Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/510

 488 HISTORY OF GREECE. solution ; and it is consoling to remark that the cup of hemlocfc the means employed for executions by public order at Athens produced its effect by steps far more exempt from suffering than any natural death which was likely to befall him. Those who have read what has been observed above respecting the strong religious persuasions of Sokrates, will not be sur- prised to hear that his last words, addressed 1o Krito immedi- ately before he passed into a state of insensibility, were : " Krito, we owe a cock to JEsculapius : discharge the debt, and by no means omit it." ' Thus perished the "parens philosophise," the first of ethical philosophers ; a man who opened to science both new matter, alike copious and valuable ; and a new method, memorable not less for its originality and efficacy, than for the profound philo- sophical basis on which it rests. Though Greece produced great poets, orators, speculative philosophers, historians, etc., yet other countries having the benefit of Grecian literature to begin with, have nearly equalled her in all these lines, and surpassed her in some. But where are we to look for a parallel to Sok- rates, either in or out of the Grecian world ? The cross-examin- ing elenchus, which he not only first struck out, but wielded with such matchless effect and to such noble purposes, has been mute ever since his last conversation in the prison ; for even his great successor Plato was a writer and lecturer, not a collo- quial dialectician. No man has ever been found strong enough to bend his bow ; much less, sure enough to use it as he did. His life remains as the only evidence, but a very satisfactory evidence, how much can be done by this sort of intelligent inter- rogation; how powerful is the interest which it can be made to inspire ; how energetic the stimulus which it can apply in awakening dormant reason and generating new mental power. It has been often customary to exhibit Sokrates as a moral preacher, in which character probably he has acquired to himself the general reverence attached to his name. This is, indeed, a true attribute, but not the characteristic or salient attribute, nor that by which he permanently worked on mankind. On the other hand, Arkesilaus, and the New Academy, 1 a century and 1 Plato, Phtedon, c. 155, p. 118, A. 1 Cicero, Academ. Post i 12.44. "Cum Zcnone Arcesilas sibi omna