The frankness and simplicity with which Socrates endeavoured to declare his own opinions, in dealing with those who conversed with him,635 is, I think, conclusively proved by the above instances; at the same time, as I hope now to show, he was no less eager to cultivate a spirit of independence in others, which would enable them to stand alone in all transactions suited to their powers.

Of all the men I have ever known, he was most anxious to ascertain in what any of those about him was really versed; and within the range of his own knowledge he showed the greatest zeal in teaching everything which it befits the true gentleman636 to know; or where he was deficient in knowledge himself,637 he would introduce his friends to those who knew.638 He did not fail to teach them also up to what point it was proper for an educated man to acquire empiric knowledge of any particular matter.639

To take geometry as an instance: Every one (he would say) ought to be taught geometry so far, at any rate, as to be able, if necessary, to take over or part with a piece of land, or to divide it up or assign a portion of it for cultivation,640 and in every case by geometric rule.641 That amount of geometry was so simple indeed, and easy to learn, that it only needed ordinary application of the mind to the method of mensuration, and the student could at once ascertain the size of the piece of land, and, with the satisfaction of knowing its measurement, depart in peace. But he was unable to approve of the pursuit of geometry up to the point at which it became a study of unintelligible diagrams.642 What the use of these might be, he failed, he said, to see; and yet he was not unversed in these recondite matters himself.643 These things, he would say, were enough to wear out a man’s life, and to hinder him from many other more useful studies.644

Again, a certain practical knowledge of astronomy, a certain skill in the study of the stars, he strongly insisted on. Every one should know enough of the science to be able to discover the hour of the night or the season of the month or year, for the purposes of travel by land or sea — the march, the voyage, and the regulations of the watch;645 and in general, with regard to all matters connected with the night season, or with the month, or the year,646 it was well to have such reliable data to go upon as would serve to distinguish the various times and seasons. But these, again, were pieces of knowledge easily learnt from night sportsmen,647 pilots of vessels, and many others who make it their business to know such things. As to pushing the study of astronomy so far as to include a knowledge of the movements of bodies outside our own orbit, whether planets or stars of eccentric movement,648 or wearing oneself out endeavouring to discover their distances from the earth, their periods, and their causes,649 all this he strongly discountenanced; for he saw (he said) no advantage in these any more than in the former studies. And yet he was not unversed650 in the subtleties of astronomy any more than in those of geometry; only these, again, he insisted, were sufficient to wear out a man’s lifetime, and to keep him away from many more useful pursuits.

And to speak generally, in regard of things celestial he set his face against attempts to excogitate the machinery by which the divine power formed its several operations.651 Not only were these matters beyond man’s faculties to discover, as he believed, but the attempt to search out what the gods had not chosen to reveal could hardly (he supposed) be well pleasing in their sight. Indeed, the man who tortured his brains about such subjects stood a fair chance of losing his wits entirely, just as Anaxagoras,652 the headiest speculator of them all, in his attempt to explain the divine mechanism, had somewhat lost his head. Anaxagoras took on himself to assert that sun and fire are identical,653 ignoring the fact that human beings can easily look at fire, but to gaze steadily into the face of the sun is given to no man; or that under the influence of his rays the colour of the skin changes, but under the rays of fire not.654 He forgot that no plant or vegetation springs from earth’s bosom with healthy growth without the help of sunlight, whilst the influence of fire is to parch up everything, and to destroy life; and when he came to speak of the sun as being a “red-hot stone” he ignored another fact, that a stone in fire neither lights up nor lasts, whereas the sun-god abides for ever with intensest brilliancy undimmed.

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