[31] with all who would listen to him—­to bring all popular beliefs before the bar of reason, to approach every inquiry with an open mind, and not to judge by the opinion of majorities or the dictate of authority; in short to seek for other tests of the truth of an opinion than the fact that it is held by a great many people.  Among his disciples were all the young men who were to become the leading philosophers of the next generation and some who played prominent parts in Athenian history.

If the Athenians had had a daily press, Socrates would have been denounced by the journalists as a dangerous person.  They had a comic drama, which constantly held up to ridicule philosophers and sophists and their vain doctrines.  We possess one play (the Clouds of Aristophanes) in which Socrates is pilloried as a typical representative of impious and destructive speculations.  Apart from annoyances of this kind, Socrates reached old age, pursuing the task of instructing his fellow-citizens, without any evil befalling him.  Then, at the age of seventy, he was prosecuted as an atheist and corrupter of youth and was put to death (399 B.C.).  It is strange that if the Athenians really thought him dangerous they should have suffered him so long.  There can, I think, be

[32] little doubt that the motives of the accusation were political. [1] Socrates, looking at things as he did, could not be sympathetic with unlimited democracy, or approve of the principle that the will of the ignorant majority was a good guide.  He was probably known to sympathize with those who wished to limit the franchise.  When, after a struggle in which the constitution had been more than once overthrown, democracy emerged triumphant (403 B.C.), there was a bitter feeling against those who had not been its friends, and of these disloyal persons Socrates was chosen as a victim.  If he had wished, he could easily have escaped.  If he had given an undertaking to teach no more, he would almost certainly have been acquitted.  As it was, of the 501 ordinary Athenians who were his judges, a very large minority voted for his acquittal.  Even then, if he had adopted a different tone, he would not have been condemned to death.

He rose to the great occasion and vindicated freedom of discussion in a wonderful unconventional speech.  The Apology of Socrates, which was composed by his most brilliant pupil, Plato the philosopher, reproduces

[33] the general tenor of his defence.  It is clear that he was not able to meet satisfactorily the charge that he did not acknowledge the gods worshipped by the city, and his explanations on this point are the weak part of his speech.  But he met the accusation that he corrupted the minds of the young by a splendid plea for free discussion.  This is the most valuable section of the Apology; it is as impressive to-day as ever.  I think the two principal points which he makes are these—­