Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/369

* SOCIOLOGY. 315 SOCRATES. sympathetic, are wastefully accomplished as coinijaicd with those achieved by the higher foiius. These laws are otherwise t'urimilatcd as the great laws of diminishing and increasing re- turns, long familiar to economic science, but equallj' true in the realm of social phenomena. W lien the lower forms of activity are carried far they begin to yield diminisliing returns. When old channels of activity are obstructed energies break* through into new channels, and for a time new adjustments yield increasing returns. By these laws we account for the substitution of reason for impulse, of deliberation for mob-like action. The substitution is in a broad sense a natural selection. Social activities and forms begin unconsciously. In the course of time men, becoming aware of the social relations that have spontaneously developed, try to perfect them. They create institutions and carry out policies. The unconscious operations of nature now again assert themselves. Some of the products of man's invention, proving useful, and promuting his welfare, survive. Others perish and arc for- gotten. Those social forms survive which, like organisms successful in the struggle for exist- ence, yield on the whole increasing returns of useful conversions of energj'. BinLiot;R.PHY. See works quoted in text. SOCKEYE (corruption of Indian name sau- qiii or siiirkryc). One of the most prominent of Pacific salmon, the blueback. See Salmon. SOCLE. A plain plinth, forming a pedestal for tlic support of a statue, column, etc. SOCOR'RO. A town of the Department of Santander, Colombia, formerly its capital, 145 miles northeast of Bogota (]Iap: Colombia, C 2). It has crooked streets and flag pavements. Its chief industries are the weaving of mantles and th(^ manufacture of straw hats. Its popula- tion in 18St) was about 20.000. The town was founded in 1540 and after its destruction in 1681 moved to its present location. In 1781 a for- midable revolt took place here, and in 1810 there was issued a formal declaration of independence from Spain. SOCOTRA, or SOKOTRA, su-kr/tra or sok'- 6-tra. An inland in the Indian Ocean, at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, about 147 miles east of Cape Guardafui (Map: Africa, K 3). It is 80 miles long and 55 miles broad. Area. 1382 square miles. The centre of the island is occu- pied by the Haghier chain, attaining nearly 5000 feet. The coasts are partly fringed by clill's, mostly low. There is a long plain of drifted sand along the southern shore. The valleys are well watered and rich in vegetation. The cli- mate is hot and dry. The dry season lasts from May to October, during which time there is practically no rain in the lower parts of the island, and many of the rivers dry up entirely. The flora is of great variety and abounds in many aromatic species, such as dragon's-blood, myrrh, frankincense, aloe. etc. There is little agriculture. The principal products of the island are butter and incense which are exported to Bombay, Zanzibar, and Arabia. The natives keep extensive herds of goats and cows. Politically Socotra is a pro- tectorate of Great Britain, but foreign control extends hardly beyond the collection of taxes. The population is estimated at 10.000 — ^ mixed race of Arabs and Hindus who are found along Vol. XVIIL— 21. the coasts, and the Sokotri, the aborigines of the island, who are also believed to be of Arable origin, and are confined ])rincipally to the moun- taincnis districts. Alexander is credited by the .rab geographers with luiving founded a settle- ment in Socotra, which came latei- under Persian inlluenee. It was occupied by the Portuguese at the beginning of the sixteenth century ami now forms a part of the Sultanate of Kishin. It was annexed by Great Britain in 1880. SOCRATES (Lat., from Gk. SuKpdTjjs) ( n.c. 4ljl>-3'.li.l ) . An Athenian philosoplicr. He lived tlirough the age of Pericles, the Pelopnnnesian War. and the tyranny of the 'Thirty,' and was condenmed to drink the hemlock cu]) by the re- stored democracy. He was of humble but genu- ine Athenian stock. Plato makes him compare his own art of delivering pregnant minds of their conceptions to the profession of midwife exer- cised by his mother. He received as a boy only the old-fashioned elementary education in nuisic and gymnastics, but later familiarized himself with the modern education of the Sophists in rhetoric and dialectics, with the speculations of the Ionic philosophers, and all the new culture of which Periclean .thens was the focus. Plato represents him as veiling behind an ironical pro- fession of ignorance an ingenuity and resource- fulness that made him moreihan a match for the most distinguished specialists. Xcnophon, while atlirming that Socrates held the proper study of mankind to be the moral life of man. adds that he was by no means iniverscd in the curious inutilities of mathematical and physical specu- lation. He followed at first the craft of his father, a sculptor, and tradition attributed to him a group of the three Graces draped, which Pausanias saw on the Acropolis. The .greater jiart of his mature life, however, was spent in the market place, streets, and public resorts of Athens in conversation with all who cared to listen, or whom he could lure to render an ac- count of their souls and submit themselves to his peculiar style of interrogation. In Plato and Xenophon he has no other occupation, except, of course, the normal civic duties of cver.y free-born Athenian. He served as a hoplite with con- spicuous bravery at Potidiea ( B.C. 432 ). Delium (424), and Ani'phipolis (422). In B.C. 400 the chances of the lot made him a member of the senate of the 500 and presiding prytanis on the day when the illegal motion was olTered to con- demn to death by one vote the generals who had lu^glected or been luiable to rescue the woiuided after the naval battle of Arginusa>. He refused to consent to the putting of the vote, defying the anger of the mob, even as a few years later he withstood the tyrants and refused to execute the command of the 'Thirty' bidding him assist in the arrest of an innocent citizen, Leon of Sala- mis. By his wife, Xanthippe, he had three sons, one of whom was a lad at the time of his father's death. The tradition of Xanthippe as the scolding wife and typical shrew is ignored by Plato, who merely mentions her presence in the prison on the last day before and after the dialogue on immortality. In the Apologii or defense which Plato puts into his mouth on his trial, Socrates half seri- ously affirms that his peculiar way of life was a mission imposed upon him by God. The oracle of Delphi (the story presupposes that he was already well known), in response to the question