Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism

by John Stuart Blackie

(4.) And their profession of these principles was the more dangerous, that it was supported by a specious and plausible art of logic and rhetoric, of which the professed object was, with an utter disregard of truth, to make the worse appear the better reason.

(5.) The natural and actual effect of this teaching was to corrupt the youth and undermine both domestic and civic morality.

This is the full view of the case, as one may gather it from the whole pleadings; but more definitely and succinctly the actual indictment is given by Xenophon in this single sentence:—“Socrates behaves wrongfully in not acknowledging those as gods whom the State holds to be gods, and in introducing new gods of his own; he acts wrongfully also in corrupting the youth.”

Now the first question which arises on this charge is, whether such a prosecution, according to the law of Athens, was justifiable at all; and on this head we are happy to agree with the view of the case so ably stated by Professor Zeller in his excellent work on the Philosophy of the Greeks. The prosecution, we think, was not justifiable; that is, even though the points had been proven, there was no indictable offence. For though unquestionably both by Hellenic and Roman law a public action lay in theory against all who did not acknowledge the gods of the country, and no man was entitled to entertain private gods without State authority; and though as a matter of fact several eminent persons, such as Anaxagoras and Diagoras, had even in the lifetime of Socrates been tried and banished for the offence of impiety, yet the spirit of toleration was now so large, and the license everywhere assumed had been so great, that to condemn an honest thinker to death for simple heterodoxy, in the year 399 B.C., in Athens, was altogether inexcusable, and could be attributed only to intense personal spite on the part of his prosecutors, and to the crassest prejudice on the part of the jury who tried him.

But the case assumes a much more serious aspect, when it stands proven in the most distinct terms that, even had the prosecution in point of legal practice been justifiable, the defendant as a matter of fact was entirely innocent of all the charges in the indictment. Of this ample evidence shines out in almost every page of the above sketch; and more may be found by whoso cares to seek in almost every chapter of Xenophon. There is no philosopher of antiquity in whom a cheerful piety, according to the traditions of his country, and a reasonable morality, were so happily combined. In this view he stands out in remarkable completeness when compared whether with Confucius in the far east, or with Aristotle in his own country. He stands also as a representative man in this respect above Plato, and incarnates fully both the piety and the philosophy of Athens, just as Chalmers was the incarnation of the religion, the science, the fervour and the practical sagacity of Scotland. Plato, on the other hand, though a man of profound piety, as a transcendental speculator was too lofty in his point of view to be able to reconcile himself to the familiar and sensuous theology of Homer; while Aristotle was defective altogether in the emotional part of his nature, and, like a true encyclopædist, was content to register the gods whom he had not the heart to worship. As to the new gods whom Socrates was said to have introduced, this charge could only have arisen from some gross popular blunder about the δαίμων or genius by whom he used to assert his conduct was often guided. What this δαίμων really was we shall see by and by; but even had it been a real familiar spirit, as was crudely supposed, there was nothing in the idea of such spiritual intercourse contrary to the orthodox conceptions of heathen piety. The third charge against him of corrupting the youth, was merely an application of the charge of irreligion, with the obvious intention of rousing the tender apprehensions of Athenian fathers who believed in the stout old Marathonian sturdiness, and hated the subtle glibness of the rising generation; for in fact, like the late distinguished Baron Bunsen, Socrates was peculiarly the friend of young men, and specially zealous for their good. The answer to such a charge was plain, and was similar to that which might have been made by the Methodists of the last century, when they were charged with leading away the people from the Established Church: If you, the Churchmen, had taken care of the people in the remote corners of Cornwall and Wales, we certainly should never have interfered. So Socrates might well ask his accusers, as we find in Plato’s Apology he did: “If I corrupt the young men, who improves them? It was simply because there was no person who cared to instruct them in the principles of right that there was room for me to come forward as a teacher at all. Your accusation of me is a proof that you neglected your own work.” Why then, we are now prepared to ask, was he condemned? The answer to this is unfortunately only too obvious. The causes of his condemnation were five:—

(1.) Because his freedom of speech as a preacher of righteousness had made him not a few enemies in influential quarters. Though entirely free from every taint of bitterness or ill-will, and even playfully tolerant to human weaknesses, the very reverse, as we have seen, of a modern Calvin, the moment an argument was started he spared no party, who, by the application of the searching logical test, was found to be a dealer in hollow superficialities or pretentious shams; poets, orators, and politicians equally were made to feel the keen edge of his reproof. Against all and each of these he had spoken more truth than they could easily bear; and of that dangerous seed he was now to reap the natural fruit. Truth, which was a jewel of great price to him, was a nauseous drug to many; and the man who administered it could not be looked on with friendly eyes. “Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” was the question directed more than four hundred years afterwards by the great apostle of the Gentiles to some of his perverted churches. So it was also in the days of Socrates, and so it must ever be. Men are by nature not lovers of truth, in the first place, but lovers of themselves, of their own wishes, of their own fancies, of their own belongings. To become lovers of the pure truth they must undergo a process of moral and intellectual regeneration—the new birth of oriental philosophy and of evangelical doctrine.

(2.) Because the religious antipathies of an orthodox public (and the Athenians prided themselves specially on their religiousness) towards a person accused of heterodoxy, scepticism, and atheism are so strong as readily to overbear any evidence that may be adduced to prove the personal piety, and even the literal orthodoxy, of the accused party.

(3.) Because in a democracy, where the judges, or, as we would say, the jury, are a mixed multitude of ignorant and prejudiced people, such motives are apt to be particularly strong.

(4.) Because Socrates, as a man of high principle, and of a perhaps over-strained sense of honour, would not condescend to use any of those intrigues, tricks, and supple artifices which are often applied successfully to overcome the prejudices of an adverse jury. Nay, his attitude seemed more that of a man willing to find in death a noble opportunity for putting a seal upon the great work of his life. He pleaded his own case, which no prudent man does who is anxious merely to gain his case; and his speech is rather a proud assertion of himself against his judges than a politic deprecation of their displeasure.

(5.) Because, no doubt, a certain excitement of the public mind arising out of the troubles of the recent revolutionary government established by the Spartans, and the restoration of the democracy by Thrasybulus, was favourable to the bringing of a charge against a person belonging to a class generally suspected by the people, and one who had unquestionably at times spoken his mind freely enough on the defects, absurdities, and blunders of the local democracy. This political element may certainly have helped; but the charge against the philosopher was not mainly—formally indeed not at all—political, as the pleadings both in Xenophon and Plato sufficiently show.