they can in
the least depend on human prudence. He likewise held it to be a weakness
to importune the gods with questions which we may resolve ourselves; as
if we should ask them whether it be better to take a coachman who knows
how to drive than one who knows nothing of the matter? whether it be more
eligible to take an experienced pilot than one that is ignorant? In a
word, he counted it a kind of impiety to consult the oracles concerning
what might be numbered or weighed, because we ought to learn the things
which the gods have been pleased to capacitate us to know; but that we
ought to have recourse to the oracles to be instructed in those that
surpass our knowledge, because the gods are wont to discover them to such
men as have rendered them propitious to themselves.

Socrates stayed seldom at home. In the morning he went to the places
appointed for walking and public exercises. He never failed to be at the
hall, or courts of justice, at the usual hour of assembling there, and
the rest of the day he was at the places where the greatest companies
generally met. There it was that he discoursed for the most part, and
whoever would hear him easily might; and yet no man ever observed the
least impiety either in his actions or his words. Nor did he amuse
himself to reason of the secrets of nature, or to search into the manner
of the creation of what the sophists call the world, nor to dive into the
cause of the motions of the celestial bodies. On the contrary, he
exposed the folly of such as give themselves up to these contemplations;
and he asked whether it was, after having acquired a perfect knowledge of
human things, that they undertook to search into the divine, or if they
thought themselves very wise in neglecting what concerned them to employ
themselves in things above them? He was astonished likewise that they
did not see it was impossible for men to comprehend anything of all those
wonders, seeing they who have the reputation of being most knowing in
them are of quite different opinions, and can agree no better than so
many fools and madmen; for as some of these are not afraid of the most
dangerous and frightful accidents, while others are in dread of what is
not to be feared, so, too, among those philosophers, some are of opinion
that there is no action but what may be done in public, nor word that may
not freely be spoken before the whole world, while others, on the
contrary, believe that we ought to a