As regards doctrine. Socrates was distinguished chiefly by his theory of virtue, Virtue, he said, consisted in knowledge. To do right, was the only road to happiness; and as every man sought to be happy, vice could arise only from ignorance or mistake as to the means; hence the proper corrective was an enlarged teaching of the conse quences of actions.
We cannot, on any fair interpretation of knowledge, regard this as other than a one sided view. It takes note of one condition of virtue, since there can be no right conduct without understanding, the tendency of actions, or, at all events, the meaning of rules; but it omits, what is also essential, the state of the emotions or dispositions, which may be directed either to exclusively self-regarding ends, or to ends involving also the good of others. There is au obvious connection between the doctrine and the Socratic anal ogy of virtue to the professions. The virtue of an artisan is almost exclusively contained in his skill or knowledge; his dispositions can usually, though not always, be depended on, through the pressure of his immediate self interest. But the practice of Socrates was larger than his theory; for, as already remarked, his exhortations were addressed to men's feelings or sentiments as well as to their intellect. Ins political doctrines were biased by the same analogy of special professions. The legitimate king or governor was he alone that knew how to govern well.
In the year 390 B.C., an indictment was laid against Socrates, in the following terms: "Socrates is guilty of crime: first, for not worshiping the gods whom the city worships, and for introducing new divinities of his own; next, for corrupting the youth. Via penalty due is death." The trial took place before a dikastery, or law-court, composed of citizen-judges, like our juries, but far more numerous; the number present seems to have been 557. His defense is preserved by Plato, under the title Apology of Socrates. The tone of it, so admirable to us, was such as to make acquittal all but impossible, from the number of enemies created by his cross-questioning annoyance of all classes of men, and from various other causes. He dwelt on his mission to convict men of ignor
ance for their ultimate benefit; pronounced himself a public blessing" to the Athenians; declared that, if his life was preserved, he would continue in the same course; and regarded the prospect of death with utter indifference. By a majority of either five or six, the charges were declared to be proven. A vote had then to be taken on the sent ence. By the Athenian practice, the accuser named a penalty, and the accused was asked to do the same; the judges were restricted to one or other of these. The accuser named death. Socrates, maintaining the same high tone, declared at first that he deserved the highest public reward; but, on the instigation of his friends, he ended by proposing a trifling' fine. The court, by a majority, decided for the capital sentence. There was an accidental interval of 30 days before the execution, during which Socrates in prison conversed with his friends as usual; on the last day occurred his conversation on the immortality of the soul, referred to in the Platonic dialogue called Phaeton. He then drank the hemlock, and passed away with the dignity and calmness becoming his past life.
"There can be no doubt," says Mr. Grote, " that the individual influence of Socrates permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method, and multiplied the ascendant minds of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers may have had a more elaborate doctrine, and a larger number of disciples I who imbibed their ideas; but none of them applied the same stimulating method with the same efficacy; none of them struck out of other minds that fire which sets light to original thought; none of them in others the pains of intellectual preg nancy, or extracted from others the fresh and unborrowed offspring of a really parturient mind."—See Grote's Greece; Zeller's Philos. der Grie,chca.