In these celebrated names we have social philosophy in its early and infantine state,—in the shape of homely sayings or admonitions, either supposed to be self-evident, or to rest upon some great authority divine or human, but neither accompanied by reasons nor recognizing any appeal to inquiry and discussion as the proper test of their rectitude. From such unsuspecting acquiescence, the sentiment to which these admonitions owe their force, we are partially liberated even in the poet Simonidês of Keôs, who (as before alluded to) severely criticizes the song of Kleobulus as well as its author. The half-century which followed the age of Simonidês (the interval between about 480-430 B. C.) broke down that sentiment more and more, by familiarizing the public with argumentative controversy in the public assembly, the popular judicature, and even on the dramatic stage. And the increased self-working of the Grecian mind, thus created, manifested itself in Sokratês, who laid open all ethical and social doctrines to the scrutiny of reason, and who first awakened among his countrymen that love of dialectics which never left them,—an analytical interest in the mental process of inquiring out, verifying, proving, and expounding truth. To this capital item of human progress, secured through the Greeks—and through them only—to mankind generally, our attention will be called at a later period of the history; at present, it is only mentioned in contrast with the naked, dogmatical laconism of the Seven Wise Men, and with the simple enforcement of the early poets: a state in which morality has a certain place in the feelings,—but no root, even among the superior minds, in the conscious exercise of reason.