But to those who knew him better, and especially to Plato, who knew him best, Socrates was at once the sweetest and most compelling spirit of his age. There was a kind of truth in the quality of his character. He was perhaps _the first of all reverent men_. In the presence of conceit his self-depreciation was ironical, but in another presence it was most genuine, and his deepest spring of thought and action. This other presence was his own ideal. Socrates was sincerely humble because, expecting so much of philosophy, he saw his own deficiency. Unlike the unskilled player, he did not seek to _make_ music; but he loved music, and knew that such music as is indeed music was beyond his power. On the other hand he was well aware of his superiority to those in whom self-satisfaction was possible because they had no conception of the ideal. Of such he could say in truth that they did not know enough even to realize the extent of their ignorance. The world has long been familiar with the vivid portrayal of the Socratic consciousness which is contained in Plato's "Apology." Socrates had set out in life with the opinion that his was an age of exceptional enlightenment. But as he came to know men he found that after all no one of them really knew what he was about. Each "sight-loving, art-loving, busy" man was quite blind to the meaning of life. While he was capable of practical achievement, his judgments concerning the real virtue of his achievements were conventional and ungrounded, a mere reflection of tradition and opinion. When asked concerning the meaning of life, or the ground of his opinions, he was thrown into confusion or aggravated to meaningless reiteration. Such men, Socrates reflected, were both unwise and confirmed in their folly through being unconscious of it. Because he knew that vanity is vanity, that opinion is indeed mere opinion, Socrates felt himself to be the wisest man in a generation of dogged unwisdom. [Sidenote: Socrates's Self-criticism a Prophecy of Truth.]