CHAP. nor can the rhetorical display of the older Sophists, the dangerous and unscientific character of their later ethics be lost sight of. As regards the Hegelian grouping of Socrates among the Sophists, this has called forth a greater opposition than it deserves. The authors of this view do not deny that the Socratic reference of truth to the person differed essentially from that of the Sophists. Neither they nor their opponents can deny that the Sophists were the first to divert philosophy away from nature to morals and the human mind, that they first required a basis for practical conduct in knowledge, a sifting of existing customs and laws, that they first referred to personal conviction the settling of truth and falsehood, right and wrong. Hence the dispute with them resolves itself into the question. Shall we say that Socrates and the Sophists resembled one another, both taking personal truth as their ground, but differing in their views of personal truth? or that they differed, the nature of their treatment being a different one, whilst they agreed in making it relative? Or to put the question in another shape:-There being both points of agreement and difference between them, which of the two elements is the more important and decisive? Here for the reasons already explained, only one reply can be given,2 that the difference between the Socratic and Sophistic philo together with an incapacity for view. See Part I. 920. 1 See p. 118, 1. 2 See p. 110, and Part I. 135, 938. sophies far exceeds their points of resemblance. The Sophists are wanting in that very thing which is the root of the philosophical greatness of Socratesthe quest of an absolutely true and universally valid knowledge, and a method for attaining it. They could question all that had previously passed for truth, but they could not strike out a new and surer road to truth. Agreeing as they do with Socrates in concerning themselves not so much with the study of nature, as with training for practical life, with them this culture has a different character, and a different importance from what it bears with Socrates. The ultimate end of their instruction is a formal dexterity, the use of which to be consistent must be left to individual caprice, since absolute truth is despaired of; whereas with Socrates, on the contrary, the acquisition of truth is the ultimate end, wherein alone the rule for the conduct of the individual is to be found. Hence in its further course, the Sophistic teaching could not fail to break away from the philosophy which preceded it, and indeed from every intellectual enquiry. Had it succeeded in gaining undisputed sway, it would have dealt the death stroke to Greek philosophy. Socrates alone bore in himself the germ of a new life for thought. He alone by his philosophical principles was qualified to be the reformer of philosophy.1 1 Hermann even allows this in saying (Plato, i. 232) that the importance of Socrates for the history of philosophy must be gathered far more from his personal contrast to the So- CHAP. IX. CHAP. IX. fruit-bearing germ. But how is this admission consistent with making the second period of philosophy commence with the Sophists instead of with Socrates? On the other hand, the latest treatise on the question before us (Siebeck, Untersuchung zur Philos. d. Griech. p. 1, Ueber Socr.Verhältniss zur Sophistik) is decidedly of the opinion here expressed; and likewise most of the later editors of the history of Greek philosophy. Strümpell, too (Gesch. d. Pralit. Phil. d. Griech. p. 26), writes to the same effect, al though his view of the Sophists differs from ours in that he denies a closer connection between their scepticism and their ethics. He makes the distinctive peculiarity of Socrates to consist in the desire to reform ethics by a thorough and methodical intellectual treatment, whereas the Sophists aspiring indeed to be teachers of virtue, accommodated themselves in their instruction without independent inquiry to the tendencies and notions of the time. CHAPTER X. THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. СНАР. X. A. Details of the accusation, his de tence, and We are now for the first time in a position to form a correct opinion of the circumstances which led to the tragic end of Socrates. The actual history of that event is well known. A whole lifetime had been spent in labours at Athens, during which Socrates had been often attacked,' but never judicially im- fence, senpeached,2 when in the year 399 B.C.,3 an accusation death. was preferred against him, charging him with unfaithfulness to the religion of his country, with introducing new Gods, and with exercising a harmful influence on youth. The chief accuser 5 was Meletus,6 with whom were associated Anytus, one of the 1 Compare besides the Clouds of Aristophanes, Xen. Mem. i. 2, 31; iv. 4, 3; Plato, Apol. 32, C.; 22, E. 2 Plato, Apol. 17, D. See p. 53, 1. The indictment, according to Favorinus in Diog. ii. 40, Xen. Mem. (Begin.), Plato, Apol. 24, B., was: Táde ¿ypáчaтo καὶ ἀντωμόσατο Μέλητος Μελήτου Πιτθεὺς Σωκράτει Σωφρονίσκου ̓Αλωπεκῆθεν · ἀδικεῖ Σωκράτης, οὓς μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει θεοὺς οὐ νομίζων, ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαιμόνια εἰσηγήμενος· ἀδικεῖ δὲ καὶ τοὺς νεόυς διαφθείρων· τίμημα θάνατος. 5 See Plato, Apol. 19, B.; 24, For the way in which this name is written, instead of (1) The ac cusation. CHAP. X. leaders and re-introducers of the Athenian democracy,' and Lyco,2 an orator otherwise unknown. The friends of Socrates appear at first to have considered his condemnation impossible; 3 still he was himself Μέλιτος, as was formerly the custom, see Hermann. It aрpears by a comparison of various passages, that the accuser of Socrates is neither the politician, as Forchhammer makes him to be, nor the opponent of Andocides, with whom others have identified him, nor yet the poet mentioned by Aristophanes (Frogs, 1302), but some younger man, perhaps the son of the poet. Further particulars about him are given by Forchhammer, 79; and Hermann, 9. They are gathered from Plato, Meno, 90, A.; Schol. in Plat. Apol. 18, B.; Lysias adv. Dard. 8; adv. Agorat. 78; Isoc. adv. Callim, 23; Plut. Herod. malign. 26, 6. p.862; Coriol. c.14; Aristotle in Harpokrates v. dekά(wv; Schol.in Eschin. adv. Tim. § 87; Diod. xiii. 64. He is mentioned by Xenoph. Hell. ii. 3, 42, 44, as well as by Isocrates, 1. c., as a leader of the Democratic party, together with Thrasybulus. 2 For the various conjectures about him consult Hermann, p. 12. Besides the above-named persons a certain Polyeuctus, according to Favorinus in Diog. ii. 38, took part in assisting the accuser. Probably AvUTOS ought to be written in this passage instead of ПоλúεUктos, and in the following passage Πολύευκτος instead of ̓́Ανυτος, ПоλÚεUкTOS being here probably a transcriber's mistake for ПоλукрάтηS. See Hermann, p. 14. But the words as they stand must be incorrect. The celebrated orator Polycrates is said to have composed the speech of Anytus, Diog. 1. c. according to Hermippus ; Themist. Or. xxiii. 296, 6; Quintil. ii. 17, 4; Hypoth. in Isoc. Busir. ; Esch. Socrat. Epist. 14, p. 84 Or. Suidas, Πολυκράτης - knows of two speeches; and it is proved beyond doubt by Isocr. Bus. 4; Elian, V. H. xi. 10, that he drew up an indictment against Socrates. But it is also clear from Favorinus, that this indictment was not used at the trial. Indeed it would appear from Favorinus that it was not written till some time after the death of Socrates. Conf. Ueberweg, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 94. This is proved by the Euthyphro, allowing, as Schleiermacher, Pl. Werke, i. a, 52, and Steinhart, Plato's Werke, ii. 191 and 199 do., that this dialogue was hastily penned after the beginning of the trial, its object being to prove that Socrates, though accused of impiety, had a deeper piety and a keener appreciation of the nature of piety, than one who had incurred ridicule by his extravagances, but had nevertheless brought himself into the odour of sanctity; a view which, not |