Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by D. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clark's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. SOCRATES was of genuine Attic extraction. He spoke of himself, sportively, perhaps, as belonging to the family of the Dadalidæ of mythical renown, since his father Sophroniscus, by his devotion to the profession of a statuary, proved himself a loyal successor of the founder of the family, Dædalus.* His mother, Phænarete, was a midwife, as her son reminds us, by comparing his own relation to the mind with hers to the body. She seems, however, to have been a woman of excellent character, and of many noble qualities. The quiet, unostentatious home of these parents was in the suburbs of Athens, northwest of the Acropolis, in the borough Alopece, near Cynosarges (White-dog-town), where the school of the Cynics was held, and not very far from Mount Lycabettus, probably identical with the present hill of St. * Plato. Euthyph. 11. Β. C. : Τοῦ ἡμετέρου προγόνου, ὦ Εὐθύφρον ἔοικεν εἶναι Δαιδάλου τὰ ὑπὸ σοῦ λεγόμενα. Cf. also Alcib. I. 121. Α. + Cf. Plato, Theaetetus, p. 149. A. and 151. A. In the latter passage he says: Πάσχουσι δὲ δὴ· οἱ ἐμοὶ ξυγγιγνόμενοι καὶ τοῦτο ταὐτὸν ταῖς τικτούσαις, κ.τ.λ. George. A competence, though no superabundance of this world's goods, had been the result of their industry. About the year 469, and early in the year, in March or April, a son was born in this retired cottage. No special prognostics, as far as we know, heralded his birth, no prodigies signalized his boyhood, and yet he was destined to be the most remarkable man, perhaps, that the world has ever seen. When of a suitable age, he was sent to the schools of his native district, where he was taught in the usual departments of learning then thought necessary, music, poetry, and gymnastic exercises. Of his attainments in the two former arts, we see no special indication in his subsequent life; and yet we hesitate not to believe, from his general character, that he fell not a whit behind his compeers, if he did not far excel them. His success in the training of his physical nature, we shall frequently have occasion to allude to in the subsequent pages. He also received instruction in the art of his father, which was probably supposed to be the profession most suited to his capacities, as well as to his birth. And he would doubtless have become world-renowned even there, if he had not been allured away to a higher sphere of exertion; for we are credibly informed, that in addition to other works carved by his hand, a draped statue of the Three Graces, which would necessarily require no small degree of skill in the use of the chisel, was thought worthy of a place in the Acropolis at Athens, near the Minerva of the master-sculptor, Phidias.* Crito, a wealthy Athenian, in some way, perhaps, attracted to the studio of the artist by his love of the creations of the art, seems to have taken a fancy for the uncouth figure of the boy, as he bent over the half-formed mass of stone before him. "Come," said he, "leave this thoughtless, senseless mass, and these walls that imprison the free spirit, and go with me and learn something better." How long the good father was in yielding to this offer so unexpected, we know not; but sure we are, that the heart of *This group was preserved and exhibited as the work of Socrate until the time of Pausanias. See Paus., I. 22. 8; IX. 35. 2. the son leaped within him at the prospect of a life of culture and intellectual growth. At all events, the consent of the parents was finally obtained, for we have evidence that he made considerable progress in early life in physics, which he himself says he had a fondness for,* although afterward, when he had attained to better things, he looked upon them with some contempt, or at least without any very strong feeling in their favor ;† so true is it, that in the joy of the attainment of a desired object, the thousand little, or it may be important aids therein, are forgotten or nearly lost sight of. Several teachers come in for their share of the honor or dishonor of his early training. According to Ion of Chios, an unimpeached contemporary witness, he accompanied the physical philosopher Archelaus from Athens to Samos, in order to avail himself of his instructions, and there is little question that he was for a time also the pupil of Anaxagoras. The Parmenides of Plato, doubtless, gives us a true picture of the zeal and enthusiasm of the young scholar in his attendance upon Parmenides and Zeno, during his earliest efforts to acquire a knowledge of the process of dialectics as pursued by them. Indeed, the natural curiosity of his mind seems to have urged him, now that the liberality of his patron had given him the means, to pursue eagerly every branch of knowledge then accessible. The degree of satisfaction that physical science, as pursued in the age of Socrates, would give to an original and discriminating mind, was, it must be confessed, very small. The opposing dogmas, the obscurity, the confusion, the chaos in which rival sects had enveloped all nature, seem to have been too much even for his keen penetration. This we should hardly have expected. * Plato, Phaedo. p. 96. A. where he says: véos tv davμaoтŵs is ète θύμησα ταύτης τῆς σοφίας ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν, κ.τ.λ.-The same thing is implied in Mem. IV. 7. 3 sq.: кαíтоι оùк άлειρÓS YE αὐτῶν ἦν. Mem. IV. 7. 5; I. 1. 11 sq., and Grote, Vol. VIII. p. 572. See also Tychsen's Dissertation Ueber. d. Prozess d. Sokrates, in Bibliothek d. Alt Lit. u. Kunst. 1st. St. p. 43. |