Note (return) — Chapter X

Among the regular or the occasional hearers of Socrates were many who were little addicted to philosophic speculation. Some were warriors, as Nicias and Laches; some statesmen, as Critias and Critobulus; some were politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted by Alcibiades in his speech at "the Banquet." 488 Of these listeners, however, we can not now speak. Our business is with those only who imbibed his philosophic spirit, and became the future teachers of philosophy. And even of those who, as Euclid of Megara, and Antisthenes the Cynic, and Aristippus of Cyrenaica, borrowed somewhat from the dialectic of Socrates, we shall say nothing. They left no lasting impression upon the current of philosophic thought, because their systems were too partial, and narrow, and fragmentary. It is in Plato and Aristotle that the true development of the Socratic philosophy is to be sought, and in Plato chiefly, as the disciple and friend of Socrates.