Page:The Platonic Dialogues for English Readers, vol. 1, 1st. ed. (Whewell, 1859).pdf/19

6 INTRODUCTION to a surrounding body of pupils assembled for that purpose, a system which he had framed in his own mind. Socrates was a private Athenian citizen, who like other citizens had served in various public offices; served too as a soldier, and served well ; and whose favourite and constant employment it was to spend his time in the streets, in the market-place, in the open shops, wherever the Athenians lounged and gossiped. There he got hold of one person after another, and questioned and cross-questioned him, and argued with him in the most pertinacious and unsparing manner. His appearance gave point to his copious and eager speech. His countenance was plain, amounting to grotesque, but vigorous, vivacious and good-humoured in a striking degree; his nose was flat, his mouth wide, his lips large, his fore-head broad, with strong arches of wrinkles over each eye-brow, giving him a look of humorous earnestness; his figure solid but ungraceful, and his dress of the plainest materials. Why should the elegant and fastidious gentlemen of Athens care to listen to the talk of such a garrulous oddity of the streets? Why they should, we must learn by learning what that talk was, which we shall attempt to shew according to the representation given of it by his admirers. But that many of the brightest spirits of the time were wrought upon in a wonderful manner by these conversations, we have proof in this ;---that they employed themselves in after life mainly in following out the notions which they had caught from him, and in impressing them upon others. Among the principal of these was Plato; and as I have said, he published, that is, circulated among his friends and followers, many written Dialogues, in all of which Socrates is the principal character. So