enter into the spirit of Socrates
and Plato becomes heir to their thoughts and interprets them to us.
And the thought of one man enriches all races and times.

But a great teacher like Socrates is not merely an intellectual
power. "Probe a little deeper, surgeon," said the French soldier,
"and you'll find the emperor." Napoleon may have impressed himself
on the soldier's intellect; he had enthroned himself in his heart.
"Slave," said the old Roman, Marius, to the barbarian who had been
sent into the dungeon to despatch him, "slave, wouldst thou kill
Cains Marius?" And the barbarian, though backed by all the power of
Rome, is said to have fled in dismay. Why did he run away? I do not
know. I only know that I should have done the same. One more
instance. Some thirty years ago the northern army was fleeing, a
disorganized mob, toward Winchester. Early had fallen upon them
suddenly in the gray of the morning, and, while one corps still held
its ground, the rest of the army was melting away in panic. Then a
little red-faced trooper came tearing down the line shouting, "Face
the other way boys; face the other way." And those panic-stricken
men turned and rolled an irresistible avalanche of heroes upon the
Confederate lines. What made them turn about? It was something which
I can neither define nor analyze--the personal power of Sheridan. It
is the secret of every great leader of men. Now Sheridan had
imparted more than information to these men. Is it too much to say
that he put himself into them? From such men power streams out like
electricity from a huge dynamo.

Now society furnishes the medium through which such a man can act.
You have all met such men, though probably not more than one or two
of them. But one such man is a host. They may be men of few words.
But their very presence and look calls out all that is good in you;
and while you are with them evil loses its power. Says the gay and
licentious Alcibiades, in Plato's "Banquet" concerning Socrates:

"When I heard Pericles or any other great orator, I was entertained
and delighted, and I felt that he had spoken well. But no mortal
speech has ever excited in my mind such emotions as are excited by
this magician. Whenever I hear him, I am, as it were, charmed and
fettered. My heart leaps like an inspired Corybant. My inmost soul
is stung by his words as by the bite of a serpent. It is indignant
at its own rude and ignoble character. I often weep tears of regret
a