Read Apology By Plato Online

15/66 


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 ironic- 
al 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 prac- 
tice of religion. Probably he neither wholly believed, nor disbe- 
lieved, 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 per- 
formance of the least religious duties; and he must have believed in 
his own oracular sign, of which he seemed to have an internal wit- 
ness. 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 hastening his own end, for life and death 
are simply indifferent to him. But such a defence as would be ac- 
ceptable to his judges and might procure an acquittal, it is not in 
his nature to make. He will not say or do anything that might per- 
vert the course of justice; he cannot have his tongue bound even 'in