SOCRATES. 33 



might be most agreeable to his hearers, and therefore most conducive 

 to his own purposes ; in the accomplishment of which he would be 

 restrained by no feelings of honour or moral delicacy, having been 

 taught that there was no inherent nor essential difference between 

 right and wrong. 



" That might made right," says Mr. Mitford, the able historian 

 of Greece, " especially in public transactions, was a tenet very gene- 

 rally avowed; the incalculable mischiefs of which were checked only 

 by the salutary superstition, which taught to respect the sanction 

 of oaths, in the fear that immediate vengeance from the gods would 

 follow the violation of it as a personal affront to themselves. It 

 appears, however, in the remaining works of the great comic poet 

 of the day, that this salutary superstition was fast wearing away. It 

 is evident from the writings of Xenophon and Plato, that, in their 

 age, the boundaries of right and wrong, justice and injustice, honesty 

 and dishonesty, were little determined by any generally-received 

 principle. There were those who contended that, in private as in 

 public affairs, whatever was clearly for a man's advantage, he might 

 reasonably do : and even sacrifice was performed, and prayer offered 

 to the gods for success in wrong." 



Such was the state of things at Athens, when Socrates appeared Socrates, 

 upon the stage of public life. Before we proceed to detail his bio- 

 graphy, a few words must be said concerning the sources from which 

 we derive our information respecting him. It is well known that 

 the two authors, from whom this information is principally drawn, 

 were his scholars and admirers. Of these, Plato has rather been 

 studious to raise an immortal monument to his own wisdom and 

 eloquence, than to give a faithful delineation and portraiture of his 

 illustrious master. He has made Socrates the principal personage 

 in his truly dramatic dialogues ; but he has rather employed him as 

 the organ of his own philosophical opinions, than represented, in 

 their native simplicity, the doctrines of the great teacher himself. 

 We are assured by Aristotle, that Plato was addicted, in his earlier 

 years, to the notions of Heraclitus ; and Socrates complained that, 

 even during his lifetime, Plato corrupted his doctrines by mixing 

 with them the tenets of other philosophers. This conduct gave great 

 offence to the other disciples of Socrates, and especially to Xenophon, 

 between whom and Plato there appears to have subsisted a con- 

 siderable dislike. It is very plain, from the style of Plato's dialogues, 

 that they are not to be depended upon as faithful records of the life 

 or sayings of Socrates. Athena?us relates, that Gorgias, upon reading 

 the dialogue inscribed with his name, exclaimed, " How well does 

 Plato understand the art of lampooning ! " He added, that he had 

 never heard Socrates utter a syllable of what Plato puts in his 

 mouth. Timon of Phlius, the writer of SHU, who lashed all the 

 philosophers, had a verse to the following effect : " How skilfully 

 did Plato invent his admirable fictions ! " 



[G. K. P.] D 



