on and
without art. His unpremeditated replies seemed to scorn an elaborate
defence. He even seemed to rebuke his judges, rather than to conciliate
them. On the culprit's bench he assumed the manners of a teacher. He
might easily have saved himself, for there was but a small majority
(only five or six at the first vote) for his condemnation. And then he
irritated his judges unnecessarily. According to the laws he had the
privilege of proposing a substitution for his punishment, which would
have been accepted,--exile for instance; but, with a provoking and yet
amusing irony, he asked to be supported at the public expense in the
Prytaneum: that is, he asked for the highest honor of the republic. For
a condemned criminal to ask this was audacity and defiance.

We cannot otherwise suppose than that he did not wish to be acquitted.
He wished to die. The time had come; he had fulfilled his mission; he
was old and poor; his condemnation would bring his truths before the
world in a more impressive form. He knew the moral greatness of a
martyr's death. He reposed in the calm consciousness of having rendered
great services, of having made important revelations. He never had an
ignoble love of life; death had no terrors to him at any time. So he was
perfectly resigned to his fate. Most willingly he accepted the penalty
of plain speaking, and presented no serious remonstrances and no
indignant denials. Had he pleaded eloquently for his life, he would not
have fulfilled his mission. He acted with amazing foresight; he took the
only course which would secure a lasting influence. He knew that his
death would evoke a new spirit of inquiry, which would spread over the
civilized world. It was a public disappointment that he did not defend
himself with more earnestness. But he was not seeking applause for his
genius,--simply the final triumph of his cause, best secured by
martyrdom.

So he received his sentence with evident satisfaction; and in the
interval between it and his execution he spent his time in cheerful but
lofty conversations with his disciples. He unhesitatingly refused to
escape from his prison when the means would have been provided. His last
hours were of immortal beauty. His friends were dissolved in tears, but
he was calm, composed, triumphant; and when he lay down to die he
prayed that his migration to the unknown land might be propitious. He
died without pain, as the hemlock produced only torpor.

His death, as may