ul to her
in poverty.[913] He wanted to know what piety was, that he might be
pious. He desired to know what justice, temperance, nobility, courage
were, that he might cultivate and practise them. He wrote no books,
delivered no lectures; he instituted no school; he simply conversed in
the shop, the market-place, the banquet-hall, and the prison. This
philosophy was not so much a _doctrine_ as a _life_. "What is remarkable
in him is not the _system_ but the _man_. The memory he left behind him
amongst his disciples, though idealized--the affection, blended with
reverence, which they never ceased to feel for his person, bear
testimony to the elevation of his character and his moral purity. We
recognize in him a Greek of Athens--one who had imbibed many dangerous
errors, and on whom the yoke of pagan custom still weighed; but his life
was nevertheless a noble life; and it is to calumny we must have
recourse if we are to tarnish its beauty by odious insinuations, as
Lucian did, and as has been too frequently done, after him, by
unskillful defenders of Christianity,[914] who imagine it is the gainer
by all that degrades human nature. Born in a humble position, destitute
of all the temporal advantages which the Greeks so passionately loved,
Socrates exerted a kingship over minds. His dominion was the more real
for being less apparent.... His power consisted of three things: his
devoted affection for his disciples, his disinterested love of truth,
and the perfect harmony of his life and doctrine.... If he recommended
temperance and sobriety, he also set the example; poorly clad, satisfied
with little, he disdained all the delicacies of life. He possessed every
species of courage. On the field of battle he was intrepid, and still
more intrepid when he resisted the caprices of the multitude who
demanded of him, when he was a senator, to commit the injustice of
summoning ten generals before the tribunals. He also infringed the
iniquitous orders of the thirty tyrants of Athens. The satires of
Aristophanes neither moved nor irritated him. The same dauntless
firmness he displayed when brought before his judges, charged with
impiety. 'If it is your wish to absolve me on condition that I
henceforth be silent, I reply I love and honor you, but I ought rather
to obey the gods than you. Neither in the presence of judges nor of the
enemy is it permitted me, or any other man, to use every sort of means
to escape death. It is not death but