fe of Socrates a parting of the
ways in two senses: _first_, inasmuch as with him came the reaction
from a physical or theoretical philosophy, having its issue in a moral
chaos; and _second_, inasmuch as from him the two great streams of
later philosophy issued--the one a philosophy of law or universals in
_action_, the other a philosophy of law or universals in _thought_ and
_nature_ as well.

Socrates, son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a midwife, was
born at Athens in or about the year 469 B.C. His parents were probably
poor, for Socrates is represented as having been too poor to pay the
fees required for instruction by the Sophists of his time. But in
whatever way acquired or assimilated, it is certain that there was
little of the prevalent culture in cultivated Athens with which
Socrates had not ultimately a working acquaintance.

Among a people distinguished generally for their handsome features and
noble proportions, Socrates was a notable exception. His face was
squat and {104} round, his eyes protruding, his lips thick; he was
clumsy and uncouth in appearance, careless of dress, a thorough
'Bohemian,' as we should call him. He was, however, gifted with an
uncommon bodily vigour, was indifferent to heat and cold, by
temperament moderate in food and drink, yet capable on occasion of
drinking most people 'under the table.' He was of an imperturbable
humour, not to be excited either by danger or by ridicule. His vein of
sarcasm was keen and trenchant, his natural shrewdness astonishing, all
the more astonishing because crossed with a strange vein of mysticism
and a curious self-forgetfulness. As he grew up he felt the visitation
of a mysterious internal voice, to which or to his own internal
communings he would sometimes be observed to listen in abstracted
stillness for hours. The voice within him was felt as a restraining
force, limiting his action in various ways, but leaving him free to
wander about among his fellows, to watch their doings and interpret
their thoughts, to question unweariedly his fellows of every class,
high and low, rich and poor, concerning righteousness and justice and
goodness and purity and truth. He did not enter on his philosophic
work with some grand general principle ready-made, to which he was
prepared to fit the facts by hook or by crook. Rather he compared
himself to his mother, the midwife; he sought to help others to {105}
express themselves; he had nothing t