g men." He was the first man who turned his
thoughts and discussions distinctly to the subject of Ethics. Deeply
imbued with sincere religious feeling, and believing himself to be under
the peculiar guidance of the Gods, who at all times admonished him by a
divine warning voice when he was in danger of doing anything unwise,
inexpedient, or improper, he believed that the Gods constantly manifested
their love of and care for all men in the most essential manner, in
replying through oracles, and sending them information by sacrificial
signs or prodigies, in cases of great difficulty; and he had no doubt that
if a man were diligent in learning all that the Gods permitted to be
learnt, and if besides he was assiduous in paying pious court to them and
in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be
gracious to him and signify their purposes to him.

Such then being the capacity of man for wisdom and virtue, his object was
to impart that wisdom to them; and the first step necessary, he considered
to be eradicating one great fault which was a barrier to all improvement.
This fault he described as "the conceit of knowledge without the reality."
His friend and admirer Chaerephon had consulted the oracle at Delphi as to
whether any man was wiser than Socrates; to which the priestess replied
that no other man was wiser. Socrates affirms that he was greatly
disturbed at hearing this declaration from so infallible an authority;
till after conversing with politicians, and orators, and poets, and men of
all classes, he discovered not only that they were destitute of wisdom,
but that they believed themselves to be possessed of it; so that he was
wiser than they, though wholly ignorant, inasmuch as he was conscious of
his own ignorance. He therefore considered his most important duty to be
to convince men of their ignorance, and to excite them to remedy it, as
the indispensable preliminary to virtue; for virtue he defined as doing a
thing well, after having learnt it and practised it by the rational and
proper means; and whoever performed his duties best, whether he was a
ruler of a state or a husbandman, was the best and most useful man and the
most beloved by the Gods.

And if his objects were new, his method was no less so. He was the parent
of dialectics and logic. Aristotle says, "To Socrates we may
unquestionably assign two novelties--inductive discourses, and the
definitions of general terms." Without any pred