ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the stages in the legacy of Socrates. Between Montaigne and Bayle lie the cessation of wars of religion, and a growing sense of the futility of the arguments used in religious controversy; progress in mathematical and physical science, and the promise of more to come; the growth of greater freedom in printing; the beginnings of historical criticism; and its application to the mixed inheritance of beliefs and legends, sacred and profane, from earlier days. Socrates denounced for an excessive rationalism and for an insufficient regard for instinct; Socrates condemned as an offender against the state; Socrates found fault with for seeking within himself a salvation that must come from without. There is a side to him distinct from the pattern of argument and detachment. It is the side that embarrassed the eighteenth century: the claim to know nothing, the sacrifice to Aesculapius, and obviously the talk about the daimonion.
