frame proper concepts. He went about enquiring, "What is virtue?"
"What is prudence?" "What is temperance?"--meaning thereby "what are
the true concepts or definitions of these things?" In this way he
attempted to find a basis for believing in an objectively real truth
and an objectively real moral law.

His method of forming concepts was by induction. He would take common
examples of actions which are universally admitted to be prudent, and
would attempt to find the quality which they all have in common, and
by virtue of which they are all classed together, and so form the
concept of prudence. Then he would bring up fresh examples, and see
whether they agreed with the concept so formed. If not, the concept
might have to be corrected in the light of the new examples.

But the Socratic theory of knowledge was not a theory put forward for
its own sake, but for practical ends. Socrates always made theory
subservient to practice. He wanted to know what the concept of virtue
is, only in order to practise virtue in life. And this brings us to
the central point of the ethical teaching of Socrates, {147} which was
the identification of virtue with knowledge. Socrates believed that a
man cannot act rightly, unless he first knows what is right, unless,
in fact, he knows the concept of right. Moral action is thus founded
upon knowledge, and must spring from it. But not only did Socrates
think that if a man has not knowledge, he cannot do right. He also put
forward the much more doubtful assertion that if a man possesses
knowledge, he cannot do wrong. All wrong-doing arises from ignorance.
If a man only knows what is right, he must and will infallibly do what
is right. All men seek the good, but men differ as to what the good
is. "No man," said Socrates, "intentionally does wrong." He does
wrong, because he does not know the true concept of right, and being
ignorant, thinks that what he is doing is good. "If a man intentionally
does wrong," said Socrates again, "he is better than a man who does so
unintentionally." For the former has in him the essential condition of
goodness, knowledge of what goodness is, but the latter, lacking that
knowledge, is hopeless.

Aristotle, in commenting upon this whole doctrine, observed that
Socrates had ignored or forgotten the irrational parts of the soul.
Socrates imagined that everybody's actions are governed solely by
reason, and that therefore if only they reasoned aright, they must do
righ