In 399 tic., formal accusation was brought against the philosopher in the following terms: *Socrates is guilty of crime, first, for not wor shipping the gods the city worships, and for introducing new divinities of his own; next, for corrupting the youth. The penalty due is death.* These are virtually the same charges as laid against him by Aristophanes more than 20 years earlier. His accusers were Meletus, a young dramatic poet, little known, and person ally almost a stranger to Socrates and who is said to have joined in the accusation because he felt himself injured by Socrates' demonstration of the ignorance of poets respecting their art; Anytus, a rich leather-dealer and .influential demagogue, who was displeased with the de preciatory judgment of Socrates respecting the Athenian statesmen and politicians; and Lycon, a public orator, who felt injured by what Soc rates said of the orators. The trial took place before a dikastery, or law-court composed of citizen judges, like our juries, but far more numerous; the number present on this occasion has been variously set down at 500, 501, 557, and 567. His bold defense, which appeared to his judges as presumptuousness, is preserved by Plato, under the title of the of Soc rates.) He dwelt on his mission to convict men of their ignorance for their ultimate bene fit; declared himself a public blessing to the Athenians; assuring them if his life was spared he would continue in the same course; and re garded the approach of death with utter indif ference. To his judges his philosophical reflec tions seemed a violation of those ethical and religious foundations of the Athenian state, which the restored democracy was endeavoring to re-establish. The former intimacy of Soc rates with Alcibiades and with the hated tyrant Critias, led to a mistrust of his doctrines and purposes. Yet the condemnation was voted by only a small majority, some read three and others 30. But since after his condemnation he would not acknowledge himself guilty, by expressing an opinion as to the punishment he should receive, but declared himself worthy, on the contrary, of being fed at the Prytaneum as a benefactor of the state, and at last only on the persuasion of his friends agreed to a fine of 30 mince, he was condemned to death by an increase of 80 Votes. The execution had to be delayed 30 days, until the return of the sacred ship whi h had been sent to Delos on the periodical heoric mission. Every morn ing his wife a three sons, together with his companions an friends, assembled in his cell, and he conve ed with them as he had been wont to do. I his solitary hours he composed a hymn to A llo and versified several of the fables of ,- his first attempts at poetical composition. His friends formed projects for his escape and Crito, his old and tried friend, undertook to persuade him to comply with their wishes. He considered it, however, his duty as a citizen to obey the laws, though they were badly administered and would not consent. Early on the morning of the fatal day his wife and friends met in his cell to spend the last hours with him. Xanthippe was much affected, and showed her grief by loud cries; Socrates made a sign to Crito to have her removed, as he wished to spend his last moments in tran quillity. He then talked with his friends, first about his poem, then concerning suicide, and at last on the immortality of the soul. The man ner in which the assembled friends, in the al ternation of joyful admiration and profound grief, lauded him as one who, by the divine appointment, was going to a place where it must fare well with him, if with any one; how he departed from them with the one wish, that in their care for their true welfare they would cherish in their memories all his sayings; and how he designated the transition to the life beyond death as the true recovery from a state of impurity and disease, is set down in lively and affecting colors by his great disciple Plato, in the dialogue The approach of twilight at length admonished them that the hour had come. He took the hemlock cup, calmly and slowly drank the poison. He then walked up and down the apartment, trying to console his weeping friends. When it became difficult to walk he lay down upon his couch, and before his heart ceased to beat 1 exclaimed: "My friends, we owe a cock to Xsculapius.* He then covered himself up with his cloak and calmly expired. *Thus died the man,* says Plato in his ((who of all with whom we are acquainted was in death the noblest, in life the wisest and most just)* In their accounts of the life of Socrates the two principal authorities, Xe6ophon and Plato, substantially agree, although the Platonic pic ture is sketched with the more delicatepencil. As to their reports of his doctrine, it is first of all undoubtedly true that Plato in his (Dia logues) generally presents his own thoughts through the mouth of Socrates. But in a cer tain sense his can nevertheless serve as authorities for the Socratic teaching, as the groundwork of the Platonic philosophy is contained in the Socratic, and as it is possi ble, in general, though not in all cases in de tail, to discriminate between the Platonic and Socratic elements. Plato was cautious enough not to be led by his love of idealization too far from historic truth; in some of his compositions he remains almost entirely faithful to it, and in others puts those doctrines which Socrates could not have professed into the mouth of other philosophers. Xenophon wrote the (Me
morabilia' and the not so much in the ,spirit of a pure historian as in that of an apologist; but his honorable defense of Socrates demands from us entire confidence in his historic fidelity, so far as his intention is concerned. But it must be acknowledged that as much cannot be said of his intellectual quali fication for an exact and comprehensive under standing of the Socratic philosophy. Xeno phon appears to attribute too unconditionally to Socrates the tendency natural to himself to connect all scientific activity with a practical purpose, and he thus gives too small a place to the dialectic of Socrates as compared with his ethical teachings. The brief statements of Aristotle respecting the philosophical doctrines of Socrates are very valuable, since they are purely historical, and relate to the most import ant points of his teaching. The previous phil osophies consisted of vague speculations on nature as a whole, combining cosmology, as tronomy, geography, physics, metaphysics, etc. Socrates had given much attention to these subjects and arrived at the conclusion that the knowledge he had gained was of little practical value. Astronomy might have a certain value in navigation and in the measurement of time, and so should be learned to some extent by the pilot and the watchman; geometry was useful when confuted to land-measuring; arith metic might be useful in many of the affairs of daily life, and so on; but the speculations of philosophers, from Thales downward, as to the origin of all things out of fire, water, air, etc., he regarded as profitless, nay, as impious even. "Do these inquirers," he would ask, 'think that they already know human affairs well enough that they thus begin to meddle with divine? Do they think they shall be able to raise or calm the winds at pleasure, or do they simply seek to gratify vain curiosity?' The gods managed the operations of nature after their own pleasure, and refused to submit them to invariable laws of sequence, such as could be discovered by human study; the only means of knowledge permitted was sacrifice, payer and the consultation of the oracles. ?MZ`n's strivings after knowledge should be directed to the human relationships as in volving men's practical concerns. Self-knowl edge, the fulfilment of the requirement of the Delphic Apollo, "Know thyself,' is the con dition of practical excellence. External goods do not advance their possessor; to want nothing is divine, to want the least possible brings one nearest to divine perfection. Virtue is capable of being taught, and all virtue is in truth only one; no man is voluntarily wicked, all wicked ness simply resulting from ignorance. The good is idegLica1- withlhe beautiful and the Ckcro's well-known saying thaTSoc rat' a called philosophy down from the heavens to earth and introduced it into the cities and houses of men, compelling men to inquire con cerning life and morals and things good and evil, indicates in terms substantially correct the progress of philosophy in Socrates from the cosmology and physics of his predecessors to anthropological ethics. He possessed, however, no complete system of ethical doctrines, but only the living instinct of inquiry and could, therefore, naturally arrive at definite ethical eorems only in conversation with others.
he fundamental thought in his political doc trine is that authority properly belongs to the in elligent — to him who possesses knowledge.
e good ruler must be, as it were, a shepherd to those whom he rules; his business, his "virtue," is to make them happy. Socrates did not favor the appointment of officers by popular suffrage and by lot. He defends the belief in the existence of gods on teleological grounds, arguing from the structure of organ ized beings, and founding his reason on the general principle that whatever exists for a use must be the work of intelligence. The wisdom which is present and rules in all that exists determines all things according to its good pleasure. It is distinguished from the other gods as the ruler and disposer of the The like the human soul, are invisible, but make known their existence un mistakably by their operations.
It is reported that soon after the death of the great philosopher the Athenians regretted their sentence and that to expiate their crime a brazen statue, the work of Lysippus, was dedi cated to his memory. Yet a more general re vulsion of opinion in favor of Socrates seems first to have taken place in consequence of the labors of his scholars. That some of the ac cusers were put to death and others exiled is probably a fable, founded perhaps on the fact that Anytus, banished in all likelihood for politi cal reasons, died in Heraclea, on the Pontus, where in later centuries his tomb was still pointed out. Consult Burnet, J., "Thales to Plato" in 'Greek Philosophy,' Part I (London 1914) ; Forbes, J. T., 'Socrates' (New York 1905) ; Gomperz, T., 'Greek Thinkers > (New York 1905) ; Hyslop, J. H., 'Ethics of the Greek Philosophers' (New York 1904) ; More, "Socrates" in 'Shelburne Essays,' 6th series (New York 1909) ; Wright, W. C., 'A Short History of Greek Literature' (New York 1907) ; Zeller, E. G., 'Socrates and the Socratic Schools' (tr. by Richel, O. J., 3d ed., London 1885).