in the former instance, the defence of Socrates is untrue
practically, but may be true in some ideal or transcendental sense. The
commonplace reply, that if he had been guilty of corrupting the youth
their relations would surely have witnessed against him, with which he
concludes this part of his defence, is more satisfactory.

Again, when Socrates argues that he must believe in the gods because he
believes in the sons of gods, we must remember that this is a refutation
not of the original indictment, which is consistent enough--'Socrates
does not receive the gods whom the city receives, and has other new
divinities'--but of the interpretation put upon the words by Meletus,
who has affirmed that he is a downright atheist. To this Socrates fairly
answers, in accordance with the ideas of the time, that a downright
atheist cannot believe in the sons of gods or in divine things. The
notion that demons or lesser divinities are the sons of gods is not
to be regarded as ironical or sceptical. He is arguing 'ad hominem'
according to the notions of mythology current in his age. Yet he
abstains from saying that he believed in the gods whom the State
approved. He does not defend himself, as Xenophon has defended him,
by appealing to his practice of religion. Probably he neither wholly
believed, nor disbelieved, in the existence of the popular gods; he
had no means of knowing about them. According to Plato (compare Phaedo;
Symp.), as well as Xenophon (Memor.), he was punctual in the performance
of the least religious duties; and he must have believed in his own
oracular sign, of which he seemed to have an internal witness. But the
existence of Apollo or Zeus, or the other gods whom the State approves,
would have appeared to him both uncertain and unimportant in comparison
of the duty of self-examination, and of those principles of truth
and right which he deemed to be the foundation of religion. (Compare
Phaedr.; Euthyph.; Republic.)

The second question, whether Plato meant to represent Socrates as
braving or irritating his judges, must also be answered in the negative.
His irony, his superiority, his audacity, 'regarding not the person of
man,' necessarily flow out of the loftiness of his situation. He is not
acting a part upon a great occasion, but he is what he has been all his
life long, 'a king of men.' He would rather not appear insolent, if
he could avoid it (ouch os authadizomenos touto lego). Neither is
he desirous of ha