In short, his turn of mind was thoroughly _practical_, we might say _utilitarian_.
I .-- He gave a foundation and a shape to Ethical Science, by insisting on its practical character, and by showing that, like the other arts of life, it had an End, and a Theory from which flows the precepts or means.

The End, which would be the STANDARD, was not stated by him, and hardly even by Plato, otherwise than in general language; the Summum Bonum had not as yet become a matter of close debate.

'The art of dealing with human beings,' 'the art of behaving in society,' 'the science of human happiness,' were various modes of expressing the final end of conduct.[5] Sokrates clearly indicated the difference between an unscientific and a scientific art; the one is an incommunicable knack or dexterity, the other is founded on theoretical principles.
II .-- Notwithstanding his professing ignorance of what virtue is, Sokrates had a definite doctrine with reference to Ethics, which we may call his PSYCHOLOGY of the subject.

This was the doctrine that resolves Virtue into Knowledge, Vice into Ignorance or Folly.

'To do right was the only way to impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness compatible with any given situation: now, this was precisely what every one wished for and aimed at--only that many persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road; and no man was wise enough always to take the right.