Thus perished the “_parens philosophiæ_”--the first of ethical philosophers; a man who opened to science both new matter, alike copious and valuable, and a new method, memorable not less for its originality and efficacy, than for the profound philosophical basis on which it rests. Though Greece produced great poets, orators, speculative philosophers, historians, etc., yet other countries, having the benefit of Grecian literature to begin with, have nearly equalled her in all these lines, and surpassed her in some. But where are we to look for a parallel to Socrates, either in or out of the Grecian world? The cross-examining elenchus, which he not only first struck out, but wielded with such matchless effect, and to such noble purposes, has been mute ever since his last conversation in the prison; for even his great successor Plato was a writer and lecturer, not a colloquial dialectician. No man has ever been found strong enough to bend his bow; much less, sure enough to use it as he did. His life remains as the only evidence, but a very satisfactory evidence, how much can be done by this sort of intelligent interrogation; how powerful is the interest which it can be made to inspire, how energetic the stimulus which it can apply in awakening dormant reason and generating new mental power. [Illustration: GREEK VASE] It has been often customary to exhibit Socrates as a moral preacher, in which character probably he has acquired to himself the general reverence attached to his name. This is, indeed, a true attribute, but not the characteristic or salient attribute, nor that by which he permanently worked on mankind. On the other hand, Arcesilaus, and the New Academy, a century and more afterwards, thought that they were following the example of Socrates (and Cicero seems to have thought so too) when they reasoned against everything--and when they laid it down as a system, that against every affirmative position, an equal force of negative argument might be brought up as counterpoise. Now this view of Socrates is, in my judgment, not merely partial, but incorrect. He entertained no such systematic distrust of the powers of the mind to attain certainty. He laid down a clear (though erroneous) line of distinction between the knowable and the unknowable. About physics, he was more than a sceptic; he thought that man could know nothing: the gods did not intend that man should acquire any such information, and therefore managed matters in such a way as to be beyond his ken, for all except the simplest phenomena of daily wants; moreover, not only man could not acquire such information, but ought not to labour after it. But respecting the topics which concern man and society, the views of Socrates were completely the reverse. This was the field which the gods had expressly assigned, not merely to human practice, but to human study and acquisition of knowledge; a field, wherein, with that view, they managed phenomena on principles of constant