Chapter V: Part 5

But there is another part of the indictment which says that he
teaches men not to receive the gods whom the city receives, and
has other new gods. ‘Is that the way in which he is supposed to
corrupt the youth?’ ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘Has he only new gods, or none
at all? ‘None at all.’ ‘What, not even the sun and moon?’

‘No; why, he says that the sun is a stone, and the moon earth.’
That, replies Socrates, is the old confusion about Anaxagoras;
the Athenian people are not so ignorant as to attribute to the
influence of Socrates notions which have found their way into the
drama, and may be learned at the theatre. Socrates undertakes
to show that Meletus (rather unjustifiably) has been compounding 27
a riddle in this part of the indictment: ‘There are no gods, but
Socrates believes in the existence of the sons of gods, which is
absurd.’

Leaving Meletus, who has had enough words spent upon him, 28
he returns to the original accusation. The question may be
asked, Why will he persist in following a profession which leads
him to death? Why?—because he must remain at his post where
the god has placed him, as he remained at Potidaea, and Amphipolis,
and Delium, where the generals placed him. Besides, he is 29
not so overwise as to imagine that he knows whether death is
a good or an evil; and he is certain that desertion of his duty
is an evil. Anytus is quite right in saying that they should never 30
have indicted him if they meant to let him go. For he will certainly
obey God rather than man; and will continue to preach to
all men of all ages the necessity of virtue and improvement; and
if they refuse to listen to him he will still persevere and reprove
them. This is his way of corrupting the youth, which he will not
cease to follow in obedience to the god, even if a thousand deaths
await him.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 30-35._]

He is desirous that they should let him live—not for his own
sake, but for theirs; because he is their heaven-sent friend (and 31
they will never have such another), or, as he may be ludicrously
described, he is the gadfly who stirs the generous steed into
motion. Why then has he never taken part in public affairs?
Because the familiar divine voice has hindered him; if he had
been a public man, and had fought for the right, as he would
certainly have fought against the many, he would not have lived,
and could therefore have done no good. Twice in public matters 32
he has risked his life for the sake of justice—once at the trial
of the generals; and again in resistance to the tyrannical commands
of the Thirty.

But, though not a public man, he has passed his days in instructing
the citizens without fee or reward—this was his mission.
Whether his disciples have turned out well or ill, he cannot justly
be charged with the result, for he never promised to teach them 33
anything. They might come if they liked, and they might stay
away if they liked: and they did come, because they found an
amusement in hearing the pretenders to wisdom detected. If
they have been corrupted, their elder relatives (if not themselves)
might surely come into court and witness against him, and there
is an opportunity still for them to appear. But their fathers 34
and brothers all appear in court (including ‘this’ Plato), to
witness on his behalf; and if their relatives are corrupted,
at least they are uncorrupted; ‘and they are my witnesses.
For they know that I am speaking the truth, and that Meletus
is lying.’

This is about all that he has to say. He will not entreat the
judges to spare his life; neither will he present a spectacle of
weeping children, although he, too, is not made of ‘rock or oak.’ 35
Some of the judges themselves may have complied with this
practice on similar occasions, and he trusts that they will not be
angry with him for not following their example. But he feels
that such conduct brings discredit on the name of Athens: he
feels, too, that the judge has sworn not to give away justice; and
he cannot be guilty of the impiety of asking the judge to break his
oath, when he is himself being tried for impiety.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 36-41._]

As he expected, and probably intended, he is convicted. And 36
now the tone of the speech, instead of being more conciliatory,
becomes more lofty and commanding. Anytus proposes death
as the penalty: and what counter-proposition shall he make?
He, the benefactor of the Athenian people, whose whole life has
been spent in doing them good, should at least have the Olympic
victor’s reward of maintenance in the Prytaneum. Or why 37
should he propose any counter-penalty when he does not know
whether death, which Anytus proposes, is a good or an evil?
and he is certain that imprisonment is an evil, exile is an evil.
Loss of money might be no evil, but then he has none to give;
perhaps he can make up a mina. Let that be the penalty, or, 38
if his friends wish, thirty minae; for which they will be excellent
securities.

[_He is condemned to death._]

He is an old man already, and the Athenians will gain nothing
but disgrace by depriving him of a few years of life. Perhaps he
could have escaped, if he had chosen to throw down his arms and
entreat for his life. But he does not at all repent of the manner
of his defence; he would rather die in his own fashion than live
in theirs. For the penalty of unrighteousness is swifter than 39
death; that penalty has already overtaken his accusers as death
will soon overtake him.

And now, as one who is about to die, he will prophesy to them.
They have put him to death in order to escape the necessity of
giving an account of their lives. But his death ‘will be the seed’
of many disciples who will convince them of their evil ways, and
will come forth to reprove them in harsher terms, because they
are younger and more inconsiderate.

[Sidenote: _Analysis 41-42._]

He would like to say a few words, while there is time, to those 40
who would have acquitted him. He wishes them to know that
the divine sign never interrupted him in the course of his defence;
the reason of which, as he conjectures, is that the death to
which he is going is a good and not an evil. For either death is
a long sleep, the best of sleeps, or a journey to another world in
which the souls of the dead are gathered together, and in which
there may be a hope of seeing the heroes of old—in which, too, 41
there are just judges; and as all are immortal, there can be no
fear of any one suffering death for his opinions.

Nothing evil can happen to the good man either in life or death,
and his own death has been permitted by the gods, because it was
better for him to depart; and therefore he forgives his judges
because they have done him no harm, although they never meant
to do him any good.

He has a last request to make to them—that they will trouble 42
his sons as he has troubled them, if they appear to prefer riches
to virtue, or to think themselves something when they are
nothing.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION.]

‘Few persons will be found to wish that Socrates should have defended himself otherwise,’—if, as we must add, his defence was that with which Plato has provided him. But leaving this question, which does not admit of a precise solution, we may go on to ask what was the impression which Plato in the Apology intended to give of the character and conduct of his master in the last great scene? Did he intend to represent him (1) as employing sophistries; (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these sophistries to be regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and to his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing from the natural elevation of his position?

For example, when he says that it is absurd to suppose that one man is the corrupter and all the rest of the world the improvers of the youth; or, when he argues that he never could have corrupted the men with whom he had to live; or, when he proves his belief in the gods because he believes in the sons of gods, is he serious or jesting? It may be observed that these sophisms all occur in his cross-examination of Meletus, who is easily foiled and mastered in the hands of the great dialectician. Perhaps he regarded these answers as good enough for his accuser, of whom he makes very light. Also there is a touch of irony in them, which takes them out of the category of sophistry. (Cp. Euthyph. 2.)

That the manner in which he defends himself about the lives of his disciples is not satisfactory, can hardly be denied. Fresh in the memory of the Athenians, and detestable as they deserved to be to the newly restored democracy, were the names of Alcibiades, Critias, Charmides. It is obviously not a sufficient answer that Socrates had never professed to teach them anything, and is therefore not justly chargeable with their crimes. Yet the defence, when taken out of this ironical form, is doubtless sound: that his teaching had nothing to do with their evil lives. Here, then, the sophistry is rather in form than in substance, though we might desire that to such a serious charge Socrates had given a more serious answer.

[Sidenote: _Character of the defence._]

Truly characteristic of Socrates is another point in his answer, which may also be regarded as sophistical. He says that ‘if he has corrupted the youth, he must have corrupted them involuntarily.’ But if, as Socrates argues, all evil is involuntary, then all criminals ought to be admonished and not punished. In these words the Socratic doctrine of the involuntariness of evil is clearly intended to be conveyed. Here again, as in the former instance, the defence of Socrates is untrue practically, but may be true in some ideal or transcendental sense. The commonplace reply, that if he had been guilty of corrupting the youth their relations would surely have witnessed against him, with which he concludes this part of his defence, is more satisfactory.

Again, when Socrates argues that he must believe in the gods because he believes in the sons of gods, we must remember that this is a refutation not of the original indictment, which is consistent enough—‘Socrates does not receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new divinities’—but of the interpretation put upon the words by Meletus, who has affirmed that he is a downright atheist. To this Socrates fairly answers, in accordance with the ideas of the time, that a downright atheist cannot believe in the sons of gods or in divine things. The notion that demons or lesser divinities are the sons of gods is not to be regarded as ironical or sceptical. He is arguing ‘_ad hominem_’ according to the notions of mythology current in his age. Yet he abstains from saying that he believed in the gods whom the State approved. He does not defend himself, as Xenophon has defended him, by appealing to his practice of religion. Probably he neither wholly believed, nor disbelieved, in the existence of the popular gods; he had no means of knowing about them. According to Plato (cp. Phaedo 118 B; Symp. 220 D), as well as Xenophon (Mem. i. 1, 30), he was punctual in the performance of the least religious duties; and he must have believed in his own oracular sign, of which he seemed to have an internal witness. But the existence of Apollo or Zeus, or the other gods whom the State approves, would have appeared to him both uncertain and unimportant in comparison of the duty of self-examination, and of those principles of truth and right which he deemed to be the foundation of religion. (Cp. Phaedr. 230; Euthyph. 6, 7; Rep. ii. 373 ff.)

[Sidenote: _Did Socrates intend to irritate his judges?_]

The second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as braving or irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative. His irony, his superiority, his audacity, ‘regarding not the person of man,’ necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not acting a part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his life long, ‘a king of men.’ He would rather not appear insolent, if he could avoid it (οὐχ ὡς αὐθαδιζόμενος τοῦτο λέγω). Neither is he desirous of hastening his own end, for life and death are simply indifferent to him. But such a defence as would be acceptable to his judges and might procure an acquittal, it is not in his nature to make. He will not say or do anything that might pervert the course of justice; he cannot have his tongue bound even ‘in the throat of death.’ With his accusers he will only fence and play, as he had fenced with other ‘improvers of youth,’ answering the Sophist according to his sophistry all his life long. He is serious when he is speaking of his own mission, which seems to distinguish him from all other reformers of mankind, and originates in an accident. The dedication of himself to the improvement of his fellow-citizens is not so remarkable as the ironical spirit in which he goes about doing good only in vindication of the credit of the oracle, and in the vain hope of finding a wiser man than himself. Yet this singular and almost accidental character of his mission agrees with the divine sign which, according to our notions, is equally accidental and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him as the guiding principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to us as a freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity when he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of the Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of immortality is uncertain;—he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in this respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can happen to the good man either in life or death. His absolute truthfulness seems to hinder him from asserting positively more than this; and he makes no attempt to veil his ignorance in mythology and figures of speech. The gentleness of the first part of the speech contrasts with the aggravated, almost threatening, tone of the conclusion. He characteristically remarks that he will not speak as a rhetorician, that is to say, he will not make a regular defence such as Lysias or one of the orators might have composed for him, or, according to some accounts, did compose for him. But he first procures himself a hearing by conciliatory words. He does not attack the Sophists; for they were open to the same charges as himself; they were equally ridiculed by the Comic poets, and almost equally hateful to Anytus and Meletus. Yet incidentally the antagonism between Socrates and the Sophists is allowed to appear. He is poor and they are rich; his profession that he teaches nothing is opposed to their readiness to teach all things; his talking in the market-place to their private instructions; his tarry-at-home life to their wandering from city to city. The tone which he assumes towards them is one of real friendliness, but also of concealed irony. Towards Anaxagoras, who had disappointed him in his hopes of learning about mind and nature, he shows a less kindly feeling, which is also the feeling of Plato in other passages (Laws xii. 967 B). But Anaxagoras had been dead thirty years, and was beyond the reach of persecution.

[Sidenote: _Socrates and the Sophists._]

It has been remarked that the prophecy of a new generation of teachers who would rebuke and exhort the Athenian people in harsher and more violent terms was, as far as we know, never fulfilled. No inference can be drawn from this circumstance as to the probability of the words attributed to him having been actually uttered. They express the aspiration of the first martyr of philosophy, that he would leave behind him many followers, accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they would be fiercer and more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated from his control.

[Sidenote: _Is the Apology the real speech of Socrates?_]

The above remarks must be understood as applying with any degree of certainty to the Platonic Socrates only. For, although these or similar words may have been spoken by Socrates himself, we cannot exclude the possibility, that like so much else, _e. g._ the wisdom of Critias, the poem of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, they may have been due only to the imagination of Plato. The arguments of those who maintain that the Apology was composed during the process, resting on no evidence, do not require a serious refutation. Nor are the reasonings of Schleiermacher, who argues that the Platonic defence is an exact or nearly exact reproduction of the words of Socrates, partly because Plato would not have been guilty of the impiety of altering them, and also because many points of the defence might have been improved and strengthened, at all more conclusive. (See English Translation, p. 137.) What effect the death of Socrates produced on the mind of Plato, we cannot certainly determine; nor can we say how he would or must have written under the circumstances. We observe that the enmity of Aristophanes to Socrates does not prevent Plato from introducing them together in the Symposium engaged in friendly intercourse. Nor is there any trace in the Dialogues of an attempt to make Anytus or Meletus personally odious in the eyes of the Athenian public.

APOLOGY.

[Sidenote: _Apology._]

[Sidenote: Socrates begs to be allowed to speak in his accustomed manner.]

How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, =Steph.= 17
I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget
who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they
have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods
told by them, there was one which quite amazed me;—I
mean when they said that you should be upon your guard
and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my
eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected
as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything
but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless—unless
by the force of eloquence they mean the force of
truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent.
But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was
saying, they have scarcely spoken the truth at all; but from me
you shall hear the whole truth: not, however, delivered after
their manner in a set oration duly ornamented with words and
phrases. No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments
which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident
in the justice of my cause[14]: at my time of life I ought not to
be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character
of a juvenile orator—let no one expect it of me. And I must
beg of you to grant me a favour:—If I defend myself in my
accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which
I have been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of
the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to
be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For
I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing now for
the first time in a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the
language of the place; and therefore I would have you regard
me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if 18
he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his
country:—Am I making an unfair request of you? Never
mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think
only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the
speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

[Sidenote: _Socrates and his accusers._]

[Sidenote: The judges must excuse Socrates if he defends himself in his own fashion.]

[Sidenote: He has to meet two sorts of accusers.]

And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my
first accusers, and then I will go on to the later ones. For of
old I have had many accusers, who have accused me falsely
to you during many years; and I am more afraid of them than
of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their
own way. But far more dangerous are the others, who began
when you were children, and took possession of your minds
with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who
speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the
earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause.
The disseminators of this tale are the accusers whom I dread;
for their hearers are apt to fancy that such enquirers do not
believe in the existence of the gods. And they are many, and
their charges against me are of ancient date, and they were
made by them in the days when you were more impressible
than you are now—in childhood, or it may have been in youth—and
the cause when heard went by default, for there was
none to answer. And hardest of all, I do not know and
cannot tell the names of my accusers; unless in the chance
case of a Comic poet. All who from envy and malice have
persuaded you—some of them having first convinced themselves—all
this class of men are most difficult to deal with;
for I cannot have them up here, and cross-examine them, and
therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence,
and argue when there is no one who answers. I will ask you
then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my opponents
are of two kinds; one recent, the other ancient: and I hope
that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first,
for these accusations you heard long before the others, and
much oftener.

Well, then, I must make my defence, and endeavour to clear 19
away in a short time, a slander which has lasted a long time.
May I succeed, if to succeed be for my good and yours, or
likely to avail me in my cause! The task is not an easy one;
I quite understand the nature of it. And so leaving the event
with God, in obedience to the law I will now make my defence.

[Sidenote: _The Clouds of Aristophanes._]

[Sidenote: There is the accusation of the theatres: which declares that he is a student of natural philosophy.]

I will begin at the beginning, and ask what is the accusation
which has given rise to the slander of me, and in fact has
encouraged Meletus to prefer this charge against me. Well,
what do the slanderers say? They shall be my prosecutors,
and I will sum up their words in an affidavit: ‘Socrates is an
evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things
under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse
appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines
to others.’ Such is the nature of the accusation: it is
just what you have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes[15],
who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates,
going about and saying that he walks in air, and talking a
deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend
to know either much or little—not that I mean to speak
disparagingly of any one who is a student of natural philosophy.
I should be very sorry if Meletus could bring so grave
a charge against me. But the simple truth is, O Athenians,
that I have nothing to do with physical speculations. Very
many of those here present are witnesses to the truth of this,
and to them I appeal. Speak, then, you who have heard me,
and tell your neighbours whether any of you have ever known
me hold forth in few words or in many upon such matters....
You hear their answer. And from what they say of
this part of the charge you will be able to judge of the truth
of the rest.

[Sidenote: There is the report that he is a Sophist who receives money.]

[Sidenote: _Evenus the Parian._]

[Sidenote: The ironical question which Socrates put to Callias.]

As little foundation is there for the report that I am a
teacher, and take money; this accusation has no more truth
in it than the other. Although, if a man were really able to
instruct mankind, to receive money for giving instruction
would, in my opinion, be an honour to him. There is
Gorgias of Leontium, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias
of Elis, who go the round of the cities, and are able to
persuade the young men to leave their own citizens by whom
they might be taught for nothing, and come to them whom 20
they not only pay, but are thankful if they may be allowed to
pay them. There is at this time a Parian philosopher
residing in Athens, of whom I have heard; and I came to
hear of him in this way:—I came across a man who has
spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias, the son of
Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him:
‘Callias,’ I said, ‘if your two sons were foals or calves,
there would be no difficulty in finding some one to put over
them; we should hire a trainer of horses, or a farmer probably,
who would improve and perfect them in their own
proper virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings,
whom are you thinking of placing over them? Is there any
one who understands human and political virtue? You must
have thought about the matter, for you have sons; is there
any one?’ ‘There is,’ he said. ‘Who is he?’ said I; ‘and
of what country? and what does he charge?’ ‘Evenus the
Parian,’ he replied; ‘he is the man, and his charge is five
minae.’ Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has
this wisdom, and teaches at such a moderate charge. Had I
the same, I should have been very proud and conceited; but
the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind.

[Sidenote: _The God of Delphi._]

[Sidenote: The accusations against me have arisen out of a sort of wisdom which I practise.]

[Sidenote: My practice of it arose out of a declaration of the Delphian Oracle that I was the wisest of men.]

I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply,
‘Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations
which are brought against you; there must have been something
strange which you have been doing? All these rumours
and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had
been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them,
for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.’ Now I regard
this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you
the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame.
Please to attend then. And although some of you may think
that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth.
Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain
sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of
wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by
man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am
wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have
a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because
I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks
falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men
of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem
to say something extravagant. For the word which I will
speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is
worthy of credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he
will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what
sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early
a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in 21
the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well,
Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his
doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to
tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to
interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether any one
was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered,
that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself;
but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what
I am saying.

[Sidenote: I went about searching after a man who was wiser than myself: at first among the politicians; then among the philosophers; and found that I had an advantage over them, because I had no conceit of knowledge.]

Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain
to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the
answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what
is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have
no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when
he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a
god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After
long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the
question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser
than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in
my hand. I should say to him, ‘Here is a man who is wiser
than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.’ Accordingly
I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed
him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom
I selected for examination—and the result was as follows:
When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking
that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by
many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to
explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not
really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and
his enmity was shared by several who were present and
heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away:
Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows
anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for
he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither
know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then,
I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went
to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and
my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made
another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.

[Sidenote: _Socrates goes on his way asking questions._]

[Sidenote: I found that the poets were the worst possible interpreters of their own writings.]

Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious
of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and
feared this: but necessity was laid upon me,—the word of
God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to
myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out
the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, 22
by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth—the result
of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in
repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less
esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the
tale of my wanderings and of the ‘Herculean’ labours, as I
may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle
irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic,
dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you
will be instantly detected; now you will find out that you are
more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some
of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and
asked what was the meaning of them—thinking that they would
teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost
ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is
hardly a person present who would not have talked better
about their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew
that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of
genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers
who also say many fine things, but do not understand the
meaning of them. The poets appeared to me to be much in
the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of
their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men
in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed,
conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason
that I was superior to the politicians.

[Sidenote: _Why he was so greatly disliked:_]

[Sidenote: The artisans had some real knowledge, but they had also a conceit that they knew things which were beyond them.]

At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I
knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they
knew many fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for
they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in
this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed
that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the
poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that
they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in
them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked
myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as
I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or
like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the
oracle that I was better off as I was.

[Sidenote: The oracle was intended to apply, not to Socrates, but to all men who know that their wisdom is worth nothing.]

This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of
the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion 23
also to many calumnies. And I am called wise, for my
hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom
which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men
of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he
intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or
nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using
my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is
the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is
in truth worth nothing. And so I go about the world,
obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the
wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears
to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of
the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation
quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either
to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my
own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to
the god.

[Sidenote: _Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon._]

[Sidenote: There are my imitators who go about detecting pretenders, and the enmity which they arouse falls upon me.]

There is another thing:—young men of the richer classes,
who have not much to do, come about me of their own
accord; they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they
often imitate me, and proceed to examine others; there are
plenty of persons, as they quickly discover, who think that
they know something, but really know little or nothing; and
then those who are examined by them instead of being
angry with themselves are angry with me: This confounded
Socrates, they say; this villainous misleader of youth!—and
then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he
practise or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell;
but in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they
repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all
philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and
under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse
appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that
their pretence of knowledge has been detected—which is
the truth; and as they are numerous and ambitious and
energetic, and are drawn up in battle array and have persuasive
tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud
and inveterate calumnies. And this is the reason why my
three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set
upon me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf
of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians;
Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians: and as I said 24
at the beginning, I cannot expect to get rid of such a mass
of calumny all in a moment. And this, O men of Athens, is
the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing,
I have dissembled nothing. And yet, I know that my
plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their
hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?—Hence
has arisen the prejudice against me; and this is the reason
of it, as you will find out either in this or in any future
enquiry.

[Sidenote: The second class of accusers.]

I have said enough in my defence against the first class of
my accusers; I turn to the second class. They are headed
by Meletus, that good man and true lover of his country,
as he calls himself. Against these, too, I must try to make
a defence:—Let their affidavit be read: it contains something
of this kind: It says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who
corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of
the state, but has other new divinities of his own. Such is
the charge; and now let us examine the particular counts.
He says that I am a doer of evil, and corrupt the youth; but
I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, in
that he pretends to be in earnest when he is only in jest,
and is so eager to bring men to trial from a pretended zeal
and interest about matters in which he really never had the
smallest interest. And the truth of this I will endeavour to
prove to you.

Come hither, Meletus, and let me ask a question of you.
You think a great deal about the improvement of youth?

[Sidenote: _Meletus is cross-examined by Socrates._]

[Sidenote: All men are discovered to be improvers of youth with the single exception of Socrates.]

Yes, I do.

Tell the judges, then, who is their improver; for you must
know, as you have taken the pains to discover their corrupter,
and are citing and accusing me before them. Speak, then,
and tell the judges who their improver is.—Observe, Meletus,
that you are silent, and have nothing to say. But is not this
rather disgraceful, and a very considerable proof of what
I was saying, that you have no interest in the matter? Speak
up, friend, and tell us who their improver is.

The laws.

But that, my good sir, is not my meaning. I want to
know who the person is, who, in the first place, knows
the laws.

The judges, Socrates, who are present in court.

What, do you mean to say, Meletus, that they are able
to instruct and improve youth?

Certainly they are.

What, all of them, or some only and not others?

All of them.

By the goddess Herè, that is good news! There are
plenty of improvers, then. And what do you say of the
audience,—do they improve them? 25

Yes, they do.

And the senators?

Yes, the senators improve them.

But perhaps the members of the assembly corrupt them?—or
do they too improve them?

They improve them.

Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all
with the exception of myself; and I alone am their corrupter?
Is that what you affirm?

That is what I stoutly affirm.

[Sidenote: But this rather unfortunate fact does not accord with the analogy of the animals.]

I am very unfortunate if you are right. But suppose I ask
you a question: How about horses? Does one man do
them harm and all the world good? Is not the exact opposite
the truth? One man is able to do them good, or at least
not many;—the trainer of horses, that is to say, does them
good, and others who have to do with them rather injure
them? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or of any other
animals? Most assuredly it is; whether you and Anytus
say yes or no. Happy indeed would be the condition of
youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of
the world were their improvers. But you, Meletus, have
sufficiently shown that you never had a thought about the
young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about
the very things which you bring against me.

[Sidenote: _Meletus is checkmated by Socrates._]

And now, Meletus, I will ask you another question—by
Zeus I will: Which is better, to live among bad citizens, or
among good ones? Answer, friend, I say; the question
is one which may be easily answered. Do not the good
do their neighbours good, and the bad do them evil?

Certainly.

And is there any one who would rather be injured than
benefited by those who live with him? Answer, my good
friend, the law requires you to answer—does any one like to
be injured?

Certainly not.

[Sidenote: When I do harm to my neighbour I must do harm to myself: and therefore I cannot be supposed to injure them intentionally.]

And when you accuse me of corrupting and deteriorating
the youth, do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or
unintentionally?

Intentionally, I say.

But you have just admitted that the good do their neighbours
good, and the evil do them evil. Now, is that a truth
which your superior wisdom has recognized thus early in life,
and am I, at my age, in such darkness and ignorance as not
to know that if a man with whom I have to live is corrupted
by me, I am very likely to be harmed by him; and yet I
corrupt him, and intentionally, too—so you say, although
neither I nor any other human being is ever likely to be
convinced by you. But either I do not corrupt them, or 26
I corrupt them unintentionally; and on either view of the
case you lie. If my offence is unintentional, the law has no
cognizance of unintentional offences: you ought to have
taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for
if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what
I only did unintentionally—no doubt I should; but you
would have nothing to say to me and refused to teach me.
And now you bring me up in this court, which is a place not
of instruction, but of punishment.

[Sidenote: _He neither knows nor cares about the interests of youth._]

It will be very clear to you, Athenians, as I was saying,
that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the
matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what
I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you mean,
as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to
acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but
some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their
stead. These are the lessons by which I corrupt the youth,
as you say.

Yes, that I say emphatically.

[Sidenote: Socrates is declared by Meletus to be an atheist and to corrupt the religion of the young.]

Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell
me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean!
for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach
other men to acknowledge some gods, and therefore that I do
believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist—this you do not
lay to my charge,—but only you say that they are not the
same gods which the city recognizes—the charge is that they
are different gods. Or, do you mean that I am an atheist
simply, and a teacher of atheism?

I mean the latter—that you are a complete atheist.

What an extraordinary statement! Why do you think so,
Meletus? Do you mean that I do not believe in the god-head
of the sun or moon, like other men?

I assure you, judges, that he does not: for he says that
the sun is stone, and the moon earth.

[Sidenote: Meletus has confounded Socrates with Anaxagoras; and he has contradicted himself in the indictment.]

Friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras:
and you have but a bad opinion of the judges, if you
fancy them illiterate to such a degree as not to know that
these doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras the
Clazomenian, which are full of them. And so, forsooth, the
youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when there
are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre[16]
(price of admission one drachma at the most); and they
might pay their money, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends
to father these extraordinary views. And so, Meletus, you
really think that I do not believe in any god?

[Sidenote: _Meletus is again checkmated by Socrates._]

I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.

Nobody will believe you, Meletus, and I am pretty sure
that you do not believe yourself. I cannot help thinking,
men of Athens, that Meletus is reckless and impudent, and
that he has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness
and youthful bravado. Has he not compounded a 27
riddle, thinking to try me? He said to himself:—I shall
see whether the wise Socrates will discover my facetious
contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him and
the rest of them. For he certainly does appear to me to
contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said
that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet
of believing in them—but this is not like a person who is in
earnest.

I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining
what I conceive to be his inconsistency; and do
you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind the audience
of my request that they would not make a disturbance if
I speak in my accustomed manner:

[Sidenote: How can Socrates believe in divine agencies and not believe in gods?]

Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human
things, and not of human beings?... I wish, men of Athens,
that he would answer, and not be always trying to get up an
interruption. Did ever any man believe in horsemanship,
and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players?
No, my friend; I will answer to you and to the
court, as you refuse to answer for yourself. There is no
man who ever did. But now please to answer the next
question: Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies,
and not in spirits or demigods?

He cannot.

How lucky I am to have extracted that answer, by the
assistance of the court! But then you swear in the indictment
that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual
agencies (new or old, no matter for that); at any rate, I
believe in spiritual agencies,—so you say and swear in the
affidavit; and yet if I believe in divine beings, how can I help
believing in spirits or demigods;—must I not? To be sure
I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives
consent. Now what are spirits or demigods? are they not
either gods or the sons of gods?

Certainly they are.

[Sidenote: _The example of Achilles._]

But this is what I call the facetious riddle invented by
you: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that
I do not believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in
gods; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods
are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs
or by any other mothers, of whom they are said to be the
sons—what human being will ever believe that there are
no gods if they are the sons of gods? You might as well
affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and
asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended
by you to make trial of me. You have put this into
the indictment because you had nothing real of which to
accuse me. But no one who has a particle of understanding
will ever be convinced by you that the same men can believe
in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that
there are gods and demigods and heroes. 28

I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus:
any elaborate defence is unnecessary; but I know only too
well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and
this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed;—not
Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the
world, which has been the death of many good men, and will
probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of
my being the last of them.

[Sidenote: Let no man fear death or fear anything but disgrace.]

Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of
a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely
end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken:
a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the
chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether
in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part
of a good man or of a bad. Whereas, upon your view, the
heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, and the son
of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger in comparison
with disgrace; and when he was so eager to slay
Hector, his goddess mother said to him, that if he avenged
his companion Patroclus, and slew Hector, he would die
himself—‘Fate,’ she said, in these or the like words, ‘waits
for you next after Hector;’ he, receiving this warning,
utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing
them, feared rather to live in dishonour, and not to avenge
his friend. ‘Let me die forthwith,’ he replies, ‘and be
avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked
ships, a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth.’ Had
Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever
a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or
that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he
ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think
of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of
Athens, is a true saying.

[Sidenote: _The motives of Socrates explained by himself._]

[Sidenote: Socrates, who has often faced death in battle, will not make any condition in order to save his own life; for he does not know whether death is a good or an evil.]

[Sidenote: He must always be a preacher of philosophy.]

[Sidenote: ‘Necessity is laid upon me:’ ‘I must obey God rather than man.’]