carried on to the end.

The Euthyphro is manifestly designed to contrast the real nature of piety
and impiety with the popular conceptions of them. But when the popular
conceptions of them have been overthrown, Socrates does not offer any
definition of his own: as in the Laches and Lysis, he prepares the way for
an answer to the question which he has raised; but true to his own
character, refuses to answer himself.

Euthyphro is a religionist, and is elsewhere spoken of, if he be the same
person, as the author of a philosophy of names, by whose 'prancing steeds'
Socrates in the Cratylus is carried away. He has the conceit and self-
confidence of a Sophist; no doubt that he is right in prosecuting his
father has ever entered into his mind. Like a Sophist too, he is incapable
either of framing a general definition or of following the course of an
argument. His wrong-headedness, one-sidedness, narrowness, positiveness,
are characteristic of his priestly office. His failure to apprehend an
argument may be compared to a similar defect which is observable in the
rhapsode Ion. But he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates,
whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest. Though unable to follow
him he is very willing to be led by him, and eagerly catches at any
suggestion which saves him from the trouble of thinking. Moreover he is
the enemy of Meletus, who, as he says, is availing himself of the popular
dislike to innovations in religion in order to injure Socrates; at the same
time he is amusingly confident that he has weapons in his own armoury which
would be more than a match for him. He is quite sincere in his prosecution
of his father, who has accidentally been guilty of homicide, and is not
wholly free from blame. To purge away the crime appears to him in the
light of a duty, whoever may be the criminal.