E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Soc’rates.
The greatest of the ancient philosophers, whose chief aim was to amend the morals of his countrymen, the Athe’nians. Cicero said of him that “he brought down philosophy from the heavens to earth;” and he was certainly the first to teach that “the proper study of mankind is man.” Socrates resisted the unjust sentence of the senate, which condemned to death the Athenian generals for not burying the dead at the battle of Arginu’sæ.
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“Socrats—
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood
Invincible.”
Thomson: Winter.
Socrates used to call himself “the midwife of men’s thoughts.” Out of his intellectual school sprang those of Plato and the Dialectic system; Euclid and the Megaric; Aristippos and the Cyrena’ic, Antis’thenes and the Cynic.
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