Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/468

 446 HISTORY OF GREECE. It is by Plate frhat the negative and indirect vein of Sokrates has been worked out and immortalized ; while Xenophon, who sym- pathized little in it, complains that others looked at his master too exclusively on this side, and that' they could not conceive him as a guide to virtue, but only as a stirring and propulsive force. 1 One of the principal objects of his "Memorabilia" is, to show that Sokrates, after having worked upon novices sufficiently with the negative line of questions, altered his tone, desisted from embar- rassing them, and addressed to them precepts not less plain and simple than directly useful in practice. 2 I do not at all doubt that this was often the fact, and that the various dialogues in which Xenophon presents to us the philosopher inculcating self- control, temperance, piety, duty to parents, brotherly love, fidelity in friendship, diligence, benevolence, etc., on positive grounds, are a faithful picture of one valuable side of his character, and an essential part of the whole. Such direct admonitory influence was common to Sokrates with Prodikus and the best of the sophists. It is, however, neither from the virtue of his life, nor from the 85, 292) also treats the irony of Sokrates as intended to mock and humil- iate his fellow-dialogists, and it sometimes appears so in the dialogues of Plato. Yet I douht whether the real Sokrates could have had any pro- nounced purpose of this kind. 1 The beginning of Xen. Mem. i, 4, 1, is particularly striking on this head : El Se Tivef liUKpuTrjv vofii&vaiv (wf EVIOI ypdfyovai re Kal teyovai Tcepl avTov TEKfiaipofiEvoi) Ttporp Eipaatia i /isv uvdpurrovc trf uperrjv Kparia- rov yeyovivai, it poayayelv 6e &T* avrrjv ov% IKOVOV OKeifiupEvoi fir) uovov a EKEIV of JcoAaor rj piov I v E K a rot)f irav~ J o iofie- vovf eldevai ipuruv ^7(.eyx EV > u^u KOI u Af yuv avv6ir]/j.pev roif aw6ia.Tpi[3ovaiv, doKifia^ovruv, d licavbf f/v fte^Tiovf noielv Taiif ffvvovraf examines and humiliates Euthydemus, says at the end: 'O 6e (Sokrates) cif lyvu avrbv ovruf %ovTa, jjut a TO. pev avrbv dieruparrev, air ^ovarara 6e nai aatyiaraT a k^riyelro a re evofu&v eldevai 6elv not a emTTjfieiieiv Kpuriara elvai. Again, ir, 7, 1. "On pev ovv AirXuf TTJV eavrov yvufiqv atre^alvsro SwKpa7T7f Tptf roiif 6/ztAoCvraf avTy, AOKSI uoi d^Aov ex ruv flpypEvw elvat, etc. His readers were evidently likely to doubt, ard required proof, that Sokrates could speak plainly, directly, and positively : so much better known was the other side of his character.
 * Xenophon, after describing the dialogue wherein Sokrates cross-