evil name. That had arisen out of a peculiar mission which he had taken upon himself. The enthusiastic Chærephon (probably in anticipation of the answer he received) had gone to Delphi and asked the oracle if there was any man wiser than Socrates; and the answer was that there was no man wiser. What could be the meaning of this-that he who knew nothing, and knew that he knew nothing, should be declared by the oracle to be the wisest of men? Reflecting upon this, he determined to refute the oracle by finding "a wiser "; and first he went to the politicians, and then to the poets, and then to the craftsmen, but always with the same result-he found that they knew nothing, or hardly anything more than himself; and that the little advantage which in some cases they possessed was more than counterbalanced by their conceit of knowledge. He knew nothing, and knew that he knew nothing: they knew little or nothing, and imagined that they knew all things. Thus he had passed his life as a sort of missionary in detecting the pretended wisdom of mankind; and this occupation had quite absorbed him and taken him away both from public and private affairs. Young men of the richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, "which was not unamusing." And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villanous corrupter of the youth, and by repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and sophistry, which are the stock accusations against all philosophers when there is nothing else to be said of them.

The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present and can be interrogated. "If he is the corrupter, who is the improver of the citizens?" "All mankind." But how absurd, how contrary to analogy is this! How inconceivable too, that he should make the citizens worse when he has to live with them. This surely cannot be intentional: and if unintentional, he ought to have been instructed by Meletus, and not accused in the court.

But there is another part of the indictment which says that he teaches men not to receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new gods. "Is that the way in which he is supposed to corrupt the youth?" "Yes, that is the way." "Has he only new gods, or none at all?" "None at all." "What, not even the sun and moon?" "No; why, he says that the sun

is a stone, and the moon earth." That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion about Anaxagoras; the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to attribute to the influence of Socrates notions which have found their way into the drama, and may be learned at the theatre. Socrates undertakes to show that Meletus (rather unjustifiably) has been compounding a riddle in this part of the indictment. "There are no gods, but Socrates believes in the existence of the sons of gods, which is absurd."

Leaving Meletus, who has had enough words spent upon him, he returns to his original accusers. The question may be asked, Why will he persist in following a profession which leads him to death? Why-because he must remain at his post where the God has placed him, as he remained at Potidæa, and Amphipolis, and Delium, where the generals placed him. Besides, he is not so overwise as to imagine that he knows whether death is a good or an evil; and he is certain that desertion of his duty is an evil. Anytus is quite right in saying that they should never have indicted him if they meant to let him go. For he will certainly obey God rather than man, and will continue to preach to all men of all ages the necessity of virtue and improvement; and if they refuse to listen to him he will still persevere and reprove them. This is his way of corrupting the youth, which he will not cease to follow in obedience to the God, even if a thousand deaths await him.

He is desirous that they should not put him to death-not for his own sake, but for theirs; because he is their heavensent friend (and they will never have such another), or, as he may be ludicrously described, the gadfly who stirs the generous steed into motion. Why, then, has he never taken part in public affairs? Because the familiar divine voice has hindered him; if he had been a public man and fought for the right, as he would certainly have fought against the many, he would not have lived, and could therefore have done no good. Twice in public matters he has risked his life for the sake of justice-once at the trial of the generals; and again in resistance to the tyrannical commands of the Thirty.

But, though not a public man, he has passed his days in instructing the citizens without fee or reward; this was his mission. Whether his disciples have turned out well or ill, he cannot justly be charged with the result, for he never promised

to teach them anything. They might come if they liked, and they might stay away if they liked: and they did come, because they found an amusement in hearing the pretenders to wisdom detected. If they have been corrupted, their elder relatives (if not themselves) might surely appear in court and witness against him, and there is an opportunity still for them to do this. But their fathers and brothers all apear in court (including "this" Plato), to witness on his behalf; and if their relatives are corrupted, at least they are uncorrupted; “and they are my witnesses. For they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus is lying."

This is about all he has to say. He will not entreat the judges to spare his life; neither will he present a spectacle of weeping children, although he, too, is not made of " rock or oak." Some of the judges themselves may have complied with this practice on similar occasions, and he trusts that they will not be angry with him for not following their example. But he feels that such conduct brings discredit on the name of Athens; he feels, too, that the judge has sworn not to give away justice; and he cannot be guilty of the impiety of asking the judge to forswear himself, when he is himself being tried for impiety.

As he expected, and probably intended, he is convicted. And now the tone of the speech, instead of being more conciliatory, becomes more lofty and commanding. Anytus proposes death as the penalty; and what counter proposition shall he make? He, the benefactor of the Athenian people, whose whole life has been spent in doing them good, should at least have the Olympic victor's reward of maintenance in the Prytaneum. Or why should he propose any counter penalty when he does not know whether death, which Anytus proposes, is a good or an evil? and he is certain that imprisonment is an evil, exile is an evil. Loss of money might be no evil, but then he has none to give; perhaps he can make up a mina. Let that then be the penalty, or, if his friends wish, thirty minæ; for this they will be excellent securities.

[He is condemned to death.]

He is an old man already, and the Athenians will gain nothing but disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life. Perhaps he could have escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms and entreat for his life. But he does not at all repent

of the manner of his defence; he would rather die in his own fashion than live in theirs. For the penalty of unrighteousness is swifter than death, and that has already overtaken his accusers as death will soon overtake him.

And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them. They have put him to death in order to escape the necessity of giving an account of their lives. But his death "will be the seed" of many disciples who will convict them of their evil ways, and will come forth to reprove them in harsher terms, because they are younger and more inconsiderate.

He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those who would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that the divine sign never interrupted him in the course of his defence; the reason of which, as he conjectures, is that the death to which he is going is a good and not an evil. For either death is a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or a journey to another world in which the souls of the death are gathered together, and in which there may be a hope of seeing the heroes of old-in which, too, there are just judges; and as all are immortal, there can be no fear of anyone being put to death for his opinions.

Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death, and his own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was better for him to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges because they have done him no harm, although they never meant to do him any good.

He has a last request to make to them-that they will trouble his sons as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches to virtue, or think themselves something when they are nothing.

"Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended himself otherwise "-if, as we must add, his defence was that with which Plato has provided him. But leaving this question, which does not admit of a precise solution, we may go on to ask what was the impression which Plato in the "Apology" intended to leave of the character and conduct of his master in the last great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing sophistries? (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these sophistries to be

regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and to his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing from the natural elevation of his position?

For example, when he says that it is absurd to suppose tha one man is the corrupter and all the rest of the world the improvers of the youth; or, when he argues that he never could have corrupted the men with whom he had to live; or, when he proves his belief in the gods because he believes in the sons of gods, is he serious or jesting? It may be observed that these sophisms all occur in his cross-examination of Meletus, who is easily foiled and mastered in the hands of the great dialectician. Perhaps he regarded these answers as all of them good enough for his accuser (he makes very light of him throughout). Also it may be noted that there is a touch of irony in all of them, which takes them out of the category of sophistry.

That the manner in which he defends himself about the lives of his disciples is not satisfactory, can hardly be denied. Fresh in the memory of the Athenians, and detestable as they deserved to be to the newly restored democracy, were the names of Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides. It is obviously not a sufficient answer that Socrates had never professed to teach them anything, and is therefore not justly chargeable with their crimes. Yet the defence, when taken out of this ironical form, is doubtless sound: that his teaching had nothing to do with their evil lives. Here, then, the sophistry is rather in form than in substance, though we might desire that to such a serious charge Socrates had given a more serious answer.

Truly characteristic of Socrates is another point in his answer, which may also be regarded as sophistical. He says that "if he has corrupted the youth, he must have corrupted them involuntarily." In these words the Socratic doctrine of the involuntariness of evil is clearly intended to be conveyed. But if, as Socrates argues, all evil is involuntary, then all criminals ought to be admonished and not punished. Here again, as in the former instance, the defence of Socrates, which is untrue practically, may yet be true in some ideal or transcendental sense. The commonplace reply, that if he had been guilty of corrupting the youth, their relations would surely have witnessed against him, with which he concludes this part of his defence, is more satisfactory.