g from it, save for
short periods on three occasions, when he served in military
expeditions in the Athenian army. For from twenty to thirty years he
laboured at his philosophical mission in Athens, until, in his
seventieth year, he was charged with denying the national gods,
introducing new gods of his own, and corrupting the Athenian youth. On
these charges he was condemned to death and executed.

{128}

The personal appearance of Socrates was grotesque. He was short,
thick-set, and ugly. As he grew older he became bald; his nose was
broad, flat, and turned up; he walked with a peculiar gait, and had a
trick of rolling his eyes. His clothes were old and poor. He cared
little or nothing for external appearances.

Socrates believed that he was guided in all his actions by a
supernatural voice, which he called his "daemon." This voice, he
thought, gave him premonitions of the good or evil consequences of his
proposed actions, and nothing would induce him to disobey its
injunctions. Socrates constructed no philosophy, that is to say, no
system of philosophy. He was the author of philosophical tendencies,
and of a philosophic method. He never committed his opinions to
writing. His method of philosophizing was purely conversational. It
was his habit to go down every day to the market place in Athens, or
to any other spot where people gathered, and there to engage in
conversation with anyone who was ready to talk to him about the deep
problems of life and death. Rich or poor, young or old, friend or
stranger, whoever came, and would attend, could listen freely to the
talk of Socrates. He took no fees, as the Sophists did, and remained
always a poor man. He did not, like the Sophists, deliver long
speeches, tirades, and monologues. He never monopolised the
conversation, and frequently it was the other party who did most of
the talking, Socrates only interposing questions and comments, and yet
remaining always master of the conversation, and directing it into
fruitful channels. The conversation proceeded chiefly by the method of
question and answer, Socrates by acute questions educing, bringing to
birth, {129} the thoughts of his partner, correcting, refuting, or
developing them.

In carrying on this daily work, Socrates undoubtedly regarded himself
as engaged upon a mission in some way supernaturally imposed upon him
by God. Of the origin of this mission we have an account in the
"Apology" of Plato, who puts into the mo