Note 737 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

In setting forth the ethical end, the language of Sokratês, as far as we can judge from Xenophon and Plato, seems to have been not always consistent with itself. He sometimes stated it as if it included a reference to the happiness, not merely of the agent himself, but of others besides; both as coördinate elements; at other times, he seems to speak as if the end was nothing more than the happiness of the agent himself, though the happiness of others was among the greatest and most essential means. The former view is rather countenanced by Xenophon, the best witness about his master, so that I have given it as belonging to Sokratês, though it is not always adhered to. The latter view appears most in Plato, who assimilates the health of the soul to the health of the body, an end essentially self-regarding.