little that is positive about his views. Fortunately we
possess other means of getting to closer grips with the question; the way
must be through a consideration of Socrates's whole conduct and his mode
of thought.

Here we at once come to the interesting negative fact that there is
nothing in tradition to indicate that Socrates ever occupied himself with
theological questions. To be sure, Xenophon has twice put into his mouth a
whole theodicy expressing an elaborate teleological view of nature. But
that we dare not base anything upon this is now, I think, universally
acknowledged. Plato, in the dialogue _Euthyphron_, makes him subject the
popular notion of piety to a devastating criticism; but this, again, will
not nowadays be regarded as historical by anybody. Everything we are told
about Socrates which bears the stamp of historical truth indicates that he
restricted himself to ethics and left theology alone. But this very fact
is not without significance. It indicates that Socrates's aim was not to
alter the religious views of his contemporaries. Since he did not do so we
may reasonably believe it was because they did not inconvenience him in
what was most important to him, _i.e._ ethics.

We may, however, perhaps go even a step farther. We may venture, I think,
to maintain that so far from contemporary religion being a hindrance to
Socrates in his occupation as a teacher of ethics, it was, on the
contrary, an indispensable support to him, nay, an integral component of
his fundamental ethical view. The object of Socrates in his relations with
his fellow-men was, on his own showing--for on this important point I think
we can confidently rely upon Plato's _Apology_--to make clear to them that
they knew nothing. And when he was asked to say in what he himself
differed from other people, he could mention only one thing, namely, that
he was aware of his own ignorance. But his ignorance is not an ignorance
of this thing or that, it is a radical ignorance, something involved in
the essence of man as man. That is, in other words, it is determined by
religion. In order to be at all intelligible and ethically applicable, it
presupposes the conception of beings of whom the essence is knowledge. For
Socrates and his contemporaries the popular belief supplied such beings in
the gods. The institution of the Oracle itself is an expression of the
recognition of the superiority of the gods to man in knowledge. But the
dogma had long