302

ΠΛΑΤΩΝΟΣ ΦΑΙΔΩΝ.

his protection, and entrusted him with
the tuition of his children. He now re-
linquished his former occupation, and
became a diligent attendant upon the
public lectures of the eminent philoso-
His first preceptor
phers of his time.
was Anaxagoras, upon whose departure
from Athens, he attached himself to Ar-
chelaus. Prodicus, the sophist, was his
preceptor in eloquence; Evenus, in po-
etry; Theodorus, in geometry; and Da-
mo in music; Aspasia had also some
share in the philosophical education of
Socrates.

He was not long in attaining to the
eminence he deserved; he was the first
who checked and exposed, by his own
character and influence, the mischief and
impositions of the sophists, a large body
of professional preceptors at Athens, who,
by a vicious system of instruction, being
themselves possessed merely of a super-
ficial and seeming knowledge, by an
idle abuse of language, and a pernicious
perversion of reason, were gradually cor-
rupting the minds and misleading the
abilities of the Athenian youth. His
successful opposition, and overthrow of
this class of false philosophers, whom he
encountered with the arms of good sense,
irony, and powerful argument, though in
the highest degree advantageous to his
country, proved, among other things,
eventually fatal to himself.

He became, says Tennemann, the in-
structor of his countrymen and of man-
kind, not for the love of lucre nor of re-
putation, but in consequence of a sense
of duty. He was desirous, above all
things, to repress the flight of specu-
lative theories by the force of an imper-
turbable good sense; to submit the pre-
tensions of science to the control of a
higher authority, that of virtue; and to
re-unite religion to morality. Without
becoming, properly speaking, the founder
of a philosophical school, yet by his ex-
ample, by what he taught, and by his
manner of communicating it, he ren-
dered, as a wise man and popular teach-
er, immense service to the cause of phi-
losophy; calling the attention of in-
quirers to those subjects which are of
everlasting importance to man, and
pointing out the source from which our
knowledge (to be complete) must be de-
rived; from an investigation of our own
minds.

Concerning the genius, or damon of
Socrates, there have been many and dif-
The Abbè Fraguier,
ferent opinions.

Mem. Acad. Bell. Lett. t. iv., under-
stands it of the wisdom and prudence of
the philosopher, which enabled him to
foresee what others never would have
thought of; for prudence, according to
Cicero, is a kind of divination. Plu-
tarch and Apuleius, who have written
separate treatises on this subject, are in
favour of a similar explanation. So also
Dr. Nares, in his Essay on the Dæ-
mon of Socrates, 8vo. 1782., who re-
marks, that Socrates believed in the
gods of his country, and was not free
from the superstition connected with
that belief; whence it may be inferred,
that in the expressions usually under-
stood to refer to his dæmon, he alludes
only to some species of divination per-
fectly analogous to the omens of his age
and country, calling the sign, whatever
it was, by means of which the supposed
intimations were made to him, a dæmon
or divinity. He would otherwise, as
Xenophon observes, have incurred the
charge of falsehood and arrogance if he
had not declined assuming to himself
the merit of an unerring judgment, and
if he had pretended to any gift superior
to that which is obtained from the divine
wisdom by the suggestions of reason.-
Whatever Soerates may have intended
by it, still, as the same writer observes,
it afforded abundant scope for that por-
tion of his accusation in which he was
charged with the introduction of new
deities.

Socrates has left nothing in writing
after him, but his illustrious pupils,
Plato and Xenophon, have in some mea-
sure supplied this defect. Of the dis-
ciples who survived him, Xenophon,
Eschines, Simo, Crito, and Cebes dis-
seminated the principles of their master,
and lived agreeably to them. Among
those who especially devoted themselves
to the pursuits of philosophy, Antisthe-
nes, the Athenian founder of the Cynic
school, subsequently Aristippus, the chief
of the Cyrenaic, and afterwards Pyrrho,
gave their attention exclusively to ques-
tions of morals, and their practical ap-
plication. Euclid of Megara, Phædo of
Elis, Menedemus of Eretria, were oc-
cupied with theoretical or metaphysical
inquiries. But the superior genius of
Plato embraced both these topics at once,
and united the two principal branches of
Socraticism, either of which was found
sufficient to employ the generality of the
Socratic philosophers alone. (Cf. Ten-
nemann, Man. Phil. Enf. Hist. Phil.)

ἀπαυθαδιάζομαι. Apol. Socr. c. 27.
ἀπιστος σεαυτῷ. Apol. Socr. c. 14.
ἀποδείξειε λῆρον τόν Ενδυμίωνα.
Phæd. c. 17.
ἀποικία. Crit. c. 13.

ἀποκάμῃς σῶσαι σαυτὸν. Crit. c. 4.
ἀπολαβόντες—ἄνεμοι αὐτοὺς, Phæd.

διαβέβληνται τῷ σώματι. Phædo. c. ἐρήμην κατηγορεῖν. Apol. Socr. c. 2.

θανατᾷν. Phæd. c. 9. θανατῶν, θανάτου ἐπιθυμῶν. Ibid. θεία μοῖρα. Apol. Socr. c. 22. θεωρία εἰς Δῆλον. Phæd. c. 1. ἐνθῆρα τοῦ ὄντος. Phæd. c. 11.

|

μετοικεῖν. Crit. c. 13.
| μέτρια λέγειν. Phæd. c. 37.
μετρίως ἔχειν. Αpol. Socr. c. 29.
μοῖρα θεία. Apol. Socr. c. 22.
μοίρᾳ (ἐν μείζονι) Crit. c. 12.
μορμολύκεια. Phæd. c. 24.
μορμολύττηται. Crit. c. 6.
μουσική. Crit. c. 12. Phæd. c. 4.
μυρία πενία. Apol Socr. c. 9.
μύωψ. Apol. Socr. c. 18.

ὄρθρος βαθὺς. Crit. c. 1.

ὅσια καὶ νόμιμα. Phæd. c. 57.
οὐδὲν λέγει. Apol. Socr. c. 17.
οὐσία. Phæd. c. 10. and elsewhere.
οὕτως. Phæd. c. 37.
οὕτως ἀπέχεται. Phæd. c. 33.
οὐχ ἥκιστα. Phæd. c. 66.
ὀφλεῖν δίκην. Αpol. Socr. c. 29.
· μοχθηρίαν. Αpol. Socr. c. 29.
· ἀδικίαν. Ibid.

II.

πάθος—τά γε ἐμὰ πάθη. Phæd. c. 45. παιδικῶν. Phæd. c. 12,

παιδοτρίβης. Crit. c. 7.

παρακρούω. Crit. c. 6.

παραμυθία. Phæd. c. 14.

παρέχειν ἐμαυτὸν ἐρωτῶν. Apol. Socr. c. 4.

— πράγματα. Phæd. c. 63.

παριέναι εἰς ψυχὴν. Phæd. c. 40.
παρίσταταί μοι. Phæd. c. 2.

· δόξα. Phæd. c. 11.

πᾶν ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν. Apol. Socr. c.

29.

πᾶν (τὸ) μέλει. Apol. Socr. c. 20. πάντας οὐκ ἀποδέχεσθε. Phad. c.

41.

πάσχειν (πάθος). Phæd. c. 25, c. 39.