shall be obliged to attribute to him opinions which even Plato does not articulately vouch for as belonging to Socrates. I shall be under the necessity of showing that he virtually, although obscurely, raised and resolved questions which were not expressly or definitely propounded until after his time. This, therefore, has to be kept in view, that although all that I shall attribute to Socrates has, I conceive, a sufficient warrant in the general scope and spirit of his philosophy, there will be some things in my exposition for which no exact historical authority can be adduced. This course will, at any rate, conduce to intelligibility; and it is better, I conceive, to be intelligible by overstepping somewhat the literal historical record, than to be unintelligible, as we must be, if we confine ourselves slavishly within it. It is bad to violate the truth of history, but the truth of history is not violated, it is rather cleared up, when we evolve out of the opinions of an ancient philosopher more than the philosopher himself was conscious of these opinions containing. Such an evolution I propose to attempt in dealing with the philosophy of Socrates.
4. We have already seen that the psychology of the Sophists represented the natural man as centring entirely in sensation. Sensation, with its pleasures and its pains, was so prominent and importunate, the knowledge which it imparted, or appeared to impart, was so various and so assured—
