Different spirit shown towards Sokratês and towards the sophists.—Birth and family of Sokratês.—His physical and moral qualities.—Xenophon and Plato as witnesses.—Their pictures of Sokratês are in the main accordant.—Habits of Sokratês.—Leading peculiarities of Sokratês.—His constant publicity of life and indiscriminate conversation.—Reason why Sokratês was shown up by Aristophanês on the stage.—His persuasion of a special religious mission.—His dæmon, or genius—other inspirations.—Oracle from Delphi declaring that no man was wiser than he.—His mission to test the false conceit of wisdom in others.—Confluence of the religious motive with the inquisitive and intellectual impulse in his mind—numerous enemies whom he made.—Sokratês a religious missionary, doing the work of philosophy.—Intellectual peculiarities of Sokratês.—He opened ethics as a new subject of scientific discussion.—Circumstances which turned the mind of Sokratês towards ethical speculations.—Limits of scientific study as laid down by Sokratês.—He confines study to human affairs, as distinguished from divine—to man and society.—Importance of the innovation—multitude of new and accessible phenomena brought under discussion.—Innovations of Sokratês as to method—dialectic method—inductive discourses—definitions.—Commencement of analytical consciousness of the mental operations—genera and species.—Sokratês compared with previous philosophers.—Great step made by Sokratês in laying the foundation of formal logic, afterwards expanded by Plato, and systematized by Aristotle.—Dialectical process employed by Sokratês—essential connection between method and subject.—Essential connection also between the dialectic process and the logical distribution of subject-matter—one in many and many in one.—Persuasion of religious mission in Sokratês, prompting him to extend his colloquial cross-examination to noted men.—His cross-examining purpose was not confined to noted men, but of universal application.—Leading ideas which directed the scrutiny of Sokratês—contrast between the special professions and the general duties of social life.—Platonic dialogues—discussion whether virtue is teachable.—Conceit of knowledge without real knowledge—universal prevalence of it.—Such confident persuasion, without science, belonged at that time to astronomy and physics, as well as to the subjects of man and society—it is now confined to the latter.—Sokratês first lays down the idea of ethical science, comprising the appropriate ethical end with theory and precepts.—Earnestness with which Sokratês inculcated self-examination—effect of his conversation upon others.—Preceptorial and positive exhortation of Sokratês chiefly brought out by Xenophon.—This was not the peculiarity of Sokratês—his powerful method of stirring up the analytical faculties.—Negative and indirect scrutiny of Sokratês produced strong thirst,