year, even during the winter campaign at Potidæa, under the severe frosts of Thrace; and the same homely clothing sufficed to him for winter as well as for summer. Though his diet was habitually simple as well as abstemious, yet there were occasions, of religious festival or friendly congratulation, on which every Greek considered joviality and indulgence to be becoming. On such occasions, Socrates could drink more wine than any guest present, yet without being overcome or intoxicated. He abstained, on principle, from all extreme gymnastic training, which required, as a necessary condition, extraordinary abundance of food. It was his professed purpose to limit, as much as possible, the number of his wants, as a distant approach to the perfection of the gods, who wanted nothing; to control such as were natural, and prevent the multiplication of any that were artificial. Nor can there be any doubt that his admirable bodily temperament contributed materially to facilitate such a purpose, and assist him in the maintenance of that self-mastery, contented self-sufficiency, and independence of the favor, as well as of the enmity of others, which were essential to his plan of intellectual life. His friends, who communicate to us his great bodily strength and endurance, are at the same time full of jests upon his ugly physiognomy; his flat nose, thick lips, and prominent eyes, like a satyr, or silenus. Nor can we implicitly trust the evidence of such very admiring witnesses, as to the philosopher's exemption from infirmities of temper; for there seems good proof that he was, by natural temperament, violently irascible; a defect which he generally kept under severe control, but which occasionally betrayed him into great improprieties of language and demeanor. Of those friends, the best known to us are Xenophon and Plato; though there existed in antiquity various dialogues composed, and memoranda put together, by other hearers of Socrates, respecting his conversations and teaching, which are all now lost. The "Memorabilia" of Xenophon profess to record actual conversations held by Socrates; and are prepared with the announced purpose of vindicating him against the accusations of Meletus, and his other accusers on the trial; as well" as against unfavorable opinions, seemingly much circulated, respecting his character and purposes. We thus have it in a sort of partial biography, subject to such deductions from its evidentiary value as may be requisite for imperfection of memory, intentional decoration, and partiality. On the other hand, the purpose of Plato, in the numerous dialogues wherein he introduces Socrates, is not so clear, and is explained very differently by different commentators. Plato was a great speculative genius, who came to form opinions of his own, distinct from those of Socrates; and employed the name of the latter, as spokesman for these opinions, in various dialogues. How much, in the Platonic Socrates, can be safely accepted, either as a picture of the man or as a record of his opinions, - how much, on the other hand, is to be treated as Platonism; or in what proportions the two are intermingled, - is a point not to be de. cided with certainty or rigor. The "Apology of Socrates," the "Criton," and the "Phædon," - in so far as it is a moral picture, and apart from the doctrines advocated in it, -appear to belong to the first category; while the political and social views of the "Republic" and of the treatise "De Legibus," the cosmic theories in the "Timæus," and the hypothesis of Ideas, as substantive existences apart from the phenomenal world, in the various dialogues, wherever it is stated, certainly belong to the second. Of the ethical dialogues, much may be probably taken to represent Socrates, more or less Platonized. |