important to be known, the nature of goodness, beauty, and truth.
He believed that the self-styled knowledge of the wise was, for the
most part, nothing but pretentious ignorance. Nevertheless, he used
this profession of ignorance as a weapon of offence, and it became in
his hands a powerful rhetorical instrument, which he used with
specially telling effect against those who, puffed up with their own
importance and wisdom, pretended to knowledge which they did not
possess. Such hollow pretence of knowledge met with uncompromising
exposure at the hands of Socrates. With such persons he would open the
{131} conversation with a confession of his own ignorance and an
expression of his desire to learn the wisdom, which, he knew, they
possessed. In their eagerness to show off their knowledge, they would,
perhaps, rush into the breach with some very positive assertion.
Socrates would express himself as delighted with this, but would add
that there were one or two things about it which he did not fully
understand, and he would proceed, with a few dexterous questions, to
expose the hollowness, the shallowness, or the ignorance of the
answers.

It was chiefly the young men of Athens who gathered round Socrates,
who was for them a centre of intellectual activity and a fountain of
inspiration. It was this fact which afterwards formed the basis of the
charge that he "corrupted the youth." He was a man of the noblest
character and of the simplest life. Accepting no fees, he acquired no
wealth. Poor, caring nothing for worldly goods, wholly independent of
the ordinary needs and desires of men, he devoted himself exclusively
to the acquisition of that which, in his eyes, alone had value, wisdom
and virtue. He was endowed with the utmost powers of physical
endurance and moral strength. When he served with the army in the
Peloponnesian war, he astonished his fellow-soldiers by his bravery,
and his cheerful endurance of every hardship. On two occasions, at
considerable risk to himself, he saved the lives of his companions. At
the battle of Delium it is said that Socrates was the only man who
kept his head in the rout of the Athenians. He was an excellent
companion, and though simple in his habits, and independent of all
material pleasures, never made a fetish of this independence, nor
allowed it to degenerate into a harsh asceticism, {132} Thus, he
needed no wine, but yet, if occasion called for it, he not only drank,
but could drink mo