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    NOTES ok SpMt OF ' TCHE SlO ^ E POPUL AR mAj £ ) bife& 0 ^ PliATO > . . . : , . ; ., ' - JNb . iV . . . . - \ . , . . ' ' ¦ ' ; .

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    ; 'Thi Apoix > & ^ of Socrates . -. « ( Continued from page 121 . ) . . ¦ Perhaps , now , some one may say , 'Art thou not then ashamed , © Socrates , of practising a pursuit from which thou art now in danger of death V To such a person I may justly make answer * , ' * Tliou speakest not well , O friend , if thou thirikest that a man should calculate the chances of living of dying ( altogether an unimportant mattef )'{ instead

    of considering this only , when he does anything , whether wfrat he does be just or unjust , the act of a good or of a bad man . For by thy way of thinking , the demigods who perished at Troy are worthy of no admiration ;; even the son of Thetis , who so despised danger in comparison witii any dishonour , that when his mother , a goddess , said tOvhun when

    eager to slay Hector , * ' My son , if thoa * avenge thy friendPatoocius * and destroy Hector , thou thyself wilt die / ' he , fearing much more , tp live unworthy and not avenge his friends , than to die , answered , May I die immediately , after punishing the man who has injured me , that I may not remain the scoff of my countrymen , a burthen to the earth . " *

    Thus it is , O Athenians : wheresoever our |> ost is \—whether we choose it , thinking it the best , or are placed hi it b y a superiorj—there , as I hold , we ought to temain , and suffer all chancesj neither reckoning death nor any other consequence as worse than dishonour . I , therefore , should be greatly in the wrong , O Athenians , if wheri I was commanded by the superiors whom you set over me , at Potidaea and Ampliipblis and Deli urn .-, * ¦ I remained ( like other people ) where those superiors posted

    me , and periUed my life ; but when , as I believed , the god commanded me , and bade me pass my life in philosophizing , and examining inyself and others , then , fearipg either death or anything else * I shquld abandon my post . Then , indeed , might I with justice be brought l ^ efpre , the tribunal , and accused of not believing in gods ; if t djsobeyed their oracles , and feared death , and thought myself wise , riot bein g so . To be afraid of death , O Athenians , is to fancy ourselves wise , not being so ;' for it is to fancy that we know what we do not know . N 6 chre'fcnoAvs wHether death is not the greatest possible good to nian . But people fear it , as

    if they knew it to be the greatest of evils . What is ihiisl ^ bttttn ^ * fiost discreditable ignorance , to think we know what wev knDW not ? / f ; O Athenians ; differ perhaps in this from persons in general ; ( and if I am wiser than any other person it is probably in this , ) that not knawing sufficiently about a future state , I do not fancy I know . This , however , I do know ; that to do injustice , and to resist the injunctions of one who is better than myself , be he god or man , is evil and disgraceful . I shall not , therefore , fly to the evils which I know to be evils , from fear of that

    which , for aught I know , may be a good . If , therefore , you were to acquit me , ( in spite of the predictions of Anytus , who said that either I ought not to have been tried , or if tried , it is impossible not to put me to death , since if I escape , all your sons * Allusion to battles and sieges , well known to all readers of Grecian history , and at which Socrates had eminently distinguished himselfc

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/25/