nomical and physical results to remain unknown, and that it was impious, as well as useless, to pry into their secrets. His master, Archelaus, though mainly occupied with physics, also speculated more or less concerning moral subjects; concerning justice and injustice, the laws, etc.; and is said to have maintained the tenet, that justice and injustice were determined by law or convention, not by nature. From him, perhaps, Socrates may have been partly led to turn his mind in this direction. But to a man disappointed with physics, and having in his bosom a dialectical impulse, powerful, unemployed, and restless, the mere realities of Athenian life, even without Archelaus, would suggest human relations, duties, action and suffering, as the most interesting materials for contemplation and discourse. Socrates could not go into the public assembly, the dicastery, or even the theatre, without hearing discussions about what was just or unjust, honorable or base, expedient or hurtful, etc., nor without having his mind conducted to the inquiry, what was the meaning of these large words which opposing disputants often invoked with equal reverential confidence. Along with the dialectic and generalizing power of Socrates, which formed his bond of connection with such minds as Plato, there was at the same time a vigorous practicality, a large stock of positive Athenian experience, with which Xenophon chiefly sympathized, and which he has brought out in his "Memorabilia." Of these two intellectual tendencies, combined with a strong religious sentiment, the character of Socrates is composed; and all of them were gratified at once, when he devoted himself to admonitory interrogation on the rules and purposes of human life; from which there was the less to divert him, as he had neither talents nor taste for public speaking.

That "the proper study of mankind is man," Socrates was the first to proclaim: he recognized the security and happiness of man both as the single end of study, and as the limiting principle whereby it ought to be circumscribed. In the present state to which science has attained, nothing is more curious than to look back at the rules which this eminent man laid down. Astronomy - now exhibiting the maximum of perfection, with the largest and most exact power of predicting future phenomena which human science has ever attained-was pronounced by him to be among the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand, and madness to investigate, as Anaxagoras had foolishly pretended to do. Headmitted, indeed, that there was advantage in knowing enough of the movements of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons, and as guides for voyages, journeys by land, or night-watches: but thus much, he said might easily be obtained from pilots and watchmen, while all beyond was nothing but waste of valuable time, exhausting that mental effort which ought to be employed in profitable acquisitions. He reduced geometry to its literal meaning of land-measuring, necessary so far as to enable any one to proceed correctly in the purchase, sale, or division of land, which any man of common attention might do almost without a teacher; but silly and worthless, if carried beyond, to the study of complicated diagrams. Respecting arithmetic, he gave the same qualified permission of study; but as to general physics, or the study of Nature, he discarded it altogether: "Do these inquirers (he asked) think that they already know human affairs well enough, that they thus begin to meddle with divine? Do they think that they shall be able to excite or calm the winds and the rain at pleasure, or have they no other view than to gratify an idle curiosity? Surely, they must see that such matters are beyond human investigation. Let them only recollect how much the greatest men, who have attempted the investigation, differ in their pretended results, holding opinions extreme and opposite to each other, like those of madmen!" Such was the view which