46 HISTORY OF GREECE. did not cor.fine his deductive reasonings within the limits of the theory, but escaped the erroneous consequences by a partial inconsistency. For example ; no man ever insisted more emphati- cally than h }, on the necessity of control over the passions and appetites, of enforcing good habits, and on the value of that state of the sentiments and emotions which such a course tended to form. 1 In truth, this is one particular characteristic of his admonitions. He exhorted men to limit their external wants, to be sparing in indulgence, and to cultivate, even in preference to honors and advancement, those pleasures which would surely arise from a performance of duty, as well as from self-examina- tion and the consciousness of internal improvement. This earnest attention, in measuring the elements and conditions of happiness, 1 Xenoph. Mem. ii, 6, 39. oaai ff h uvdpuiroic upeTal "ksyovrai TTuaaf OKOTrovfievof cvpijaete p.a'&rjaei. re KOI fj. e A e T i) avgavoftevaf. Again, the necessity of practise or discipline is inculcated, iii, 9, 1. "When Sok- rates enumerates the qualities requisite in a good friend, it is not merely superior knowledge which he talks of, but of moral excellence ; continence, K self-sufficing temper, mildness, a grateful disposition (c. ii, 6, 1-5). ' Moreover, Sokrates laid it down that continence, or self-control, was the very basis of virtue: TJJV tyKparnav apery? KprjmSa (i, 5, 4). Also, that continence was indispensable in order to enable a man to acquire knowledge (iv, 5, 10, 11). Sokrates here plainly treats lyKpureiav (continence, or self-control) as not being a state of the intellectual man, and yet as being the very basis of virtue. He therefore does not seem to have applied consistently his gener- l doctrine, that virtue consisted in knowledge, or in the excellence of the ntellectual man, alone. Perhaps he might have said : Knowledge alone Jrill be sufficient to make yon virtuous ; but before you can acquire knowl- edge, you must previously have disciplined your emotions and appetites. This merely eludes the objection, without saving the sufficiency of the general doctrine. I cannot concur with Hitter (Gesch. der Philos. vol. ii, ch. 2, p. 78) in thinking that Sokra'.es meant by knowledge, or wisdom, a transcendental attribute, above humanity, and such as is possessed only by a god. This is by no means consistent with that practical conception of human life and its ends, which stands so plainly marked in his character. Why should we think it wonderful that Sokrates should propose a defective theory, which embraces only one side of a large and complicated question? Considering that his was the first theory derived from data really belonging to the subject, the wonder is, that it was so near ac approach to the truth
