and accountable
being. He was possessed by the truly Baconian idea, that the power of
steady moral action depended upon, and was limited by, the rational
comprehension of moral ends and means."

The system, then, of Socrates was animated by the truest spirit of
positive science, and formed an indispensable precursor to its attainment.
And we may form some estimate of his worth and genius if we recollect,
that while the systems and speculations of other ancient philosophers
serve only as curiosities to make us wonder, or as beacons to warn us into
what absurdities the ablest men may fall, the principles and the system of
Socrates and his followers, and of that school alone, exercise to this day
an important influence on all human argument and speculation.

_Aristippus_ (whom we will consider before Plato, that Aristotle may
follow Plato more immediately) came when a young man to Athens, for the
express purpose of becoming acquainted with Socrates, with whom he
remained almost till his death. He was, however, very different from his
master, being a person of most luxurious and sensual habits. He was also
the first of Socrates' disciples who took money for teaching. He was the
founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which followed Socrates in
limiting all philosophical inquiries to ethics; though under this name
they comprehended a more varied range of subjects than Socrates did,
inasmuch as one of the parts into which they divided philosophy, referred
to the feelings; another to causes, which is rather a branch of physics;
and a third to proofs, which is clearly connected with logic.

He pronounced pleasure to be the chief good, and pain the chief evil; but
he denied that either of these was a mere negative inactive state,
considering them, on the contrary, both to be motions of the soul,--pain a
violent, and pleasure a moderate one.

As to actions, he asserted that they were all morally indifferent, that
men should only look to their results, and that law and custom are the
only authorities which make an action either good or bad. Whatever
conduces to pleasure, he thought virtue; in which he agreed with Socrates
that the mind has the principal share.

_Plato_, the greatest of all the disciples of Socrates, was the son of
Ariston and Perictione, and was born probably in the year B.C. 428, and
descended, on the side of his father, from Codrus, and on his mother's
side related to Solon. At the age of twenty, he b