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550 enough in all that Socrates says of himself in Plato's Apology, and what Alcibiades says of him in his eulogy. So that if we conceive this to have been the central point in the character of Socrates, we may reconcile Plato and Xenophon, and can understand the historical position of Socrates.

When Xenophon says (Mem. IV. 6. 15.): that as often as Socrates did not merely refute the errors of others, but at- tempted to demonstrate something himself, he took his road through propositions which were most generally admitted : we can perfectly understand this mode of proceeding, as the result of the design just described; he wished to find as few hindrances and diversions as possible in his way, that he might illustrate his method clearly and simply ; and propositions, if there were such, which all held to be certain, must have appeared to him the most eligible, in order that he might shew in their case, that the conviction with which they were embraced was not knowledge ; since this would render men more keenly sensible of the necessity of getting at the foundation of knowledge, and of taking their stand upon it, in order to give a new shape to all human things. Hence too we may explain the preponder- ance of the subjects connected with civil and domestic life in most of these conversations. For this was the field that sup- plied the most generally admitted conceptions and propositions, the fate of which interested all men alike. But this mode of proceeding becomes inexplicable, if it is supposed that Socrates attached the chief importance to the subject of these conversa- tions. That must have been quite a secondary point. For when the object is to elucidate any subject, it is necessary to pay attention to the less familiar and more disputed views of it, and how meager most of those discussions in Xenophon are in this respect, is evident enough. From the same point of view we must also consider the controversy of Socrates with the Sophists. So far as it was directed against their maxims, it does not be- long to our present question; it is merely the opposition of a good citizen to the corrupters of government and of youth. But even looking at it from the purely theoretical side, it would be idle to represent this contrast as the germ of a new period of philosophy, if Socrates had only impugned opinions which were the monstrous shapes into which the doctrines of an earlier school had degenerated, without having established any in their