One other great dim figure of early European antiquity shares with Pythagoras the philosophic dominance over our world, and that is the Platonic Socrates, or, as we might perhaps say, the Socratic Plato. And here, too, we are in the presence of a philosopher, if not a scientist, who was a supreme artist. Here again, also, we encounter a legendary figure concealing a more or less real human person. But there is a difference. While all are agreed that, in Pythagoras we have a great and brilliant figure dimly seen, there are many who consider that in Socrates we have a small and dim figure grown great and brilliant in the Platonic medium through which alone he has been really influential in our world, for without Plato the name of Socrates would have scarcely been mentioned. The problem of the Pythagorean legend may be said to be settled. But the problem of the Socratic legend is still under discussion. We cannot, moreover, quite put it aside as merely of academic interest, for its solution, if ever reached, would touch that great vital problem of art in the actual world with which we are here throughout concerned. If one examines any large standard history of Greece, like Grote’s to mention one of the oldest and best, one is fairly sure to find a long chapter on the life of Socrates. Such a chapter is inserted, without apology, without explanation, without compunction, as a matter of course, in a so-called “history,” and nearly every one, even to-day, still seems to take it as a matter of course. Few seem to possess the critical and analytical mind necessary for the examination of the documents on which the “history” rests. If they approached this chapter in a questioning spirit, they might perhaps discover that it was not until about half a century after the time of the real Socrates that any “historical” evidence for the existence of our legendary Socrates begins to appear.[32] Few people seem to realise that even of Plato himself we know nothing certain that could not be held in a single sentence. The “biographies” of Plato began to be written four hundred years after his death. It should be easy to estimate their value.