rms as the _Socratic
School_. Not that we are to suppose that, in any technical sense,
Socrates founded _a_ school. The Academy, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and the
Garden, were each the chosen resort of distinct philosophic sects, the
locality of separate schools; but Athens itself, the whole city, was the
scene of the studies, the conversations, and the labors of Socrates. He
wandered through the streets absorbed in thought. Sometimes he stood
still for hours lost in profoundest meditation; at other times he might
be seen in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of Athenians, eagerly
discussing the great questions of the day.

Socrates, then, was not, in the usual sense of the word, a teacher. He
is not to be found in the Stoa or the Grove, with official aspect,
expounding a system of doctrine. He is "the garrulous oddity" of the
streets, putting the most searching and perplexing questions to every
bystander, and making every man conscious of his ignorance. He delivered
no lectures; he simply talked. He wrote no books; he only argued: and
what is usually styled his school must be understood as embracing those
who attended him in public as listeners and admirers, and who caught his
spirit, adopted his philosophic _method_, and, in after life, elaborated
and systematized the ideas they had gathered from him.

Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who
were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as
Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were
politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were
young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike
delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his
charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were
compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to
admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he
wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by
Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet."[488] Of these listeners,
however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who
imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of
philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes
the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the
dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting
impression upon the