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CHAP.
X.

C. Justice

of the sentence.

(1) Unfounded charges. (a) In re

lation to his teaching, life, and influ

ence.

was partly an indirect consequence, partly an isolated manifestation.

How then does it really stand touching the justice of this accusation and of the sentence to which it led? And what must be thought of the modern attempts to justify it? Most of the charges which were preferred against Socrates, rest undeniably on misunderstandings, perversions, or false inferences. Socrates is said to have rejected the Gods of the state. We have already seen this statement contradicted by all historical testimonies. He is said to have substituted his Sapóviov in their place. We, however, likewise know that he neither put it in

1 It is well known that Hegel has defended it on the side of Greek law, and Dresig, a hundred years earlier, maintained in a very superficial treatise, that Socrates, as an opponent of a republican government, had been justly condemned. Forchhammer goes a great deal further in his treatise, and so does Dénis. See p. 178, 3. Köchly, on the other hand, confines himself, in Acad. Vortr. i. 382, to the assertion that in the indictment of Socrates guilt was equally divided and reduced to a minimum on either side. The answer of Heinsius to Forchhammer (Socrates nach dem Grade seiner Schuld. Lips. 1839) is unimportant, and the learned Apologia Socratis contra Meliti redivivi Calumniam, by P. van Limburg Brouwer (Grön. 1838), is deficient in insight into the general questions involved, and

is inferior to the treatise of Preller (Haller, A. L. Z. 1838, No. 87), although many of its details are valuable. Luzac, de Socrate cive 1796, despite his usual learning, does little for the question. Grote's remarks, on the other hand, touching the extenuating circumstances, which, without altogether justifying, excuse the condemnation of Socrates, are deserving of all attention. Grote, Hist. of Greece, viii. 678, 653.

2 Forchhammer repeats the charge without proof, as if its truth were obvious of itself, and he speaks of orthodoxy and heresy like a modern theologian. But a Greek thought far less of belief than of outward service, and hence Xenophon, Mem. i. 1, 2, refutes the charge by an appeal to the fact that he had sacrificed to the Gods.

the place of the Gods, nor sought thereby to encroach on the ground of oracles. It was a private oracle in addition to those publicly recognised; and in a country where divine revelations were not the exclusive property of the priesthood, a private oracle could be refused to no one.2 He is said to have been devoted to the atheistic, heavenly wisdom of Anaxagoras, although he expressly declared it to be absurd.4 He is said according to Aristophanes to have given instruction in the Sophistic art of oratory-a charge so untrue, that to all appearances even Meletus did not venture to prefer it. He is blamed for having been the teacher of Critias and Alcibiades, to which charge even Xenophon justly replied that these

3

men did not learn their vices from Socrates, nor degenerate, until after being separated from him. Allowing, too, that a teacher must instil into his pupils a lasting turn for the good, is it necessarily his fault if he does not succeed in some few cases?

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Leben und Schriften, p. 480).
If Forchhammer considers it
incredible that Meletus should
have given such a careless
reply to Socrates, he forgets
that it is always the way of
the world to confound relative
with positive atheism, doubts
about particular religious no-
tions with the denial of all re-
ligion. This is quite universal
in the nations of antiquity,
and therefore the early Christ-
ians were called ǎoo.

4 See p. 135, 1.
5 Mem. i. 2, 12,
• Forchhammer, p. 43.

CHAP.
X.

CHAP.

X.

The value of any instruction can only be estimated by its collective effects, and these bear as bright a testimony to the value of the instruction of Socrates as can be wished. A man whose beneficial influence not only reached to many individuals,' but by whom a new foundation for morals was laid which served his people for centuries, was, as a matter of course, no corrupter of youth. If further the verses of Hesiod, by which Socrates sought to promote useful activity are alleged against him ; 2 Xenophon has conclusively proved that an ill use has been made of these verses. If lastly, he has been accused of teaching men to despise parents and relations, because he maintained that only knowledge constituted worth; 3 surely this is a most unfair inference from principles, which had a simple meaning in his mouth. Any teacher who makes his pupil understand that he must learn something in order to become a useful and estimable man, is surely quite in order. Only the rabble can bear the teacher a grudge for making sons wiser than their fathers. Very different would it have been had Socrates spoken disparagingly of the ignorance of parents, or set lightly by the duty of children; but from so doing he was far removed.^

1 Plato's Apol. 33, D., mentions a whole string; also Xen. Mem. i. 2, 48.

2 Mem. i. 2, 56; Plato, Char. 163, B. Conf. p. 212, 4.

Mem. i. 2, 49.

4 Conf. Mem. ii. 2, 3. A further charge is connected with the above, viz., that he induced many young men to

follow his training rather than that of their parents. This fact Xenophon's Apology allows, and attempts to justify. But in order to decide whether it is an established fact, and whether Socrates is here to blame, it is indeed quite possible we need a more trustworthy authority, and we

It might be replied that one who judged the value of a man simply and solely by his knowledge, and who at the same time found all wanting in true knowledge, was making bis pupils self-conceited, and teaching them to consider themselves above all authority by their own imaginary knowledge. But whilst with partial eye overrating the importance of knowledge, Socrates avoided this practically harmful inference by above all endeavouring to make his friends conscious of their own want of knowledge, and laying no claim to knowledge himself, but only professing to pursue it. No fear that any one imbued with this spirit of humility and modesty, would misuse the Socratic teaching. For its misconstruction and for the consequences of a superficial and defective conception of it Socrates is as little responsible as any other teacher.

СНАР.

X.

Charges

tion to

state.

Of more moment is another point touched upon (b) in the judicial proceedings-the relation of Socrates affecting himself to the Athenian democracy. As is well his posi known, Socrates considered the existing constitution wards the a complete failure.' He would not have the power in the state awarded by lot or by election, but by the qualification of the individuals; and he occasionally expressed opinions respecting the masses who thronged the Pnyx and filled the theatre at assemblies of the people containing no doubt a great deal of truth,

ought to know the circumstances better. In the single case there mentioned, that of the son of Anytus, the truth of which appears doubtful, Socrates probably did not set the

son against his father, but
urged the father to give him
a better education, or else ex-
pressed himself to a third party
to that effect.

1 See p. 167.

СНАР.
X.

but coming very near to treason against the sovereignty of the people.1 It was natural that his accusers should make use of such expressions, and that they should not be without influence on the judges. Still a free censure of existing institutions is by no means treason. Some Grecian states may have confined the liberty of speech within very narrow limits, but at Athens the freedom of thought and of speech was unlimited; it formed an integral portion of the republican constitution; the Athenian regarded it as an inalienable right and was proud to be herein distinguished from every other state.2 In the time of the most violent party quarrels there is no instance of interference with either political views or political teaching. The outspoken friends of a Spartan aristocracy could openly stick to their colours, so long as they refrained from actual attacks on the existing state of things; and was Socrates not to be allowed the same privilege ? 3

In the shape of actual deeds nothing, however, could be laid to his charge. He had never trans

1 In Mem. iii. 7, Socrates attempts to relieve Charmides of his dread of appearing in public by reminding him, that the people whom he is afraid of, consist of peasants, shoemakers, pedlars, &c., and therefore do not deserve such consideration. The charge preferred by the accuser, Mem. i. 2, 58, that Socrates thought it was reasonable for the rich to abuse the poor, is clearly a misrepresentation.

2 Compare Plato, Gorg. 461,

E.: Demosth. in Androt. p. 603; Funebr. 1396.

Grote's reference to the Platonic state, 1. c. p. 679, in which no freedom of individual opinion was allowed, is not altogether to the point. The

fundamental ideas of Plato's state are different to those then prevailing in Athens. Plato, Rep. viii. 557, B., reckons freedom of speech among the evils of a democracy, a type of which was the Athenian form of government.

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