Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/548



T very different and even entirely opposite judgements should be formed by different men, and according to the spirit of different times, on minds of a leading and peculiar order, and that it should be late, if ever, before opinions agree as to their worth, is a phenomenon of everyday occurrence. But it is less natural, indeed it seems almost surprising, that at any one time a judgement should be generally received with regard to any such mind, which is in glaring contradiction with itself. Yet, if I am not mistaken, it is actually the case with Socrates, that the portrait usually drawn of him, and the historical importance which is almost unanimously attributed to him, are at irreconcilable variance. With Socrates most writers make a new period to begin in the history of Greek philosophy; which at all events manifestly implies that he breathed a new spirit and character into those intellectual exertions of his countrymen, which we comprehend under the name of philosophy, so that they assumed a new form under his hands, or at least that he materially widened their range. But if we inquire how the same writers describe Socrates as an individual, we find nothing that can serve as a foundation for the influence they assign to him. We are informed, that he did not at all busy himself with the physical investigations which constituted a main part even of Greek philosophy, but rather withheld others from them, and that even with regard to moral inquiries, which were those in which he engaged the deepest, he did not by any means aim at reducing them into a scientific shape, and that he established