ing him with reproaches, and doing him all the offence they could invent. They pretend, that during the Peloponnesian war, after the pestilence had swept off great part of the Athenians, a decree was made, whereby, to retrieve the sooner the ruins of the republic, each citizen was permitted to have two wives at the same time, and that Socrates took the benefit of this new law. Those authors found this circumstance solely upon a passage in a treatise on nobility, ascribed to Aristotle. But besides that, according to Plutarch himself, Panetius, a very grave author, has fully refuted this opinion; neither Plato nor Xenophon, who were well acquainted with all that related to their master, say any thing of this second marriage of Socrates; and on another side, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus, who have treated at large all the particulars of the Peloponnesian war, are alike silent in regard to the pretended decree of Athens, which permitted bigamy. We may see in the first volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, a dissertation of Monsieur Hardion's upon this subject, wherein he demonstrates, that the second marriage of Socrates, and the decree upon bigamy, are supposititious facts. SECTION II. OF THE DEMON, OR FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF SOCRATES. OUR knowledge of Socrates would be defective, if we knew nothing of the genius, which, he said, had assisted him with its council and protection in the great est part of his actions. It is not agreed among authors what this genius was, commonly called "The demon of Socrates," from the Greek word that signifies something of a divine nature, conceived as a secret voice, a sign, or such an inspiration as diviners are supposed to have had. This genius diverted him from the execution of his designs when they have been prejudicial to him, without ever inducing him to act any thing: Esse divinum quoddam, quod Socrates dæmonium appellat, cui semper ipse paruerit, nunquam impellenti, sæpe revocanti. Plutarch, in his treatise entitled, "Of the genius of Socrates," repeats the different sentiments of the ancients upon the existence and nature of this genius. I shall confine myself to that of them, which seems the most natural and reasonable, though he does not lay much stress upon it. We know that the divinity has a clear and unerring knowledge of futurity; that man cannot penetrate into its darkness but by uncertain and confused conjectures; that those who succeed best in that research, are such, who, by a more exact and studied comparison of the different causes capable of influencing future events, distinguish, with greater force and perspicuity, what will be the result and issue of the conflict of those different causes in conducing to the success or miscarriage of an effect or enterprise. This foresight and discernment has something of divine in it, exalts us above the rest of mankind, approaches us to the Divinity, and makes us participate in some measure in his councils and designs, by giving us an insight and * Δαιμονιον. b " Page 580. a Cic. de Divin. l. i. n. 122. prescience, to a certain degree, of what he has ordained concerning the future. Socrates had a just and piercing judgment, joined with the most exquisite prudence. He might call this judgment and prudence, * "something divine," using indeed a kind of equivocality in the expression, without attributing to himself, however, the merit of his wisdom in conjecturing upon the future. The Abbe Fraguier comes very near the same opinion in the dissertation he has left us upon this subject in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres.d The effect, or rather function of this genius, was to stop and prevent his acting, without ever inducing him to act. He received also the same impulse, when his friends were going to engage in any bad affair, and communicated it to him; and several instances are related, wherein they found themselves very unfortunate from not having believed him. Now what other signification can be given to this, than that it implies, under mysterious terms, a mind, which, by its own lights, and the knowledge of mankind, has attained a sort of insight into futurity? And if Socrates had not intended to lessen in his own person the merit of an unerring judgment, by attributing it to a kind of instinct; if at bottom he had desired any thing to be understood, besides the general aid of the divine wisdom, which speaks in every man by the voice of reason; would he have escaped, says Xenophon, the censure of arrogance and falsehood? • Δαιμονιον. Tom. iv. p. 368. God has always prevented me from speaking to you, says he to Alcibiades, whilst the weakness of your age would have rendered my discourses ineffectual to you. But I conceive I may now enter into dispute with you, as an ambitious young man, for whom the laws open a way to the dignities of the republic. Is it not visible here, that prudence prevented Socrates from treating Alcibiades seriously, at a time when grave and severe conversation would have given im a disgust, of which he might perhaps never have got the better? * And when, in his dialogue upon the commonwealth, Socrates ascribes his avoiding public business to inspiration from above, does he mean any thing more than what he says in his Apology, that a just and good man, who intermeddles with the government in a corrupt state, is not long without perishing? If, when he appears before the judges who were to condemn him, that divine voice is not heard to prevent him, as it was upon dangerous occasions, the reason is, that he did not deem it a misfortune for him to die, especially at his age, and in his circumstances. Every body knows what his prognostication had been long before, upon the unfortunate expedition of Sicily. He attrib uted it to his demon, and declared it to be the inspiration of that spirit. A wise man, who sees an affair ill concerted, and conducted with passion, may easily prophesy upon the event of it, without the aid of a demon's inspiration. Plat. in Alcib. p. 150. Plat, de Rep. 1. vi. p. 496. Apolog. Soc. p. 31, 32. It must be allowed, however, that the opinion which gives men genii and angels to direct and guard them, was not unknown even to the pagans. *Plutarch cites the verses of Menander, in which that poet expressly says, "That "That every man at his birth has a good genius given him, which attends him during the whole course of his life as a guide and director." « Απαντι δαίμων ανδρι συμπαραςατεί It may be believed with probability enough, that the demon of Socrates, which has been so differently spoken of, and thereby made it a question whether it was a good or bad angel, was no more than the force and rectitude of his judgment, which, acting according to the rules of prudence, and with the aid of a long experience, supported by wise reflections, made him foresee the events of those things upon which he was either consulted or deliberated himself. I conceive at the same time, that he was not sorry the people should believe him inspired, or that he knew futurity by any effect of the divinity whatsoever. That opinion might exalt him very much in the sense of the Athenians, and give him an authority, of which the greatest persons of the pagan world were very fond,' and which they endeavoured to acquire by secret com * De anim. tranquil p. 474. Lycurgus and Solon had recourse to the authority of oracles to advance their credit. Zeleucus pretended, that his laws had been dictated to him by Minerva. Numa Pompilius boasted his conferences with the goddess Egeria. The first Scipio Africanus made the people believe that the gods gave him secret counsels. Even Sertorius's hind had some. thing divine in it, |