Assistant Resident Alienist, Psychopathic Department of Bellevue Hospital of
New York
(Read before the Vidonian Club, New York, October 16, 1914.)
"CONSCIOUSNESS had reached this point in Greece, when in Athens, the great
forum of Socrates, in whom subjectivity of thought was brought to
consciousness in a more definite and more thorough manner, now appeared.
But Socrates did not grow like a mushroom out of the earth, for he extends
in continuity with his time, and this is not only a most important figure in
the history of philosophy--but perhaps also a world famed personage."
Hegel.
"When Columbus set sail across the untraversed western sea, his purpose was
to reach by a new path, a portion of the old, known world, and he lived and
died in the belief that he had done so. He never knew that he had
discovered a new world. So it was with Socrates. When he launched his
spiritual bark upon the pathless ocean of reflected thought, his object was
to discover a new way to the old world of little commonwealths and narrow
interests, and he probably died thinking he had succeeded. He did not dream
that he had discovered a new world--the world of humanity and universal
interests. But so it was; and tho mankind are still very far from having
made themselves at home in that world, and from having availed themselves of
its boundless spiritual treasures, it can never be withdrawn from their
sight, or, the conquest of it cease to be the object of their highest
aspirations." Thomas Davidson.