But this new inquiry naturally leads us back in the first instance to the old question, whether we are to believe Plato or Xenophon in their accounts of what Socrates was ; a ques- tion, however, which only deserves to be proposed at all, so far as these two authors are really at variance with each other, and which therefore only admits of a rational answer, after it has been decided whether such a variance exists, and where it lies. Plato nowhere professes himself the historian of Socrates; with the exception perhaps of the Apology, and of insulated passages, such as the speech of Alcibiades in the Banquet. For it would certainly have been in bad taste, if here, where Plato is making contemporaries of Socrates speak of him in his presence, he had exhibited him in a manner that was not substantially faithful, though even here many of the details may have been introduced for the sake of playful exaggeration. On the other hand, Plato himself does not warrant any one to consider all that he makes Socrates say in his dialogues, asi his real thoughts and language; and it would be rendering him but a poor service to confine his merit to that of having given a correct and skilful report of the doctrines of Socrates. On the contrary, he undoubtedly means his philosophy to be considered as his own, and not Socrates'. And accordingly every intelligent reader is probably convinced by his own reflexions, that none but original thoughts can appear in such a dress; whereas a work of mere narrative—and such these dialogues would be, if the whole of the matter belonged to Socrates—would necessarily shew a fainter tone of colouring, such as Xenophon's conversations really present. But as on the one hand it would be too much to assert that Socrates actually thought and knew all that Plato makes him say: so on the other hand it would certainly be too little to say of him, that he was nothing more than the Socrates whom Xenophon represents. Xenophon, it is true, in the Memorabilia, professes himself a narrator; but, in the first place, a man of sense can only relate what he understands, and a disciple of Socrates, who must have been well acquainted with his master's habit of disclaiming knowledge, would of all men adhere most strictly to this rule. We know however, and this may be admitted without being harshly pressed, that Xenophon was a statesman, but no philosopher, and that beside the purity of his character, and the good sense of his political principles, beside his admirable power of rousing the intellect, and checking presumption, which Xenophon loved and respected in Socrates, the latter may have possest some really philosophical elements which Xenophon was unable to appropriate to himself, and which he suffered to pass unnoticed; which indeed he can have felt no temptation to exhibit, for fear of betraying defects such as those which his Socrates was wont to expose. On the other hand, Xenophon was an apologetic narrator, and had no doubt selected this form for the very purpose, that his readers might not expect him to exhibit Socrates entire, but only that part of his character which belonged to the sphere of the affiections and of social life, and which bore upon the charges brought against him; everything else he excludes, contenting himself with shewing, that it cannot have been anything of so dangerous a tendency as was imputed to Socrates. And not only may Socrates, he must have been more, and there must have been more in the background of his speeches, than Xenophon represents. For if the contemporaries of Socrates had heard nothing from him but such discourses, how would Plato have marred the effect of his works on his immediate public, which had not yet forgotten the character of Socrates, if the part which Socrates plays there stood in direct con- tradiction with the image which his real life had left in the reader's mind?