Note 474 — Chapter IX

Footnote 474: (return) The Dæmon of Socrates has been the subject of much discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that his δαίµων was "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak of a genius or demon, but always of a dœmoniac something (το δαιµόνιον, or δαιµόνιν τι), or of a sign, a voice, a divine sign, a divine voice" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166). "Socrates always speaks of a divine or supernatural somewhat ('divinum quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not to be informed that το δαιµόνιον, in classic literature, means the divine Essence (Lat. numen), to which are attributed events beyond man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.