nd Fidelity.

Socrates is the man who has actually achieved goodness, and tries to make
a science and art of goodness, to find a way in which it can be clearly
known and rationally and effectively taught. "Can virtue be taught?" is
his characteristic question. The chief result of his keen scrutiny is to
bring to light how little men really know of the higher life,--how little
he knows of it himself. The effect of this revelation of ignorance is
not a despair of truth, but a humility which is the beginning of wisdom.
The deepest thing in Socrates is his knowledge of the good life as a
reality, and of the joy and peace which it brings. Secure in this, he
can go on in the most fearless temper, and even with light-hearted
jesting, to sift the questions. Intellectually, his main achievement is
to bring out clearly the problems to be faced, and to give an immense
stimulus to the higher class of minds.

In the picture of Socrates by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, which bears
all the marks of true portraiture, goodness goes with happiness and
knowledge. It is a most winning combination--beautiful as a Greek
statue. Xenophon lays stress on his happiness, but the basis is
self-command. Among a people where even religion and philosophy were
tolerant of sensuality, he was pure. He was hardy, trained to bear heat
and cold, temperate, simple, faithful to civic duty, a reverent worshiper
of the gods, watchful for the divine leading.

Xenophon shows him absorbed in teaching, imparting the best he has found,
never so happy as when he can win a young man to virtue. His ideal
society is the union of those who together are seeking goodness and
knowledge.

His patience is shown under the worst of domestic annoyances, a scolding
wife,--he says he thus learns to bear all other crosses. His admonition
to his son to bear with her shows genuine tenderness.

He has the heroic quality. He resists the raging people, and refuses the
part assigned him in voting the death sentence on the generals whose
defeat had been a misfortune and not a fault. He calmly disobeys the
Thirty Tyrants, at the risk of his life. He dies at last, a tranquil
martyr to fearless truth-speaking.

He teaches nobly of Providence, the Supreme, the guidance from above. He
conforms to the religion of his people, while planting a higher truth.
When Athens, faithfully warned by him in vain, was sinking toward ruin
and decay, he was sowing the seeds of spiritual