Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/428

 406 HISTORY OF GREECE. of all the religious duties considered as incumbent upon an Athenian. 1 Though these points are requisite to be established, in ordei that we may rightly interpret the character of Sokrates, it is not from them that he has derived his eminent place in history. Three peculiarities distinguish the man. 1. His long life passed in contented poverty, and in public, apostolic dialectics. 2. His strong religious persuasion, or belief, of acting under a mission and signs from the gods ; especially his daemon, or genius ; the special religious warning of which he believed himself to be fre- quently the subject. 3. His great intellectual originality, both of subject and of method, and his power of stirring and forcing the germ of inquiry and ratiocination in others. Though these three characteristics were so blended in Sokrates that it is not easy to consider them separately ; yet, in each respect, he stood distinguished from all Greek philosophers before or after him. At what time Sokrates relinquished his profession as a statu- ary we do not know ; but it is certain that all the middle and later part of his life, at least, was devoted exclusively to the self- imposed task of teaching ; excluding all other business, public or private, and to the neglect of all means of fortune. We can hardly avoid speaking of him as a teacher, though he himself disclaimed the appellation : 2 his practice was to talk or converse, or to prattle without end, 3 if we translate the derisory word by which the ene- mies of philosophy described dialectic conversation. Early in the morning he frequented the public walks, the gymnasia for bodily training, and the schools where youths were receiving in- struction : he was to be seen in the market-place at the hour when it was most crowded, among the booths and tables where goods were exposed for sale : his whole day was usually spent in thi? 1 Xcnoph. Mcmor. i, 1, 2-20 ; i, 3, 1-3. Plato, Apol. Sokr. c. 21, p. 33, A. yw tie 6tduaica/.of fj.h> 77(I>7ror ijEvofirjv : compare c. 4, p. 1 9, E. Xenoph. Memor. iii, 11, 16. Sokrates: i-xtaKu-xruv r^v eavrov u-xpa-y- uoff'uvTiv ; Plat. Ap. Sok. c. 18, p. 31, B. 293, of Schneider's edition of that treatise. Compare Plato, Sophistes, c 23, p. 225, E.
 * ' ' KdoTieaxelv ; sec Ruhnken's Animadversiones in Xenoph. Mcmor. p