Professor Köchly’s article (contained in a volume entitled Akademische Vorträge, Zurich, 1859) is eminently deserving of perusal. It not only contains a careful summary of the contemporary history, so far as Sokrates is concerned, but it has farther the great merit of fairly estimating that illustrious man in reference to the actual feeling of the time, and to the real public among whom he moved. I feel much satisfaction in seeing that Professor Köchly’s picture, composed without any knowledge of my History of Greece, presents substantially the same view of Sokrates and his contemporaries as that which is taken in my sixty-eighth chapter.
Köchly considers that the Platonic Apology preserves the Sokratic character more faithfully than any of Plato’s writings; and that it represents what Sokrates said, as nearly as the “dichterische Natur” of Plato would permit (Köchly, pp. 302-364.)
Even if it be Plato’s own composition, it comes naturally first in the review of his dialogues.
Such, in my judgment, is the most probable hypothesis respecting the Apology. But even if we discard this hypothesis; if we treat the Apology as a pure product of the Platonic imagination (like the dialogues), and therefore not necessarily connected in point of time with the event to which it refers — still there are good reasons for putting it first in the order of review. For it would then be Plato’s own exposition, given more explicitly and solemnly than anywhere else, of the Sokratic point of view and life-purpose. It would be an exposition embodying that union of generalising impulse, mistrust of established common-places, and aggressive cross-examining ardour — with eccentric religious persuasion, as well as with perpetual immersion in the crowd of the palæstra and the market-place: which immersion was not less indispensable to Sokrates than repugnant to the feelings of Plato himself. An exposition, lastly, disavowing all that taste for cosmical speculation, and that transcendental dogmatism, which formed one among the leading features of Plato as distinguished from Sokrates. In whichever way we look at the Apology, whether as a real or as an imaginary defence, it contains more of pure Sokratism than any other composition of Plato, and as such will occupy the first place in the arrangement which I adopt.[3]
[3] Dionysius Hal. regards the Apology, not as a report of what Sokrates really said, nor as approximating thereunto, but as a pure composition of Plato himself, for three purposes combined:—1. To defend and extol Sokrates. 2. To accuse the Athenian public and Dikasts. 3. To furnish a picture of what a philosopher ought to be. — All these purposes are to a certain extent included and merged in a fourth, which I hold to be the true one, — to exhibit what Sokrates was and had been, in relation to the Athenian public.
The comparison drawn by Dionysius between the Apology and the oration De Coronâ of Demosthenes, appears to me unsuitable. The two are altogether disparate, in spirit, in purpose, and in execution. (See Dion. H. Ars Rhet. pp. 295-298: De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosth. p. 1026.)
In my History of Greece, I have already spoken of this impressive discourse as it concerns the relations between Sokrates himself and the Dikasts to whom he addressed it. I here regard it only as it concerns Plato; and as it forms a convenient point of departure for entering upon and appreciating the Platonic dialogues.
General character of the Apology — Sentiments entertained towards Sokrates at Athens.
The Apology of Sokrates is not a dialogue but a continuous discourse addressed to the Dikasts, containing nevertheless a few questions and answers interchanged between him and the accuser Melêtus in open court. It is occupied, partly, in rebutting the counts of the indictment (viz., 1. That Sokrates did not believe in the Gods or in the Dæmons generally recognised by his countrymen: 2. That he was a corruptor of youth[4]) — partly in setting forth those proceedings of his life out of which such charges had grown, and by which he had become obnoxious to a wide-spread feeling of personal hatred. By his companions, by those who best knew him, and by a considerable number of ardent young men, he was greatly esteemed and admired: by the general public, too, his acuteness as well as his self-sufficing and independent character, were appreciated with a certain respect. Yet he was at the same time disliked, as an aggressive disputant who “tilted at all he met” — who raised questions novel as well as perplexing, who pretended to special intimations from the Gods — and whose views no one could distinctly make out.[5] By the eminent citizens of all varieties — politicians, rhetors, Sophists, tragic and comic poets, artisans, &c. — he had made himself both hated and feared.[6] He emphatically denies the accusation of general disbelief in the Gods, advanced by Melêtus: and he affirms generally (though less distinctly) that the Gods in whom he believed, were just the same as those in whom the whole city believed. Especially does he repudiate the idea, that he could be so absurd as to doubt the divinity of Helios and Selênê, in which all the world believed;[7] and to adopt the heresy of Anaxagoras, who degraded these Divinities into physical masses. Respecting his general creed, he thus puts himself within the pale of Athenian orthodoxy. He even invokes that very sentiment (with some doubt whether the Dikasts will believe him[8]) for the justification of the obnoxious and obtrusive peculiarities of his life; representing himself as having acted under the mission of the Delphian God, expressly transmitted from the oracle.