g at. His opinion came to this: If a
madman may, as a matter of expediency to himself and his friends, be
kept in prison, surely, as a matter of justice, the man who knows not
what he ought to know should be content to sit at the feet of those who
know, and be taught.

But it was the rest of their kith and kin, not fathers only (according
to the accuser), whom Socrates dishonoured in the eyes of his circle
of followers, when he said that "the sick man or the litigant does not
derive assistance from his relatives, (26) but from his doctor in the
one case, and his legal adviser in the other." "Listen further to his
language about friends," says the accuser: "'What is the good of their
being kindly disposed, unless they can be of some practical use to you?
Mere goodness of disposition is nothing; those only are worthy of
honour who combine with the knowledge of what is right the faculty of
expounding it;' (27) and so by bringing the young to look upon himself
as a superlatively wise person gifted with an extraordinary capacity for
making others wise also, he so worked on the dispositions of those who
consorted with him that in their esteem the rest of the world counted
for nothing by comparison with Socrates."

(26) See Grote, "H. G." v. 535.

(27) Cf. Thuc. ii. 60. Pericles says, "Yet I with whom you are so
angry venture to say of myself, that I am as capable as any one of
devising and explaining a sound policy."--Jowett.

Now I admit the language about fathers and the rest of a man's
relations. I can go further, and add some other sayings of his, that
"when the soul (which is alone the indwelling centre of intelligence)
is gone out of a man, be he our nearest and dearest friend, we carry the
body forth and bury it out of sight." "Even in life," he used to say,
"each of us is ready to part with any portion of his best possession--to
wit, his own body--if it be useless and unprofitable. He will remove it
himself, or suffer another to do so in his stead. Thus men cut off their
own nails, hair, or corns; they allow surgeons to cut and cauterise
them, not without pains and aches, and are so grateful to the doctor for
his services that they further give him a fee. Or again, a man ejects
the spittle from his mouth as far as possible. (28) Why? Because it is
of no use while it stays within the system, but is detrimental rather."

(28) See Aristot. "Eth. Eud." vii. 1.

Now by these instances his object was not to