وو وو wicked, and more capable of doing evil. Xenophon has transmitted to us a conversation of Socrates with Euthydemus, upon Providence, which is one of the finest passages to be found in the writings of the ancients. "Did you ever reflect within yourselves,' how much care the gods have taken to bestow upon man all that is necessary " said Socrates to Euthydemus, to his nature?" "Never, I assure you," replied he. Socrates," how necessary light is, and how precious that gift of the gods ought "You see," continued to appear to us. "Without it," added Euthydemus, “we should be like the blind, and all nature, as if it were not, or were dead: but because we have occasion for suspense and relaxation, they have also given us the night for our repose. "You are in the right, and for this we ought to render them continual praises and thanksgiving. They have ordained that the sun, that bright and luminous star, should preside over the day to distinguish its different parts, and that its light should not only serve to discover the wonders of nature, but to disperse universal life and heat; and at the same time they have commanded the moon and stars to illuminate the night, of itself dark and obscure. Is there any thing more admirable than this variety and vicissitude of day and night of light and darkness, of labour and rest; and all this for the convenience and good of man?" Socrates enumerates in like manner the infinite advantages we receive from fire and water in the necessities of life; and continuing to observe upon the wonderful attention of Providence in all that regards us," what say you," continued he," upon the sun's return after winter to revisit us; and that as the fruits of one season wither and decay, he ripens new ones to succeed them? that having rendered man this service, he retires, lest he should incommode him by excess of heat; and then, after having removed to a certain point, which he could not pass without putting us in danger of perishing with cold, that he returns in the same path to resume his place in those parts of the heavens where his presence is most beneficial to us? and because we could neither support the cold nor heat, if we were to pass in an instant from the one to the other, do you not admire, that while this star approaches and removes so slowly, the two extremities arrive by almost insensible degrees? Is it possible not to discover, in this disposition of the seasons of the year, a providence and goodness, not only attentive to our necessities, but even our delights and enjoyments?" "All these things," said Euthydemus, " make me doubt, whether the gods have any other employment than to shower down their gifts and graces upon mankind. There is one point, however, that puts me to a stand, which is, that the brute animals partake of all these blessings as well as ourselves." "Yes," replied Socrates: "but do you not observe, that all these animals subsist only for men's service? the strongest and most vigorous of them he subjects at his will, he makes them tame and gentle, and uses them successfully in his wars, his labours, and the other occasions of life!" "What if we consider man in himself?" Here Socrates examines the diversity of the senses, by the ministry of which man enjoys all that is best and most excellent in nature; the vivacity of his wit, and the force of his reason, which exalt him infinitely above all other animals; the wonderful gift of speech, by means of which we communicate our thoughts reciprocally, publish our laws, and govern states. "From all this," says Socrates, "it is easy to discern that there are gods, and that they have man in their particular care, though he cannot discover them by his senses. things which oppose it? do we distinguish the winds, while they are tearing up Do we perceive the thunder, while it strikes through all all before them in our view? Our soul itself, with which we are so intimate, which moves and acts us, is it visible? can we behold it? It is the same with regard to the gods, of whom none are visible in the distribution of their favours. The GREAT GOD himself!" These words are remarkable, and demonstrate that Socrates acknowledged one Supreme God, the Author of all being, and superior to all others, who were only the ministers of his will; “ this great God, who has formed the universe, and supports the stupendous work, whose every part is finished with the utmost goodness and harmony; he who preserves them perpetually in immortal vigour, and causes them to obey him with a never-failing punctuality, and a rapidity not to be followed by our imagination; this God makes himself sufficiently visible by the endless wonders of which he is author; but continues always invisible in himself. Let us not then refuse to believe even what we do not see, and let us supply the defects of our corporeal eyes, by using those of the soul; but especially let us learn to render the just homage of respect and veneration to the Divinity, whose will it seems to be, that we should have no other perception of him than by his effects in our favour. Now, this adoration, this homage, consists in pleasing him, and we can only please him in doing his will." In this manner Socrates instructed youth; these are the principles and sentiments with which he inspired them; on the one side, a perfect submission to the laws and magistrates, in which he made justice consist; on the other, a profound regard for the Divinity, which constitutes religion. In things surpassing our understanding, he advises us to consult the gods; and as they impart themselves only to those who please them, he recommends above all things the making them propitious to us by a wise regularity of conduct.* "The gods are wise," says he, " and it depends upon them either to grant what we ask, or to give us directly the reverse of it." He cites an excellent prayer from an anonymous poet: "Great God, give us, we beseech thee, those good things of which we stand in need, whether we crave them or not; and remove from us all those which may be hurtful to us, though we implore them of thee." The vulgar imagined, that there are things which the gods observe, and others of which they take no notice: but Socrates taught, that the gods observe all our actions and words; that they penetrate into our most secret thoughts, are present in all our deliberations, and that they inspire us in all our actions. SECTION V.-SOCRATES APPLIES HIMSELF TO DISCREDIT THE SOPHISTS IN SOCRATES found it necessary to prejudice the young people against a bad taste, which had prevailed for some time in Greece. A set of assuming men arose, who, ranking themselves as the first sages of Greece, were entirely the reverse in their conduct. For, instead of being infinitely remote from all avarice and ambition, like Pittacus, Bias, Thales, and others, who made the study of wisdom their principal occupation, these men were ambitious and covetous, entered into the intrigues and affairs of the world, and made a trade of their pretended knowledge. They were called sophists, and wandered from city to city. They caused themselves to be cried up as oracles, and walked about attended by crowds of their disciples, who, through a kind of enchantment, abandoned the embraces of their parents, to follow these proud teachers, to whom they paid a great price for their instruction.§ There was nothing which these masters did not profess: theology, physics, ethics, arithmetic, astronomy, grammar, music, poetry, rhetoric and history, They knew every thing, and could teach every thing. Their greatest supposed skill lay in philosophy and eloquence. Most of them, like Gorgias, valued themselves upon giving immediate answers to all questions that could be proposed to them. Their young disciples acquired nothing from their precepts, but a silly esteem for themselves, and a universal contempt for every body else; so that not a scholar quitted these schools, who was not more impertinent than when he first entered them. It was necessary to decry the false eloquence and bad logic of these proud teachers, in the opinion of the young Athenians. To attack them openly, and Xenoph, Memorab. 1. iv. p. 803, et 805. dispute with them in a direct manner by a continued discourse, was what Socrates could well have done, for he possessed in a supreme degree the talents of speaking and reasoning; but this was not the means of succeeding against great harangues, whose sole aim was to captivate their auditors with a vain glitter, and rapid flow of words. He therefore took another course, and employing the turns and address of irony, which he knew how to apply with wonderful art and delicacy, he chose to conceal, under the appearance of simplicity and the affectation of ignorance, all the beauty and great force of his genius.* Nature, which had given him so fine a soul, seemed to have formed his outside expressly for supporting the ironic character. He was very ugly, and besides that had something very dull and stupid in his physiognomy. The whole air of his person, which had nothing but what was very common and very poor in it, perfectly corresponded with that of his countenance. Happening to be in company with one of the sophists, he proposed his doubts with a diffident and modest air, asked simple questions in a plain manner, and, as if he had been incapable of expressing himself otherwise, made use of trivial comparisons, and allusions taken from the meanest employments. The sophist heard him with a scornful attention; and instead of giving him a precise answer, fell into his common place expressions, and talked a great deal, without saying any thing to the purpose. Socrates, after having praised his adversary, not with the view of enraging him, entreated him to adapt himself to his weakness, and to come down to his capacity, by satisfying his questions in a few words; because neither his wit nor memory were capable of comprehending or retain ing so many fine and exalted notions, and that all his knowledge was confined to question and answer.‡ This passed in a numerous assembly; and the sophist could not recede. When Socrates had once got him out of his intrenchment, by obliging him to answer his questions succinctly, he carried him on from one to another, to the most absurd consequences; and after having reduced him either to contradict himself, or be silent, he complained that the learned man would not vouchsafe to instruct him. The young people, however, perceived the incapacity of their master, and changed their admiration for him into contempt. Thus the name of sophist became odious and ridiculous. It is easy to judge, that men of the sophists' character, of whom I have now spoken, who were in high repute with the great; who lorded it among the youth of Athens, and had been long celebrated for their wit and learning, could not be attacked with impunity; especially as they had been taken in the two most sensible points, their fame and their interest. Socrates, for having endeavoured to unmask their vices, and discredit their false eloquence, experienced, from these corrupt and haughty men, all that could be feared or expected from the most malignant envy, and the most envenomed hatred; to which it is now time to proceed.§ SECTION VI.-SOCRATES IS accused of HOLDING BAD OPINIONS IN REGARD TO THE GODS. HE IS CONDEMNED TO DIE. SOCRATES was accused a little before the first year of the 95th Olympiad, soon after the expulsion of the thirty tyrants from Athens, in the sixty ninth year of his life; but the prosecution had been projected long before. The oracle of Delphos, which had declared him the wisest of mankind; the contempt into which he had brought the doctrine and morals of the sophists of Socrates in ironia dissumulantiaque longe omnibus lepore atque humanitate præstitit.-Cic 1. ii. de Orat. n. 270. ↑ Zopyrus physiognomon-stupidum esse Socratem dixit et bardum.-Cic. de Fat. n. 10. Socrates de se ipse detrahens in disputatione, plus tribuebat iis, quos volebat refellere. Ita, cum aliud diceret atque sentiret, libenter uti solitus est illa dissimulatione, quam Græci ligwyɛav vocant.-Cic. Acad. Quæst. 1. iv. n. 25. Sed et illum quem nominavi (Gorgiam) et cæteros sophistas, ut e Platone intelligi potest, lusos videmus a Socrate. Is enim percontando atque interrogando elicere solebat eorum opiniones quibuscum differebat. ut ad ea, quæ i respondissent, si quid videretur, diceret.-Cic. de Finib. I. ii. n. 2. Plut. in Apolog. p. 23. | A. M. 3602. Ant. J. C. 402. his time, who were then in high reputation; the liberty with which he attacked all vice; the singular attachment of his disciples for his person and maxims; had all concurred in alienating people from him, and had drawn upon him, abundance of envy. His enemies having sworn his destruction, and perceiving the difficulty of the attempt, prepared the way for it at a distance, and at first attacked him in the dark, and by obscure and secret means. It is said, that to sound the people's disposition in regard to Socrates, and to try whether it would ever be safe to cite him before the judges, they engaged Aristophanes to introduce him at the theatre in a comedy, wherein the first seeds of the accusation meditated against him were sown. It is not certain whether Aristophanes was suborned by Anytus, and the rest of the enemies of Socrates to compose that satirical piece against him. It is very likely, that the declared contempt of Socrates for all comedies in general, and for those of Aristophanes in particular, while he professed an extraordinary esteem for the tragedies of Euripides, might be the poet's true motive for taking his revenge of the philosopher. However that might be, Aristophanes, to the disgrace of poetry, lent his pen to the malice of the enemies of Socrates or his own resentment, and employed his whole genius and capacity to depreciate the best and most excellent man that ever the pagan world produced.* He composed a piece called "The Clouds," wherein he introduced the philosopher, placed in a basket, and lifted up to the clouds, from whence he proclaims maxims, or rather the most ridiculous subtleties. A very aged debtor who desires to escape the close pursuits of his creditors, comes to him to be taught the art of tricking them at law; to prove by unanswerable reasons that he owes them nothing, and in a word, to convert a very bad into a very good cause. But finding himself incapable of any improvements from the sublime lessons of his new master, he brings his son to him in his stead. This young man soon after quits his learned school so well instructed, that at their first meeting he beats his father, and proves to him by subtle, but invincible arguments, that he has reason for treating him in that manner. In every scene where Socrates appears, the poet makes him utter a thousand follies, and as many impieties against the gods; and in particular against Jupiter. He makes him talk like a man of the greatest vanity and opinion of himself, with an equal contempt for all others, who out of criminal curiosity, is for penetrating what passes in the heavens, and for diving into the abysses of the earth; who boasts of having always the means to make injustice triumph; and who is not contented with keeping those secrets for his own use, but teaches them to others, and thereby corrupts youth. All this is attended with refined raillery, and a wit, which could not fail of pleasing a people of so quick and delicate a taste as the Athenians, who were besides naturally invidious of all transcendent merit. They were so much charmed with it, that without waiting the conclusion of the representation, they ordered the name of Aristophanes to be set down above those of all his competitors. Socrates, who had been informed that he was to be ridiculed in the theatre, went thither upon the day to see the comedy, contrary to his custom; for it was not common for him to go to those assemblies, unless when some new tragedy of Euripides was to be performed, who was his intimate friend, and whose pieces he esteemed, on account of the solid principles of morality he took care to intersperse in them. It was, however, observed that he had not patience to wait the conclusion of one of them, wherein the actor had begun with a dangerous maxim, and went out immediately, without considering the injury his withdrawing might do to the reputation of his friend He never went to comedies, unless when Alcibiades and Critias forced him thither against his will, offended at the unbounded licence which reigned in them, and incapable of seeing the reputation of his fellow citizens publicly torn to pieces. He was present at this without the least emotion, and without expressing any dis *Elian. 1. ii. c. 13. Plat. in Apolog. Socrat. p. 19. 314 content; and some strangers being desirous of knowing who the Socrates intended by the play was, he rose up from his seat, and showed himself during the whole representation. He told those who were near him, and were amazed at his indifference and patience, that he imagined himself at a great entertainment, where he was agreeably laughed at, and that it was necessary to let raillery pass.* * It does not appear, as I have already observed, that Aristophanes, though he was not the friend of Socrates, had entered into the black conspiracy of his enemies, and had any thought of causing his destruction. It is more probable that a poet, who diverted the public at the expense of the principal magistrates and most celebrated generals, was also willing to make them laugh at the expense of a philosopher. All the guilt was on the side of those who envied him, and his enemies, who were in hopes of making great use of the representation of this comedy against him. The artifice was indeed profound, and conceived with skill. In acting a man upon the stage, he is only represented on his bad, weak, or ambiguous sides. That view of him is followed with ridicule; ridicule accustoms people to the contempt of his person; and contempt proceeds to injustice. For mankind are naturally bold in insulting, abusing, and injuring a man, when once he becomes the object of their general contempt. These were the first blows struck at him, and served as an essay and trial of the great affair meditated against him. It lay dormant a long while, and did not break out until twenty years afterwards. The troubles of the republic might well occasion that long delay; for it was in that interval the enterprise against Sicily was undertaken, the event of which was so unfortunate, that Athens was besieged and taken by Lysander, who changed its form of government, and established the thirty tyrants, who were not expelled till a very short time before the affair we speak of. Melitus then appeared as accuser, and entered a process in form against Socrates. His accusation consisted of two heads. The first was, that he did not admit the gods acknowledged by the republic, and that he introduced new divinities; the second, that he corrupted the youth of Athens, and concluded with inferring, that sentence of death should pass against him. Never had accusation so little probability, pretext, or foundation as this. It was now forty years that Socrates had made it his profession to instruct the Athenian youth. He had advanced no opinions in secret or privately. His lessons were given publicly, and in the presence of great numbers of auditors. He had always observed the same conduct, and taught the same principles. What then could be the motive of Melitus for this accusation, after such a length of time? how came his zeal for the public good, after having been languid for so many years, to awake on a sudden, and become so violent? Is it pardonable, for so zealous and worthy a citizen as Melitus would appear, to have continued mute and inactive, while any one corrupted all the youth of that city, by instilling seditious maxims into them, and by inspiring them with a disgust and contempt for the established government?" for he who does not prevent an evil, when it is in his power, is equally criminal with him that commits it." Libanius speaks thus in one of his declamations, called the Apology of Socrates. "But," continues he, " though Melitus, whether out of distraction, indifference, or constant employment in his affairs, never thought for so many years of entering an accusation against Socrates; how came it to pass, that in a city like Athens, which abounded with wise magistrates, and what is more, with bold informers, so public a conspiracy as that imputed to Socrates, should escape the eyes of those whom either the love of their country, or invidious malignity, render so vigilant and attentive? nothing was ever less feasible, or more void of all probability." As soon as the conspiracy broke out, the friends of Socrates prepared for his defence. Lysias, the most able orator of his time, brought him an elaborate Plut. de Educ. Liber. p. 10. Liban. in Apolog. Socrat. p. 645-648. † A. M. 3603. Ant. J. C. 401. |