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Rh no fixed principle for this, any more than for any other branch of human knowledge. The base of his intellectual constitution, we are told, was rather religious than speculative, his exertions rather those of a good citizen, directed to the improvement of the people, and especially of the young, than those of a. philosopher ; in short, he is represented as a virtuoso in the exercise of sound common sense, and of that strict integrity and mild philanthropy, with which it is always associated in an uncorrupted mind ; all this, however, tinged with a slight air of enthusiasm. These are no doubt excellent qua- lities; but yet they are not such as fit a man to play a brilliant part in history, but rather, unless where peculiar circumstances intervene, to lead a life of enviable tranquillity, so that it would be necessary to ascribe the general reputation of Socrates, and the almost unexampled homage which has been paid to him by so many generations, less to himself than to such peculiar circumstances. But least of all are these qua^ lities which could have produced conspicuous and permanent eflPects on the philosophical exertions of a people already far advanced in intellectual culture. And this is confirmed, when we consider what sort of doctrines and opinions are attributed to Socrates in conformity with this view. For in spite of the pains taken to trick them out with a shew of philosophy, it is impossible after all to give them any scientific solidity whatever : the farthest point we come to is, that they are thoughts well suited to warm the hearts of men in favour of goodness, but such as a healthy understanding, fully awakened to reflexion, cannot fail to light upon of itself. What effect then can they have wrought on the progress, or the transformation of philo- sophy? If we would confine ourselves to the wellknown state- ment, that Socrates called philosophy down from heaven to earth, that is to houses and marketplaces, in other words, that he proposed social life as the object of research in the room of nature : still the influence thus ascribed to him is far from salutary in itself, for philosophy consists not in a partial culti* vation. either of morals or physics, but in the coexistence and intercommunion of both, and there is moreover no historical evidence that he really exerted it. The foundations of ethical philosophy had been laid before the time of Socrates, in the doc- trines of the Pythagoreans, and after him it only kept its place