30U 



SOCRATES. 



gods, which he seems to have regarded as subordi- 

 nate to the Supreme Being. To the good provi- 

 dence of that God he traced all human blessings, 

 and maintained that the omniscient and omnipresent 

 Deity knows every thing, and observes all the 

 secret thoughts and actions of men. For this 

 reason, he esteemed it a sacred duty for men to 

 worship him with all their powers, complying, 

 indeed, with the forms of religious service pre- 

 scribed by the customs or laws of their country, 

 but particularly striving to do his will in all things. 

 Hence he sacrificed and prayed at the altars of his 

 country's gods, both at home and in public, and 

 believed in the revelation of the Divine Being by 

 various sensible appearances. Such revelations he 

 supposed to be made to himself by a demon or 

 genius, which always attended him, warning him 

 from this or that course of conduct. But his com- 

 pliance with religious usages, consecrated by age or 

 custom, did not prevent him from raising his voice 

 against the abuses and prejudices connected with 

 sacrificial worship. Man, he said, could not pur- 

 chase, but must merit, the favour of God ; and this 

 could be effected only by a blameless life, which is 

 the truest and best service of the Deity. Prayer 

 he considered a necessary part of a virtuous life, 

 and therefore taught his disciples the following 

 petition : " Father Jupiter, give us all good, whether 

 we ask it or not; and avert from us all evil, though 

 we do not pray thee so to do. Bless all our good 

 actions, and reward them with success and happi- 

 ness." Socrates entertained no less elevated ideas 

 concerning the human soul. He considered it cer- 

 tain that it is of divine origin, wholly distinct from 

 every thing material, and connected with the Deity 

 by reason and the power of thought. He did not 

 deny the difference between it and the divine 

 nature, but maintained that exercise and cultiva- 

 tion would improve the spiritual principle in man. 

 To this cultivation he exhorted his hearers and 

 friends with a godlike zeal. He declared the im- 

 provement of the mind to be the highest good of 

 which man is capable. As the chief means, he 

 recommended self-knowledge, and he esteemed 

 those as consummately foolish who knew every 

 thing but themselves. Socrates distinguished, 

 also, a sensible and a reasonable soul. Of the 

 immortality of the soul he was firmly convinced. 

 This doctrine he inferred from its native dignity ; 

 likewise from the supposition that the soul 

 gives life to the body'; from the phenomena of 

 dreaming; from the opinion of former ages, and 

 from the nature of the Divine Being from whom 

 the soul proceeds. Hence he viewed death to the 

 good as merely a transition to a better life, and 

 spoke of his hopes with affecting certainty and ad- 

 mirable clearness. His pure soul was enraptured 

 with the thought of meeting the virtuous men of 

 earlier ages. He feared not to stand before the holy 

 Judge of the world; and, in the regions of the 

 blessed, he hoped to find unmingled happiness, with 

 the consciousness of having laboured after truth 

 and struggled for virtue. The images and terms 

 by which he describes the wretchedness of the 

 vicious are terrible. Souls which have become 

 diseased by wickedness, covered, as it were, with 

 stains and ulcers, in consequence of their licentious- 

 ness, effeminacy, or unlawful desires, and stamped 

 with the hateful impress of perjury and injustice, 

 are plunged into abodes of pain, to be reformed by 

 punishment, or to serve as examples to others. 

 This account of the effect of vice on the substance 



of the soul, though all plainly symbolical, surpassed 

 in fearful distinctness, all that had been said on Hie 

 subject. Socrates founded his morality on his re- 

 ligion. God wishes men to be virtuous, and, there- 

 fore, they should act well. The performance of 

 duty is the only way to happiness. Although lie 

 did not exclude the desire of happiness from the 

 motives to virtue, he was far from representing it 

 as the only motive. He thus made an intimate 

 connexion between religion and virtue. The native 

 dignity of virtue he painted in the most delightful 

 colours. The dominion over the senses he declared 

 to be the highest state of freedom: he said that 

 virtue only was true wisdom, and that vice was in 

 sanity. He exhibited no regular system of morals; 

 but this principle may be considered as lying at the 

 foundation of his views of morality : Do what the 

 Deity commands thee. The true interpreter of this 

 command he considered to be a moral sense which 

 distinguishes between justice and injustice, mag- 

 nanimity and meanness in short, between virtue 

 and vice. He did not entertain the idea of moral 

 freedom. On the contrary, he maintained that 

 every man who is acquainted with good practises 

 it, because every one acts agreeably to his know- 

 ledge. Virtue he declared to be the striving to 

 make one's self and others as perfect as possible. 

 All virtue he reduced to two heads, temperance and 

 justice; the former embracing all the duties which 

 man owes to himself, and the latter those which 

 he owes to his fellow men. The temperance of 

 Socrates included dominion over every sensual im- 

 pulse. This self-government he regarded as the 

 basis of all other virtues, which, by its aid, will 

 unfold themselves from the promptings of the moral 

 nature, and the increasing knowledge of good. The 

 beneficial influence of this virtue he describes with 

 a genuine inspiration, and draws a frightful picture 

 of excess. His representation of a just man, one 

 who faithfully performs all his duties to God and 

 man, is highly interesting. Injustice he held to be 

 a great evil. He declared that justice was due 

 even towards enemies; and that a man should 

 never transgress the laws of his country, however 

 unjustly they might be administered. His views 

 of friendship, society, conjugal affection, and the 

 pleasures of life, were excellent. He maintained 

 in every thing the golden mean. All his precepts 

 were equally removed from excessive rigour and 

 pernicious laxness; and whoever follows them will 

 be a good man. To his precepts was added his ex- 

 ample, so superior to all reproach, that Xenophon, 

 his friend and disciple, in his Memorabilia, says none 

 ever saw him perform a vicious or unworthy action, 

 and, at the close of his work, draws the following 

 picture of him : " All the friends of virtue who 

 knew Socrates are still filled with sorrow for his 

 loss; for they found him the best guide to virtue. 

 He was so pious that he did nothing without the 

 advice and consent of the gods; so just that he 

 never injured, in any way, the happiness of any 

 man, but, on the other hand, did the most import- 

 ant services to those who were connected with 

 him. He was so temperate that he never preferred 

 the agreeable to the useful ; of so clear a mind that 

 he never erred in the distinction of good and evil, and 

 all by his own unaided strength. He was, besides, 

 so able in his definitions and illustrations of these 

 subjects, in his judgment of men, in confuting error 

 and recommending virtue and uprightness, that I 

 esteem him the best and the happiest of mortals." 

 Such a man has been charged by some with being 



