His life had its ascetic side. He was frugal in his needs. He went barefoot, summer and winter, and his clothing was the scantiest. He was abstemious in food and drink. While on occasion at the feast he would drink more wine than any one else, yet he never was seen intoxicated. The ascetic side of his nature is seen in his refusal to cultivate gymnastics, because such training required much food. He tried to limit his wants. He was a model of hardiness, self-denial, and self-mastery, as many an anecdote will show. “No one ever saw or heard anything wicked in Socrates,” said Xenophon. “So pious was he that he never did anything without first consulting the Gods, so master of himself as never to prefer pleasure to goodness, so sensible as never to err in the choice between the better and the worse. In a word, he was the best and the most happy of men.” At times Socrates seems intellectually stiff and prosaic. This may have been incidental to his asceticism, or the result of it. He was indifferent to the sensuous, and he explained the beautiful in terms of the useful. He refused to walk out because trees and flowers could teach him nothing. Art offered no suggestions to him, for it is useless even if it is inspired. His unpoetic and prosy nature was perhaps not due so much to his lack of taste as to his original mind overflowing with ideas. He was not perceptive, but reflective. He said that astronomy is a mystery, geometry is land measuring, which any man can do, arithmetic is merely permissible, and physics something to be neglected. “Ye may judge how unprofitable these studies are by seeing how men differ among themselves.” He was once found dancing at home by himself when he was expected to be at a dance with others, and his practical nature is also revealed in the fact that at the feast he was reminded of its utility. The influence of Socrates’ dæmon or divine voice upon him is very interesting. He felt himself divinely called by his dæmon (_Apology_, 29, 33 f.) to unremitting labor in the moral perfecting of society through an examination of himself and his fellows. Socrates was moved by a deep religious feeling in all that he undertook. This divine leading is what he designates as his dæmon. He speaks of it as “the God” or “the gods” which speaks to other men through the oracles. This divine voice was ever with him, but as to specific actions it only warned him against the injudicious action, never incited him to the correct action. Specifically it did not tell him what to do so much as what not to do. When he was about to prepare a defense beforehand that he should make to the judges, his dæmon interposed, and so he relied upon the inspiration of the moment. On one of his campaigns he was observed to stand in communion with the dæmon the whole day, unmindful of the weather.