conversation was one among the characteristics of Socrates, distinguishing him from all teachers either before or after him. Next, was his persuasion of a special religious mission, restraints, impulses, and communications, sent to him by the gods. Taking the belief in such supernatural intervention generally, it was indeed noway peculiar to Socrates: it was the ordinary faith of the ancient world: insomuch that the attempts to resolve phenomena into general laws were looked upon with a certain disapprobation, as indirectly setting it aside. And Xenophon, accordingly, avails himself of this general fact, in replying to the indictment for religious innovation, of which his master was found guilty, to affirm, that the latter pretended to nothing beyond what was included in the creed of every pious man. But this is not an exact statement of the matter in debate; for it slurs over at least, if it does not deny, that speciality of inspiration from the gods, which those who talked with Socrates as we learn even from Xenophon - believed, and which Socrates himself believed also. Very different is his own representation, as put forth in the defence before the dicastery. He had been accustomed constantly to hear, even from his childhood, a divine voice, interfering, at moments when he was about to act, in the way of restraint, but never in the way of instigation. Such prohibitory warning was wont to come upon him very frequently, not merely on great, but even on small occasions, intercepting what he was about to do or say. Though later writers speak of this as the dæmon or genius of Socrates, he himself does not personify it, but treats it merely as a "divine sign, a prophetic or supernatural voice." He was accustomed not only to obey it implicitly, but to speak of it publicly and familiarly to others, so that the fact was well known both to his friends and to his enemies. It had always forbidden him to enter on public life; it forbade him, when the indictment was hanging over him, to take any thought for a prepared defence; and so completely did he march with a consciousness of this bridle in his mouth, that when he felt no check, he assumed that the turning which he was about to take was the right one. Though his persuasion on the subject was unquestionably sincere, and his obedience constant, yet he never dwelt upon it himself as any thing grand, or awful, or entitling him to peculiar deference; but spoke of it often in his usual strain of familiar playfulness. To his friends generally, it seems to have constituted one of his titles to reverence, though neither Plato nor Xenophon scruple to talk of it in that jesting way which doubtless they caught from himself. But to his enemies and to the Athenian public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy; an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized gods of Athens.

Such was the dæmon or genius of Socrates, as described by himself, and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues; a voice always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal conduct. That which Plutarch and other admirers of Socrates conceived as a dæmon, or intermediate being between gods and men, was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil; by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels; by some other modern commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Socrates himself. Without presuming to determine the question raised in the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the conviction of Socrates on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance little attended to, but deserving peculiar notice, and stated by himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child, and continued even down to the end of his life: it had thus become an established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began. But though this peculiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively to him, there were also