that they believe this to be true. They believe that they believe it. And yet in actual life, perhaps, they seek only for earthly riches, and behave as if they thought these the supreme good. What do such men really believe? Do they believe as they speak, or as they act? Is it not at least arguable that they are really pursuing what they believe to be good, and that, if they were genuinely convinced of the superiority of spiritual treasures, they would seek them, and not material riches? This at least is what Socrates thought. All men seek the good, but the many do not know what the good is. There is certainly truth in this in many cases, though in others there can be no doubt that men do deliberately what they know to be evil. There are two other characteristic Socratic propositions {149} which flow from the same general idea, that virtue is identical with knowledge. The first is, that virtue can be taught. We do not ordinarily think that virtue can be taught like arithmetic. We think that virtue depends upon a number of factors, prominent among which are the inborn disposition of a man, heredity, environment, modified to some extent by education, practice, and habit. The consequence is that a man's character does not change very much as he grows older. By constant practice, by continual self-control, a man may, to some extent, make himself better, but on the whole, what he is he remains. The leopard, we say, does not change his spots. But as, for Socrates, the sole condition of virtue is knowledge, and as knowledge is just what can be imparted by teaching, it followed that virtue must be teachable. The only difficulty is to find the teacher, to find some one who knows the concept of virtue. What the concept of virtue is--that is, thought Socrates, the precious piece of knowledge, which no philosopher has ever discovered, and which, if it were only discovered, could at once be imparted by teaching, whereupon men would at once become virtuous. The other Socraticism is that "virtue is one." We talk of many virtues, temperance, prudence, foresight, benevolence, kindness, etc. Socrates believed that all these particular virtues flowed from the one source, knowledge. Therefore knowledge itself, that is to say, wisdom, is the sole virtue, and this includes all the others.