The essence.........................

      Socrates spent much of his time pondering the Good Life and how to attain it.  For he believed, and it was the core of his belief, that only by striving to lead good lives did humans attain a degree of content in their existence and happiness in eternity.  He had a simple view of the body and soul and their relationship.  The body was the active, physical, earthly aspect of a person and was mortal.  The soul was the spiritual aspect and was immortal.  The body was greedy for pleasure and material satisfactions, was selfish, and if not kept under control, became a seat of vice.  The soul was the intellectual and moral side of the person, which had a natural propensity to do right and to improve itself.  It could be, with proper training, the seat of virtue.  The most important occupation of a human being was to subdue his bodily instincts and train himself to respond to the teachings of the soul.  This training took the form of recognizing, understanding, and learning about virtues and applying this knowledge to everyday situations.  Such, to Socrates, was the essence of wisdom.  Knowledge, virtue, and wisdom were thus intimately related, and exploring these connections was the object of his "examinations" of himself and others.

-Paul Johnson,  Socrates:  A Man For Our Times