Socrates believed that Virtue was Knowledge, that if a man knew a thing was wrong, he would not do it, and that those who knew what was right would always do it. In this Socrates was not wholly right; he only saw a part of the truth, but his greatness lies in that he was the first to teach the importance of having a reason for what we believe, of learning accurate habits of mind, and that the search for knowledge is one rich in imagination and beauty.
Socrates was always arguing, talking, questioning, but he was never rude or discourteous to those who disagreed with him, he never brought his own personal feelings into his arguments, and he never descended to expressions of wounded pride or irritation.
The teaching of Socrates opened the minds of those who listened to him to the possibilities to which knowing the truth might lead them, and he had great influence over numbers of young Athenians. It was all new to them, they had never heard anything like it before. "Mere fragments of you and your words," said one of them, "even at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the soul of anyone who hears them," and he went on to say,
I have heard Pericles and other great orators and I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them, nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state. But this Socrates has often brought me to such a pass that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life I am leading. For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul. And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, and there is no one else who does the same.[[6]]
But if Socrates gained friends, his method of exposing the ignorance of others also gained him enemies. No one before had ever thought such thoughts, and to ordinary Athenians his questioning was wicked. But Xenophon, one of his friends, tells us that "no one ever heard him say or saw him do anything impious or irreverent, and he was so piously and devoutly religious that he would take no step apart from the will of heaven." Yet his enemies maintained that he disbelieved in the gods. His teaching was all the more disturbing because Athens, having been defeated by Sparta, had just lived through the terrible months of the rule of the Thirty, and though these had been driven out, (this was in the year 399 B.C.), Athens was in a state of unrest, of fear and of suspicion. Anyone who taught anything new was looked upon as a possible enemy to the state, and the enemies of Socrates seized this opportunity to bring definite accusations against him. They said: "Socrates is guilty, inasmuch as he does not believe in the gods whom the city worships, but introduces other strange deities; he is also guilty inasmuch as he corrupts the young men, and the punishment he has incurred is death."[[7]]
A trial followed. In an Athenian trial, first the accusers made their speeches, and then the accused was allowed to defend himself. Plato, the great pupil of Socrates, has given us the speech made by his master at his trial, a speech known as the Apology of Socrates. In it, the philosopher, an old man now of over seventy, set forth the principles which had guided him in his teaching.
He began by saying that he had never taught men to disbelieve in the gods, and that the accusation of impiety against him was false, but he did say that it was fair to ask him just what he had been trying to do which had given rise to these reports. He then told them the story of how a friend of his had gone to Delphi, and had asked the Oracle if there were any man wiser than he, and that the Oracle had answered that there was no man.
Now see why I tell you this. I am going to explain to you the origin of my unpopularity. When I heard of the Oracle I began to reflect. What can God mean by this dark saying? I know very well that I am not wise, even in the smallest degree. Then what can he mean by saying that I am the wisest of men? It cannot be that he is speaking falsely, for he is a god and cannot lie. And for a long time I was at a loss to understand his meaning: then, very reluctantly, I turned to seek for it in this manner. I went to a man who was reputed to be wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I should prove the answer wrong, and meaning to point out to the Oracle its mistake, and to say, "You said that I was the wisest of men, but this man is wiser than I am."
But Socrates went on to say that after talking to this man, who was a politician, he found that he was not wise because he thought he knew things that he did not know, and because he would not acknowledge his ignorance. He tried to prove to him that he was not wise, but only succeeded in making him his enemy.