” To 
understand this we need only recollect that with him the highest 
work of man was to lead his fellow-men to a true knowledge of 
themselves, and thus to virtue and happiness. 
These three phases of the Socratic character produced three 
varied schools of philosophy among his successors, known as the 
one-sided Socratics, or partial systems. Another cause leading to 
the same result was that while Socrates had set down virtue as the 
highest form of knowledge, he had not laid down any fixed theory 
concerning the nature of this true knowledge. It was only natural 
then that various schools should arise to bring out more fully the 
different aspects of the perfect Socrates. 
THE MEGARIANS. 
The Megarian school attempted to unite the Socratic idea of 
the good to the Eleatic doctrine of real being. Socrates had affirmed 
virtue to be true knowledge. ‘ But,” said the Megarians, “since 
only a knowledge of concepts constitutes true knowledge, and since 
reality belongs only to the concept or unchanging essence, therefore 
the good alone is, and evil does not exist.” The Megarians forgot, 
however, that while Socrates affirmed all virtue to be knowledge, he 
did not affirm all knowledge to be virtue. 
The Megarians further reasoned that “‘since thought is alone 
able to attain to a knowledge of the real, therefore our senses can 
recognize only the unreal or false.” This at once brought on a war 
against the testimony of the senses and the theories of other philoso- 
phers. To meet this, the Megarians made free use of the Socratic 
