ABSTRACT
More than in Athenian thinkers has the idealistic conception of the state prevailed. Society did not originate in, nor does it exist for, nothing more than the protection of individuals in the enjoyment of their own life and the realisation of their own ends. Socrates has been called the great individualist, and he was the superman whom Greece had to produce ere it could produce the Saviour. Zeller, in his "History of Greek Philosophy" has rightly insisted on the emphasis which Socrates laid upon individuality, the absolute and unwavering deference which he paid to his own private judgment and reason. Socrates was a mighty, titanic individualist,—true,—true also that his social reforms were to come not as the result, not primarily, of new social organisations, but as the work of better and wiser individuals. But there can hardly be any doubt that the individualism of Socrates was not of the anarchic but of the social kind.
