the doctrines and opinions, with regard to morality and religion, maintained and taught by Socrates. By the character of Socrates left us by the ancients, particularly by his scholar Plato, Laertius, &c., he appears to have been one of the best and wisest persons in all the heathen world. To him is ascribed the first introducing of moral philosophy, which is what is meant by that usual saying, "That Socrates first called philosophy down from heaven to earth;" that is, from the contemplation of the heavens and heavenly bodies, he led men to consider themselves, their own passions, opinions, faculties, duties, actions, &c. He wrote nothing himself; yet all the Grecian sects of philosophers refer their origin to his discipline, particularly the platonists, peripatetics, academicians, cyrenaics, stoics, &c., but the greatest part of his philosophy we have in the works of Plato.