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Today's Featured Biography
Socrates
 Socrates, who, by the consent of all antiquity, has been considered as the most virtuous and enlightened of Pagan philosophers, was a citizen of Athens, and belonged to the town of Alopece.
He was born in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor; and his mother, Phanarete, a midwife.
He first studied philosophy under Anaxagoras, and next under Archelaus, the natural philosopher. But finding that all these vain speculations concerning natural objects served no useful purpose, and had no influence in rendering the philosopher a better man, he devoted himself to the study of ethics; and (as Cicero, in the third book of his Tusculan Questions, observes) may be said to be the founder of moral philosophy among the Greeks. In the first book, speaking of him still more particularly and more extensively, he expresses himself thus: "It is my opinion (and it is an opinion in which all are agreed) that Socrates was the first who, calling off the attention of philosophy from the investigation of secrets which nature has concealed (but to which alone all preceding philosophers had attached themselves), engaged her in those things which concern the duties of common life; his object was to investigate the nature of virtue and vice; and to point out the characteristics of good and evil; saying, that the investigation of celestial phenomena was a subject far above the reach of our powers; and that even were they more within the reach of our facu...
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