Note 1.1 — FOUR PHASES OF MORALS

As there is no country which can boast the honour of possessing more names of a world-wide significance than Greece, so among those who hold this lofty position there is no name superior to Socrates, concerning whom the Delphic oracle in ancient times, and a great utilitarian authority in modern times, agree in testifying that he was the wisest of the wise Greeks.[1.1] And though stout old Cato, in ancient times, as Plutarch informs us, gruffly enough expressed his opinion that the son of Sophroniscus was a pernicious old babbler, whose breath was justly stopped by the cup of hemlock which he drank for his last supper—in harmony with whom the benign old dogmatist whom the modern utilitarians revere as their patriarch declares that Socrates and Plato wasted their lives in talking nonsense under the pretence of teaching philosophy,[1.2]—yet these negative utterances, few and far between, against the fair fame of the father of moral science, have died away almost as quickly as uttered, and are now no more heard in the grand organ-swell of the general admiration of more than two thousand years. Unquestionably if there be any name, after the great Founder of the Christian faith, which is entitled to claim the title of a preacher of righteousness for all times and all places, it is the name of Socrates; and it is with the view of bringing his high merits in tins respect before the general public, in as easy a way as is consistent with scholarly accuracy, that I have undertaken to write the present paper.