CHAP.

X.

ances! We may indeed be convinced that Socrates was in all these points right in the main, and it is quite true that he was the precursor and founder of our moral view of the world; but how could this new idea of right be admitted by any one who shared the traditions of the ancient Greek world? How could a state built upon these traditions allow such an idea to be spread, without commiting an act of suicide? Even remembering, then, that Socrates laboured and taught in his simple manner, not in the Sparta of Lycurgus, but in Athens and amongst the generation that had fought at Marathon, we shall still find it quite natural for the state to endeavour to restrain his action. For Athens was absolutely ignorant of that freedom of personal conviction, which Socrates required, nor could she endure it.' In such a community the punishment of the innovator can cause no surprise. For was not a dangerous doctrine, according to old notions, a crime against the state? And if the criminal resolutely refused to obey the sentence of the judges, as Socrates actually did, how could the penalty of death fail to follow? To one therefore starting from the old Greek view of right and the state, the condemnation of Socrates cannot appear to be unjust.2

To say that the line adopted by Socrates was not opposed to the constitution of Solon, but was instead a return to old Greek custom, as Georgii (Uebersetzung d. Plat. Apologie, p. 129) asserts, is not correct. For not only did he express disapproval of appointing by lot to public offices,

which was, it is true, an institution later than Solon's time, but he disliked the popular elections of Solon; and his principle of free investigation is widely removed from the spirit of Solon's times.

2 Compare the remarks of Kock on Aristophanes, i. 7.

СНАР.

X.

(3) Rela

tion borne

by his theory to

the times

in which
he lived.
(a) The old
morality
was al-
ready in a
state of

A very different question is it whether Athens at that time had a right to this opinion, a point which the defenders of Athens assume far too readily.' To us the question appears to deserve an unqualified negation. Had a Socrates appeared in the time of Miltiades and Aristides, and had he been condemned then, the sentence might be regarded as a simple act of defence on the part of the old morality against the spirit of innovation. In the period after the Peloponnesian war such a view can no longer be admitted. For where was the solid morality which decay. Anytus and Meletus were supposed to defend? Had not all kinds of relations, views, and modes of life long since been penetrated by an individualising tendency far more dangerous than that of Socrates? Had not men been long accustomed in place of the

1 Hegel, 1. c. p. 100, is here most nearly right, although he regards the Athenians exclusively as the representatives of the old Greek morality. Forchhammer, on the contrary, is anything but impartial, in making the Athenians conservative, and Socrates a revolutionary, and attributing to the latter the extreme consequences of those principles, notwithstanding his protest. Nietzsche, too (Sokr. u. d. Griech.Tragödie, p. 29), overlooks the difference of times in thinking that, when Socrates had once been impeached, his condemnation was quite just. If this were allowed, not a word could be said against the sentence of death. For, according to Athenian custom,

when a verdict of guilty had
been brought in, the judges
could only choose between the
penalty demanded by the
plaintiff and that asked for by
the defendant; in the present
case between death and an illu-

sory fine. But the question
really is whether Socrates de-
served punishment at all, and
to this question a negative
answer must be given both
from our point of view as well
as from that of his cotempor-
aries; from ours, because we
take liberty of judgment to be
something sacred and invio-
lable; from theirs, because the
Athenians had long since de-
parted from the ancient state
of things.

СНАР.

X.

(b) Socrates only fell in with what he found existing.

great statesmen of old to see demagogues and aristocrats in feud with each other on every other point, but agreeing in the thoughtless play of rivalry and ambition? Had not all the cultivated men of that time passed through a school of rationalism which had entirely pulled to pieces the beliefs and the morals of their ancestors? Had not men for a generation lived themselves into the belief that laws are the creations of caprice, and that natural right and positive right are very different things ?1 What had become of the olden chastity when Aristophanes could tell his hearers in the midst of his attacks on Socrates, half in joke, half in derision, that they were one and all adulterers ?2 What had become of ancient piety at a time when the sceptical verses of Euripides were in every one's mouth, when every year the happy sallies of Aristophanes and other comedians in successful derision of the inhabitants of Olympus were clapped, when the most unprejudiced complained that fear of God, trust, and faith, had vanished, and when the stories of future retribution were universally derided ? 4

This state of things Socrates did not make; he found it existing. What he is blamed for really consists in this, that he entered into the spirit of his time, trying to reform it by means of itself, instead of making the useless and silly attempt to bring it back to a type of culture which was gone for ever. It was an obviously false attack of his opponents to

1 Conf. p. 29.

2 Clouds, 1083.

3 Thuc. iii. 82; ii. 53.
4 Plato, Rep. i. 330, D.

hold him responsible for the corruption of faith and
morals, which he was trying to stem in the only
possible way. It was
It was a clumsy self-deception on
their part to imagine themselves men of the good old
time. His condemnation is not only a great injustice
according to our conceptions of right, but it is so
also according to the standard of his own time; it is
a crying political anachronism, one of those unfortu-
nate measures, by which a policy of restauration is
ever sure to expose its incompetence and short-
sightedness. Socrates certainly left the original
ground of Greek thought, and transported it beyond
the bounds, within which this particular form of
national life was alone possible. But he did not do
so before it was time, nor before the untenableness
of the old position had been amply demonstrated.
The revolution which was going forward in the whole
spirit of the Greeks, was not the fault of one indi-
vidual, but it was the fault of destiny, or rather it
was the general fault of the time. The Athenians
in punishing him condemned themselves, and com-
mitted the injustice of making him pay the penalty
of what was historically the fault of all. The con-
demnation therefore was not of the least use: in-
stead of being banished, the spirit of innovation was,
on the contrary, thereby all the more aroused. We
have then here not a simple collision between two
moral powers equally justified and equally limited.
Guilt and innocence are not equally divided between
the parties. On the one hand was a principle his-
torically necessary and higher in respect of import-

CHAP.

X.

CHAP.

X.

(c) A

breach between Socrates and his country

men was

ance, of which Socrates had an unquestioned claim to be the representative. On the other hand, one far more limited, represented by his opponents, but to which they have no longer a just right, since they do not faithfully adhere to it. This constitutes the peculiar tragic turn in the fate of Socrates. A reformer who is truly conservative is attacked by nominal and imaginary restorers of old times. The Athenians in punishing him give themselves up as lost; for in reality it is not for destroying morals that he is punished, but for attempting to restore them.

To form a correct judgment of the whole occurrence, we must not forget that Socrates was condemned by only a very small majority, that to all appearances it lay in his own power to secure his acquittal, and that undoubtedly he would have esabsolutely necessary. caped with a far less punishment than death, had he not challenged his judges by the appearance of pride. These circumstances must make us doubly doubtful of regarding his ruin as an unavoidable consequence of his rebellion against the spirit of his nation. As they place the guilt of the Athenians in a milder light, by laying it in part on the head of the accused, so too they at the same time prove that accidental events, in no way connected with the leading character of his teaching, had great weight in the final decision. No doubt Socrates was at variance with the position and the demands of the ancient morality in essential points; but it was not necessary in the then state of opinion at Athens, that it should come to a breach between him and his nation. Although