e Gods whom the
city worshipped;" and disdaining to defend himself, or rather making a
justificatory defence of such a character as to exasperate the judges, he
was condemned to death, and executed by having hemlock administered to
him, B.C. 399.

From his disciples Plato and Xenophon we have a very full account of his
habits and doctrines; though it has been much disputed which of the two is
to be considered as giving the most accurate description of his opinions.
As a young man he had been to a certain extent a pupil of Archelaus (the
disciple of Anaxagoras), and derived his fondness for the dialectic style
of argument from Zeno the Eleatic, the favourite Pupil of Parmenides. He
differed, however, from all preceding philosophers in discarding and
excluding wholly from his studies all the abstruse sciences, and limiting
his philosophy to those practical points which could have influence on
human conduct. "He himself was always conversing about the affairs of
men," is the description given of him by Xenophon. Astronomy he pronounced
to be one of the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand
and madness to investigate; all that man wanted was to know enough of the
heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons and as
guides for voyages, etc.; and that knowledge might, he said, easily be
obtained from pilots and watchmen. Geometry he reduced to its literal
meaning of land-measuring, useful to enable one to act with judgment in
the purchase or sale of land; but he looked with great contempt on the
study of complicated diagrams and mathematical problems. As to general
natural philosophy, he wholly discarded it; asking whether those who
professed to apply themselves to that study knew _human_ affairs so well
as to have time to spare for _divine_; was it that they thought that they
could influence the winds, rain, and seasons, or did they desire nothing
but the gratification of an idle curiosity? Men should recollect how much
the wisest of them who have attempted to prosecute these investigations
differ from one another, and how totally opposite and contradictory their
opinions are.

Socrates, then, looked at all knowledge from the point of view of human
practice. He first, as Cicero says, (Tusc. Dis. v. 4,) "called philosophy
down from heaven and established it in the cities, introduced it even into
private houses, and compelled it to investigate life, and manners, and
what was good and evil amon