piness of man-the great and prime end, after all, of his earthly pursuits. The questions which absorbed his contempla tions were of that practical character to which allusion has been made, which concerned man's happiness. Such asWhat is piety? What is impiety? What is the honourable? What is the base? What is the just? What the unjust? What is temperate or unsound mind? What is the character fit for a citizen?

He

What is authority over men ?* was absorbed in what regarded the life of the individual rather than in consideration of matter and the objective world. His reveries related to the government of the conduct of the microcosm rather than to the constituent elements of the cosmos and the laws by which it was governed. His mind had strided into its intellectual epoch. He took ground against atheism and the mere materialist, and maintained against the fool that there was a Godthat the soul of man existed after the unwinding of this mortal coil. In his philosophy, truth-the truth-was the end and aim of his pursuit. That which he could not explain or fathom by the plummet of finity, and which his age was in the rear of, he did not, therefore, deny or reject, but suffered it to remain as he found it, subject to any future ray which might be subsequently shed over its mysterious and profound depth by the light of future development or investigation. Temperance, benevolence, piety, justice-these with him were the things that were needful. Great in his dogmas, he was great in his mode or method of elucidating them. The Socratic method was not only a mode of argumentation ; it included a life-acting principle. As was his demeanor as a private citizen, so was his conduct in these public positions to which he was called. He manifested the same sense of justice, the same unswerving adherence to the laws that he professed, taught and practiced in his life, as in his death.

There are two instances which may be referred to in which his name prominently appears in the history of Athens. He refused to impeach the six

generals who were accused of having neglected those who were killed or wrecked at the famous battle of Arginusæ. Deeming the mode of procedure against them illegal, he boldly voted against their execution. The other occasion was during the reign of the thirty when Socrates was commanded, as we read, together with others, to seize and bring to Athens Leon of Salamis, a man represented as blameless in life but of large possessions, which, it is said, was not only a sufficient crime of itself in the estimation of his persecutors, but acted as a strong stimulus to their avarice. Socrates refused to obey, fearless of all personal consequences. Thus his actions were the results of his principles and philosophy, one of the prominent dogmas of which was, that "no outward violence could render the virtuous man criminal or really unhappy." But although his poverty was, perhaps, the cause of his safety in this case, his death was finally compassed. This was effected after the downfall of the thirty, whose tyranny and oppression he so fearlessly resisted and despised. He became obnoxious to the Sophists. Indeed, it was perhaps to their malevolence that his persecution and death may be traced. In Greece, as in all popular governments, eloquence was the mighty lever by aid of which the political aspirant became elevated to the highest positions in the gift of the people. It formed, indeed, an essential element in the character of him who aimed to attain prominence and power. In our own land its power is felt and acknowledged. The Sophists professed to teach this art by which, not only was power and prominence in the State to be obtained, but wealth also. They professed to teach the art of advocating each side of a question regardless of the justice of either. They ignored truth whenever it opposed itself as a barrier to success. The Athenian people were passionately fond of controversy. They delighted to oppose one antagonistic principle to another purely for sake of argument or disputation. In this view

they were not unlike the individual of whom Sidney Smith speaks, who was so fond of disputation that he would not hesitate to get up out of his bed at midnight, put his head out of the window and contradict the watchman who was crying the hour. The tendency of the sophistical school was to retard the progress of truth. As characterized by an English writer, "theirs was a narrow and contracted theory of the abstract value and nature of truth. Its aim was to show that the worse was the better reason. For teaching this they charged and received large fees. It was declamation without knowledge, subtlety without comprehension, paradoxical without ingenuity, a display of the form without the essence of reasoning, a fruitless and barren exercise of the noblest powers of the intellect, undertaken, not for the high and noble purpose of extending, but checking the progress of sound knowledge and truth among mankind."* Such a training, it has been thought, induced skepticism-for, by disregarding truth as a thing nothing-worth, they became doubters.t To this point we shall have occasion to refer hereafter. Protagoras, an eminent one among them, is said to have held that knowledge was mere opinion or sense. To Pilate's interrogatory he doubtless would have replied, truth is that which each individual believes to be so. Just as is the vulgar notion of the theory of the Bishop of Cloyne, regarding the term matter as popularly understood, that which is seen -not in its philosophical sense, a substance, substans, lying under phenomena-matter only exists when there is a mind to perceive it, nothing exists but what is perceived, or, it has no objective existence independent of mind. So, in like manner, knowledge or truth, according to Protagoras, was that only which was perceived by the individual—or, that which each believed to be true was true. Hence, whatever he did not believe to be so was not true. So that truth was made to have no objective, independent existence; it was not an

outward standard, but was made to depend upon what has been called the unstable and shifting quicksand of individual belief. A manifest absurdityfor, opposite and antagonistic assertions might be and are believed by different individuals. But truth is objective. It is outside of man. Its existence is independent of man's conception of it. This is so both in physics and morals. To be assimilated it must be brought by man within the realm and range of his subjectivity. It is to him an objective rule, a standard of measurement exterior to him; a law both in the physical and moral world to which man's subjective notions of it must be made to conform, and by which his belief and notions and conceptions of it must be measured as by an authorized and prescribed standard. Like the definition of law, it may be said to prescribe what is right and prohibit what is wrong. The Bible, the Bible-proclaimed Chillingworthis the religion of Protestants. True. But the Bible is not the leather, the paper and the ink of which its external form is made up-these may be regarded as its accidents. Its meaning constitutes its essence. It is the truth of the Bible which is really the Bible. This meaning-this truth-is a unity; but individual opinion, individual conception, have made it a plurality. But it is said, as Plato said, whatever appears true to the individual mind is true to it. If this be so, how are we to view the doctrine of the Christian metaphysician? In his sublime enunciation of the doctrine of the resurrection, St. Paul startlingly proclaims, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain."-As if he had said, if it be not a truth existent and objective, independent of individual belief and conception, that Christ has been really and objectively raised from the dead, no belief of yours, no subjective notion of yours, that he has been so raised from the dead can be of any benefit to you whatever-"your faith is vain," your belief is in an untruth, an unreality; it is no truth; it has no ob+ Sewell.

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jective existence; it is a mere fancy, and notwithstanding your sincerity in entertaining such a belief, "you are," nevertheless, yet in your sins;" and all those who have died, "fallen asleep," entertaining such a notion, "have perished." And so conversely. If Christ has been raised, no disbelief of individualism can effect in any manner the objective truth. It remains independent; and in order to your benefit, it must be en braced become assimilated. What is the objective must become and be made by you your subjective. When, therefore, we heed the cry, "the Bible, the Bible," in which cry is contained the unlimited right and supremacy of the theory of private judgment and of individualism, it may be well to bear in mind that, after all, the Bible is the truth of the Bible, and that although this truth is not even dualistic, yet the principle of individualism has caused to spring up a multitude of pluralities, each claiming to have hold of truth, conflicting and antagonistic as such pluralities. Thus it was with the Sophists-what each believed to be the truth was the truth. "Matter," said Protagoras, "in itself might be whatever it appeared to each. All that is perceived by man exists-that which is perceived by no man does not exist. If one opinion was as true as another, argued Protagoras, that is, if neither were true, it was nevertheless desirable for the sake of society that certain opinions should prevail; and if Logic was powerless, Rhetoric was efficient. And yet, Protagoras was a teacher of excellent morality, if not of the highest abstract views of the good."* The denial, however, of abstract Truth and abstract Justice, though liable to be pushed to immoral consequences, it is said, so far as such consequences were involved, was not maintained by the Sophists.† It was against the skepticism of the Sophists, and their dogmas that Socrates and St. Paul contended.

We have noticed what has been said of doubt that a disregard of truth leads

to doubt, so doubt or skepticism leads to looseness of life or morals? Does not a regard for truth lead to doubt or skepticism, and is it not a disregard of truth that leads to looseness of life or morals? Is it not by doubting that we are led to examination in order that the mind instead of being at two, in a dualistic state with itself, may be finally brought to that oneness of condition which may be said to be its state of content? Has it not been by questioning, by doubt, by skepticism, that the falsity of long received opinions has been exposed, old errors exploded, and thus new additions made to the general fund of knowledge?

"This feeling of hesitation and of suspended judgment has in every department of thought been the invariable preliminary to all the intellectual revolutions through which the human mind has passed; and without it there could be no progress, no change, no civilization. In physics it is the necessary precursor of science; in politics, of liberty; in theology, of toleration." It was a disregard of truth which rendered Commodus and Elagabalus indifferent, not skeptical or doubtful, as to the Christian religion. They cared not whether truth or error prevailed. It was a regard for truth, as they conceived it, and which made them honest and zealous in contending for it and its prevalence, that St. Paul, and Julian, and Aurelius, were bitter persecutors. Had the good Aurelius been more doubtful, more skeptical as to the truth of his own subjective convictions, he might have been led to make that examination which might have resulted in altering his ideas of the truth. The disregard of truth in Commodus and Elagabalus, though accompanied by looseness of life and morals, did not lead to doubt or skepticism, but was the effect of indifference. In the opinion of the Bishop of St. David's the precepts and principles of the Sophists favoured the natural propensities. So that each man's opinion being the standard or measure of truth, inclination became the

standard or measure of good.* It may be readily conceived how strenuous, bold and uncompromising would be the opposition to such a system of a lover of truth like Socrates. And he did oppose it. "Whilst the brilliant Sophists were reaping money and renown by protesting against philosophy, and teaching the word-jugglery which they called Disputation and Oratory, there suddenly appeared among them a strange antagonist. He was a perfect contrast to them. They had slighted Truth; they had denied her. He had made her his soul's mistress; and, with patient labour, with untiring energy, did his large, wise soul toil after perfect communion with her. They had deserted Truth for Money and Renown. He had remained constant to her in poverty. They professed to teach everything. He only knew that he knew nothing; and denied that anything could be taught. Yet he believed that he could be of service to his fellow-men, not by teaching, but by helping them to learn. His mission was to examine the thoughts of others. What his mother did for women he could do for men. He was an accoucher of ideas."† An "intellectual obstetrician."

The mode of argumentation introduced by Socrates has acquired for it the distinctive name of the Socratic Method. According to Schwegler, the result of the Socratic Method was to lead the subject to know that he knew nothing. This was the negative result, so-called. Its positive side, we are told, resulted from his assiduous questioning, by his interrogatory dissection of the notions of him with whom he might be conversing, whence he knew how to elicit a thought of which he had hitherto been unconscious-and how to help him to a new thought. And this method, its positive side, is the so-called art of intellectual obstetrics-helping a man to deliver himself of a thought. This was his position, rather to help others to bring forth thoughts than to produce them himself-and, also, because he took upon himself to distinguish the † Lewes.

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birth of an empty thought-a thought without life and still-born, as it were, from one, rich in its content, that is, we presume, its capacity and fullness or completeness.¿

It is clear to the least reflecting, that in order to gain the ear and confidence of him whom we wish to convince, it is wise to gain his good will. We must divest the hearer of all suspicion as to our motives and impress him with the idea and truth that we desire to convince him, in order to his own building up. By the questions which Socrates propounded, the listener was led, as it were, imperceptibly to the admissions designed. We se lect out of the Memorabilia, a characteristic specimen which exhibits this method. Glaucon was a young Athenian who desired to enter into public life. Owing to his youth, inexperience and incapacity, his relations and friends wished to dissuade him from the notion he had conceived, and had perhaps expressed this desire to Socrates, who "meeting him by chance first stopped by addressing him as follows, that he might be willing to listen to him.

Glaucon, have you formed an intention to govern the state for us?

I have, Socrates, replied Glaucon. By Jupiter, rejoined Socrates, it is an honorable office, if any other among men be so; for it is certain that, if you attain your object, you will be able yourself to secure whatever you may desire, and will be in a condition to benefit your friends; you will raise your father's house and increase the power of your country; you will be celebrated, first of all in your own city, and afterwards, throughout Greece, and perhaps also, like Themistocles, among the Barbarians; and wherever you may be, you will be an object of general admiration.

Glaucon, hearing this, was highly elated, and cheerfully stayed to listen. Socrates next proceeded to say

But it is plain, Glaucon, that if you wish to be honored, you must benefit the State. Certainly, answered Glaucon.

Then in the name of the gods, said Schwegler.

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> Schwegler.

Socrates, do not hide from us how you intend to act, but inform us with what proceeding you will begin to benefit the State?

But as Glaucon was silent, as if just considering how he should begin, Socrates said, as if you wished to aggrandize the family of a friend, you would endeavor to make it richer, tell me whether you will in like manner also endeavor to make the State richer?

Assuredly, said he.

Would it then be richer, if its revenues were increased?

That is at least probable, said Glaucon. Tell me then, proceeded Socrates, from what the revenues of the State arise, and what is their amount: for you have doubtless considered, in order that if any of them fall short, you may make up the deficiency, and that if any of them fail, you may procure fresh supplies.

These matters, by Jupiter, replied Glaucon, I have not considered.

Well then, said Socrates, if you have omitted to consider this point, tell me at least the annual expenditure of the State; for you undoubtedly mean to retrench whatever is superfluous in it.

Indeed, replied Glaucon, I have not yet had time to turn my attention to that subject.

We will, therefore, said Socrates, put off making our State richer for the present; for how is it possible for him who is ignorant of its expenditure and its income to manage those matters?

But, Socrates, observed Glaucon, it is possible to enrich the State at the expense of our enemies.

Extremely possible indeed, replied Socrates, if we be stronger than they; but if we be weaker, we may lose all that we have.

What you say is true, said Glaucon. Accordingly, said Socrates, he who deliberates with whom he shall go to war, ought to know the force both of his own country and of the enemy, so that, if that of his own country be superior to that of the enemy, he may advise it to enter upon the war, but, if inferior, may persuade it to be cautious of doing so.

You say rightly, said Glaucon.

In the first place, then, proceeded Socrates, tell us the strength of the country by land and sea, and next that of the enemy.

But, by Jupiter, exclaimed Glaucon, I should not be able to tell you on the moment, and at a word.

Well, then, if you have it written down, said Socrates, bring it, for I should be extremely glad to hear what it is.

But to say the truth, replied Glaucon, I have not yet written it down.

We will therefore put off considering about war for the present, said Socrates, for it is very likely that, on account of the magnitude of those subjects, and as you are just commencing your administration, you have not yet examined into them. But to the defence of the country, I am quite sure you have directed your attention, and that you know how many garrisons are in advantageous positions, and how many not so, what number of men would be sufficient to maintain them, and what number would be insufficient, and that you will advise your countrymen to make the garrisons and advantageous positions stronger, and to remove the useless ones.

By Jove, replied Glaucon, I shall recommend them to remove them all, as they keep guard so negligently, that the property is secretly carried off out of the country.

Yet, if we remove the garrisons, said Socrates, do you not think that liberty will be given to any body that pleases to pillage? But, added he, have you gone personally and examined as to this fact, or how do you know that the garrisons conduct themselves with such negligence? I form my conjectures, said he.

Well then, inquired Socrates, shall we settle about these matters also, when we no longer rest upon conjecture, but have obtained certain knowledge?

Perhaps that, said Glaucon, will be the better course.

To the silver mines, however, said Socrates, I know that you have not gone, so as to have the means of telling us why a smaller revenue is derived from them than came in some time ago.

I have not gone thither, said he.