and unjust, and to struggle for
eminence, guilt. Unable to rise themselves, of course they would wish to
preach liberty and equality. But nature proclaims the law of the
stronger.... We surround our children from their infancy with
preposterous prejudices about liberty and justice. The man of sense
tramples on such impositions, and shows what Nature's justice is.... I
confess, Socrates, philosophy is a highly amusing study--in moderation,
and for boys. But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your
philosopher is a complete novice in the life _comme il faut_.... I like
very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about
it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the
child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this
prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals.
The Aleibiades, of the "_Symposium_," is the ideal representative of the
young aristocracy of Athens. Such was the condition of society
generally, and such the degeneracy of even the Government itself, that
Plato impressively declares "that God alone could save the young men of
his age from ruin."[505]

[Footnote 504: Between these two extreme theories there were offered
two, apparently less extravagant, accounts of the nature and limits of
human knowledge--one declaring that "_Science_(real knowledge) _consists
in right opinion_" (doxa alethes), but having no further basis in the
reason of man ("Theaestetus," Sec. 108); and the other affirming that
"_Science is right opinion with logical explication or definition_"
(meta loxou, "Theaetetus," Sec. 139). A close examination will, however,
convince us that these are but modifications of the sensational theory.
The latter forcibly remind us of the system of Locke, who adds
"reflection" to "sensation," but still maintains that all on "simple
ideas" are obtained from without, and that these are the only material
upon which reflection can be exercised. Thus the human mind has no
criterion of truth within itself, no elements of knowledge which are
connatural and inborn.]

[Footnote 505: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vii.]

Therefore the grand, the vital, the most urgent question for his times,
as indeed for all times, was, _What is Truth? What is Right_? In the
midst of all this variableness and uncertainty of human opinion, is
there no ground of certainty? Amid all the fluctuations and changes
around us and within u