precious thing a man has, since it is immortal, and therefore to be guarded beyond all bodily and mundane interests.  But human nature is frail.  The soul is fettered and bewildered; hence the need of some outside influence, some illumination, to guard, or to restrain, or guide.  “This inspiration, he was persuaded, was imparted to him from time to time, as he had need, by the monitions of an internal voice which he called [Greek:  daimonion], or daemon,—­not a personification, like an angel or devil, but a divine sign or supernatural voice.”  From youth he was accustomed to obey this prohibitory voice, and to speak of it,—­a voice “which forbade him to enter on public life,” or to take any thought for a prepared defence on his trial.  The Fathers of the Church regarded this daemon as a devil, probably from the name; but it is not far, in its real meaning, from the “divine grace” of St. Augustine and of all men famed for Christian experience,—­that restraining grace which keeps good men from folly or sin.

Socrates, again, divorced happiness from pleasure,—­identical things, with most pagans.  Happiness is the peace and harmony of the soul; pleasure comes from animal sensations, or the gratification of worldly and ambitious desires, and therefore is often demoralizing.  Happiness is an elevated joy,—­a beatitude, existing with pain and disease, when the soul is triumphant over the body; while pleasure is transient, and comes from what is perishable.  Hence but little account should be made of pain and suffering, or even of death.  The life is more than meat, and virtue is its own reward.  There is no reward of virtue in mere outward and worldly prosperity; and, with virtue, there is no evil in adversity.  One must do right because it is right, not because it is expedient:  he must do right, whatever advantages may appear by not doing it.  A good citizen must obey the laws, because they are laws:  he may not violate them because temporal and immediate advantages are promised.  A wise man, and therefore a good man, will be temperate.  He must neither eat nor drink to excess.  But temperance is not abstinence.  Socrates not only enjoined temperance as a great virtue, but he practised it.  He was a model of sobriety, and yet he drank wine at feasts,—­at those glorious symposia where he discoursed with his friends on the highest themes.  While he controlled both appetites and passions, in order to promote true happiness,—­that is, the welfare of the soul,—­he was not solicitous, as others were, for outward prosperity, which could not extend beyond mortal life.  He would show, by teaching and example, that he valued future good beyond any transient joy.  Hence he accepted poverty and physical discomfort as very trifling evils.  He did not lacerate the body, like Brahmans and monks, to make the soul independent of it.  He was a Greek, and a practical man,—­anything but visionary,—­and regarded the body as a sacred temple of the soul, to be kept beautiful;