is disorder, but the learned physician returned answer
that not he, but his opponents were deranged. Whether this story be a
fabrication or not, we may regard it as a testimony that wise men saw
much truth in his philosophy. Montaigne, in his Essay on Democritus and
Heraclitus, gives his preference to the former, "Because," he observes,
"men are more to be laughed at than hated," showing that he regarded him
as imputing folly to men rather than vice.

Even Socrates, whom we are accustomed to regard as the most earnest of
philosophers was by no means a melancholy man. Fully aware of the
influence exercised by humour, he often put his teachings into an
indirect form, and he seems to have first thus generally attracted
attention. He introduced what is called irony[10]--the using expressions
which literally mean exactly the opposite to what is intended. A man may
be either praised or blamed in this way, but Socrates' intention was
always sarcastic. He put questions to men, as if merely desiring some
information they could easily give him, while he knew that his inquiries
could not be answered, without overthrowing the theories of those he
addressed. Thus, he gave instruction whilst he seemed to solicit it. In
various other ways he enlivened and recommended his doctrines by
humorous illustration. It is said that he even went to the theatre to
see himself caricatured, laughed as heartily as any, and stood up to
show the audience how correctly his ill-favoured countenance had been
reproduced. This story may be questioned, and it has been observed that
he was not insensible to ridicule, for he said shortly before his death
that no one would deride him any longer. We are told that he spent some
of his last days in versifying the fables of AEsop.

We now return from theoretical to practical life, from the philosophers
to the public. Nothing exhibits more forcibly the variable character of
humour than that, while philosophers in their "thinking shops" were
laughing at the follies of the world, the populace in the theatre were
shaking their sides at the absurdities of sages. Ordinary men did not
appreciate abstract views, nor understand abstruse philosophic humour,
indeed it died out almost as soon as it appeared, and was only
contemporary with a certain epoch in the mental history of Greece. Every
popular man is to a great extent a reflection of the age in which he
lives, "a boat borne up by a billow;" and what, in this respect is