are often imperfect, his conclusions, therefore, liable to be
incorrect. In this way, he maintained that no one would knowingly commit
a wrong act, because he that knew a thing to be good would do it; that
it is only involuntarily that the bad are bad; that he who knowingly
tells a lie is a better man than he who tells a lie in ignorance; and
that it is right to injure one's enemies.

[Sidenote: Superficiality of his views.]

From such a statement of the philosophy of Socrates, we cannot fail to
remark how superficial it must have been; it perpetually mistakes
differences of words for distinctions of things; it also possessed
little novelty. The enforcement of morality cannot be regarded as
anything new, since probably there has never been an age in which good
men were not to be found, who observed, as their rule of life, the
maxims taught by Socrates; and hence we may reasonably inquire what it
was that has spread over the name of this great man such an unfading
lustre, and why he stands out in such extraordinary prominence among the
benefactors of his race.

[Sidenote: Causes of the celebrity of Socrates.]

Socrates was happy in two things: happy in those who recorded his life,
and happy in the circumstances of his death. It is not given to every
great man to have Xenophon and Plato for his biographers; it is not
given to every one who has overpassed the limit of life, and, in the
natural course of events, has but a little longer to continue, to attain
the crown of martyrdom in behalf of virtue and morality. In an evil hour
for the glory of Athens, his countrymen put him to death. It was too
late when they awoke and saw that they could give no answer to the voice
of posterity, demanding why they had perpetrated this crime. With truth
Socrates said, at the close of his noble speech to the judges who had
condemned him, "It is now time that we depart--I to die, you to live;
but which has the better destiny is unknown to all except God." The
future has resolved that doubt. For Socrates there was reserved the
happier lot.

[Sidenote: The ostensible accusations against him.]

No little obscurity still remains as respects the true nature of this
dark transaction. The articles of accusation were three: he rejects the
gods of his country; he introduces new ones; he perverts the education
of youth. With truth might his friends say it was wonderful that he
should be accused of impiety, the whole tenor of whose life was
re