So much for the logical element in the Socratic method. But as his logic was merely the dexterous weapon of a great moral apostleship, we must look on him also from this aspect, and contrast the method of his teaching with that of a modern sermon. { 63} A sermon is either the most rousing and effective, or the tamest and most ineffective of all moral addresses, according to the character and power of the man who delivers it. If the speaker has a real vocation to address his fellow-men on moral subjects, and if he does not deal in vague and trivial generalities, sounding very pious on Sunday, but having no distinct and recognisable reference to the secular business of Monday, then a good sermon may be compared to a discharge of moral electricity, which will arouse many sleepers, or to the setting up of a sure finger-post, which will direct many wanderers. But if he is tame, and a mere professional dealer in certain routine articles of piety, which religious people wear as a sort of amulet rather than use as a weapon--in this case no species of moral address can be looked on as less effective; for it neither rouses nor guides, and instead of ending in any work in the life of the hearer (and all moral teaching that does not end in a work is vanity), the hearing of it is rather looked on as a sort of work in itself, which, however short, is generally considered as having been a little too long when it is ended. Now, as distinguished from both these styles of pulpit address, the Socratic sermon was addressed to the individual man, and could not fail to produce a distinct and tangible effect; for it ended always by saying to the hearer, as Nathan said to David, THOU ART THE MAN! There was no escape from the appeal; it might not hover about the ears with a pious hum for half an hour, and then be forgotten; it must either be indignantly rejected, or graciously accepted. And herein precisely lay the great distinction between Socrates and the Sophists, { 64} a distinction which Mr. Grote has so perversely done his best to obliterate. Socrates was a preacher; the Sophists were not. Socrates was a patriot fighting and dying earnestly for a great cause; the Sophists were cunning masters of fence, who had no cause to fight for except themselves and their own pockets. But Socrates, though in a very different way, was as earnestly a moral reformer in Athens as Calvin was in Geneva. When the stern Genevese disciplinarian set himself with all the resolution of a manly nature to put some checks and hindrances in the way of the loose practices of the “Libertines” of Lake Leman, these respectable people protested strongly against the attempt, saying to the unflinching preacher, “It is your place to explain the Scriptures; what right have you to meddle with other things--to talk about morals and find fault?” And even so in Athens there were certain Libertines who used exactly the same language to Socrates. Had you been a mere talker like the other Sophists, you might have been allowed to talk; talking is a very innocent affair; but your talk is not a mere exhibition of lingual dexterity; it means something; it means perhaps danger to the State,--certainly it means danger to us; it means that we may be called to account for our deeds by any man who assumes to have a more scrupulous conscience or a more enlightened reason than ourselves; and this is what we will not tolerate.