Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/103

Rh and their minds thrown for the first time into an attitude of self-mistrust. They must in many instances have hated the very sight of Socrates, but there was no escaping him, for he had nothing else to do but always to be in market and forum, and all public places, ready to annoy. The young entertained a different feeling about him. Socrates had a great love for the society of youth, especially of the clever and promising. They afforded him the most hopeful materials to work upon; their minds were plastic, their prejudices less inveterate, their ardour uncooled, and their curiosity undulled by time and custom. Socrates constantly drew around him a band of such young men, over whom, by his versatile originality and many-sided talk, he exercised a great fascination. These constituted the Socratic school, which, by following out the suggestions of their master into various directions, created or commenced all that was best and most valuable in ancient philosophy. Among these, the most eminent were Euclid (not the geometrician) of Megara; Antisthenes, founder of the Cynics; Aristippus of Cyrene; and the lovely-minded Plato. Xenophon, probably when about eighteen years old, became one of the disciples of Socrates, but the bent of his mind was entirely practical, and he contributed nothing to the development of philosophy, and wrote no philosophical book, properly so called. Many other youths of the Socratic following took afterwards to political life, for which the training they had received in reasoning and discussion formed a useful preparation. Some turned out badly enough, and it was