What Socrates attempts to show, is that self-knowledge is conducive to human happiness. Indeed, sanity in a broad sense, depends upon insight into one's true knowledge of his limitation and capacity for adaptation. However, Socrates holds that madness is not ignorance, but admits that for "A man to be ignorant of himself, and to fancy and believe that he knew what he did not know, he considered to be something closely bordering on madness. The multitude, he observed, do not say that those are mad who make mistakes in matters of which most people are ignorant, but call those only mad who make mistakes in affairs with which most people are acquainted; for if a man should think himself so tall as to stoop when going through the gates in the city wall, or so strong as to try to lift up houses, or attempt anything else that is plainly impossible to all men, they say that he is mad; but those who make mistakes in small matters are not thought by the multitude to be mad; but just as they call 'strong desire' 'love,' so they call 'great disorder of intellect' 'madness.' "[30.] This Socratic principle plays an important role in psychopathology; in psychoanalysis, what the physician does is to acquaint the patient with the unconscious mental processes, thus putting him in full knowledge of his condition to enable him to adjust himself to his environment. In mental diseases the prognosis of a psychosis is not looked upon so gravely when the patient has some realization of his situation, and likewise the recovery from a mental infirmity is more hopeful when the patient exhibits considerable insight into his condition. It is a well known fact that in a malignant psychosis, self-knowledge does not exist, and this in part is responsible for its malignancy. On the other hand the benignant nature of a psychoneurosis may be in part attributed to the patient's appreciation of his affliction. However, the Socratic maxim has another moral and social value, that is, by only knowing one's self can one understand his fellowmen. Indeed, Plato makes Socrates say, in Phaedrus, that it is ridiculous to trouble one's self about other things when one is still ignorant of one's self. It is well known to every psychoanalyst that a patient cannot be analyzed by the physician unless the latter has conquered his own resistances and adjusted his complexes. The Immortal Poet, Shakespeare, truly says: "This above all--to shine own self be true And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. " Hamlet Act I, III. BIBLIOGRAPHY. [1.] Sir Henry Maine--Village Communities and Miscellanies, Page 238. Amer. Ed. [2.] Denton J. Synder--"Ancient European Philosophy," page 216. [3.] Zeller--"Socrates and the Socratic School, 1877--London," Page 116. [4.] Plato--Phaedrus. [5.] Schwegler--"History of Philosophy," Page 63. [6.] Gomperz--"Greek Thinkers," Page 87. [7.] Zeller--"Socrates and the Socratic School," Page 81.