under the circumstances."

Again, Socrates ever lived in the public eye; at early morning he was
to be seen betaking himself to one of the promenades, or wrestling-
grounds; at noon he would appear with the gathering crowds in the
market-place; and as day declined, wherever the largest throng might
be encountered, there was he to be found, talking for the most part,
while any one who chose might stop and listen. Yet no one ever heard
him say, or saw him do anything impious or irreverent. Indeed, in
contrast to others he set his face against all discussion of such
high matters as the nature of the Universe; how the "kosmos," as the
savants[8] phrase it, came into being;[9] or by what forces the
celestial phenomena arise. To trouble one's brain about such matters
was, he argued, to play the fool. He would ask first: Did these
investigators feel their knowledge of things human so complete that
they betook themselves to these lofty speculations? Or did they
maintain that they were playing their proper parts in thus neglecting
the affairs of man to speculate on the concerns of God? He was
astonished they did not see how far these problems lay beyond mortal
ken; since even those who pride themselves most on their discussion of
these points differ from each other, as madmen do. For just as some
madmen, he said, have no apprehension of what is truly terrible,
others fear where no fear is; some are ready to say and do anything in
public without the slightest symptom of shame;[10] others think they
ought not so much as to set foot among their fellow-men; some honour
neither temple, nor altar, nor aught else sacred to the name of God;
others bow down to stocks and stones and worship the very beasts:--so
is it with those thinkers whose minds are cumbered with cares[11]
concerning the Universal Nature. One sect[12] has discovered that
Being is one and indivisible. Another[13] that it is infinite in