e he had every opportunity of emphasising
this view, there is hardly an indication of it. In _The Clouds_, where the
main attack is directed against modern free-thought, Euripides, to be
sure, is sneered at as being the fashionable poet of the corrupted youth,
but he is not drawn into the charge of impiety. Even when Plato wrote his
_Republic_, Euripides was generally considered the "wisest of all
tragedians." This would have been impossible if he had been considered an
atheist. In spite of all, the general feeling must undoubtedly have been
that Euripides ultimately took his stand on the ground of popular belief.
It was a similar instinctive judgment in regard to religion which
prevented antiquity from placing Xenophanes amongst the atheists. Later
times no doubt judged differently; the quotation from _Melanippe_ is in
fact cited as a proof that Euripides was an atheist in his heart of
hearts.

In Aristophanes we meet with the first observations concerning the change
in the religious conditions of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. In one
of his plays, _The Clouds_, he actually set himself the task of taking up
arms against modern unbelief, and he characterises it directly as atheism.
If only for that reason the play deserves somewhat fuller consideration.

It is well known that Aristophanes chose Socrates as a representative of
the modern movement. In him he embodies all the faults with which he
wished to pick a quarrel in the fashionable philosophy of the day. On the
other hand, the essence of Socratic teaching is entirely absent from
Aristophanes's representation; of that he had hardly any understanding,
and even if he had he would at any rate not have been able to make use of
it in his drama. We need not then in this connexion consider Socrates
himself at all; on the other hand, the play gives a good idea of the
popular idea of sophistic. Here we find all the features of the school,
grotesquely mixed up and distorted by the farce, it is true, but
nevertheless easily recognisable: rhetoric as an end in itself, of course,
with emphasis on its immoral aspect; empty and hair-splitting dialectics;
linguistic researches; Ionic naturalism; and first and last, as the focus
of all, denial of the gods. That Aristophanes was well informed on certain
points, at any rate, is clear from the fact that the majority of the
scientific explanations which he puts into the mouth of Socrates actually
represent the latest results of sc