[Footnote c: Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987, b. 1, M. p. 1078, b. 30.] [Footnote d: Xenophon, Memorab. I., 1--16.] [Footnote e: So Aristotle calls them--[Greek: lo/gous e(paktikou/s].--Metaph. M. p. 1078, b. 28.] [Footnote f: Xenophon, Memorab. IV. 2--13--30--36.] The conviction formed in the mind of Sokrates, after long persistence in such colloquial cross-examination, is consigned in his defence before the Athenian judicature, pronounced a month before his death. He declared that what he found every where was real ignorance, combined with false persuasion of knowledge: that this was the chronic malady of the human mind, which it had been his mission to expose: that no man was willing to learn, because no man believed that he stood in need of learning: that, accordingly, the first step indispensable to all effective teaching, was to make the pupil a willing learner, by disabusing his mind of the false persuasion of knowledge, and by imparting to him the stimulus arising from a painful consciousness of ignorance. Such was the remarkable psychological scrutiny instituted by Sokrates on his countrymen, and the verdict which it suggested to him. I have already observed that his great intellectual bent was to ascertain the definition of general terms, and to follow these out to a comprehensive and consistent classification.[g] It must be added that no man was ever less inclined to mysticism than Sokrates: and that he was thus {278} exempt from those misleading influences which (according to Mr. James Mill, p. 260) "have led men away from the real object of Classification, and prevented them from understanding it till a late period in metaphysical enquiry." Sokrates did not come before his countrymen with classifications of his own, originated or improved--nor did he teach them how the process ought to be conducted. His purpose was, to test and appreciate that Classification which he found ready-made and current among them. He pronounced it to be worthless and illusory. [Footnote g: Xenophon. Memor. IV. 5, 12; IV. *6. 1--7--10--15. [Greek: ô(=n e(/neka skopô=n su\n toi=s sunou=sin, ti/ e(/kaston ei)/ê tô=n o)/ntôn, ou)de/pote e)/lêge].]