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question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than my- 
self, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I 
should say to him, 'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you 
said that I was the wisest.’ Accordingly I went to one who had the 
reputation of wisdom, and observed him— his name I need not 
mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination— and 
the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could 
not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was 
thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I 
tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not 
really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his 
enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I 
left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not 
suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, 
I am better off than he is,— for he knows nothing, and thinks that 
he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter par- 
ticular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I 
went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and 
my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another 
enemy of him, and of many others besides him. 

Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of 
the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but 
necessity was laid upon me,— the word of God, I thought, ought to 
be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who ap- 
pear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear 
to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!— for I must tell you the 
truth— the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men 
most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less 
esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my 
wanderings and of the 'Herculean' labours, as I may call them, 
which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the 
politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. 
And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now you