Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/515

 VALUE OF HIS METHOD. 495 inventor, the necessity and use of it neither have disappeared, noi ever can disappear. There are few men whose minds are not more or less in that state of sham knowledge against which Sok- rates made war : there is no man whose notions have not been first got together by spontaneous, unexamined, unconscious, un- certified association, resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparates or inconsistencies, and leaving in his mind old and familiar phrases, and oracular propositions, of which he has never rendered to himself account : there is no man, who, if he be destined for vigorous and profitable scientific effort, has not found it a necessary branch of self-education, to break up, disen- tangle, analyze, and reconstruct, these ancient mental com- pounds ; and who has not been driven to do it by his own lame and solitary efforts, since the giant of the colloquial elenchus no longer stands in the market-place to lend him help and stimulus. To hear of any man, 1 especially of so illustrious a man, being condemned to death on such accusations as that of heresy and .alleged corruption of youth, inspires at the present day a senti- ment of indignant reprobation, the force of which I have no desire to enfeeble. The fact stands eternally recorded as one among the thousand misdeeds of intolerance, religious and polit- ical. But since amidst this catalogue each item has its own peculiar character, grave or light, we are bound to consider at what point of the scale the condemnation of Sokrates is to be placed, and what inferences it justifies in regard to the character of the Athenians. Now if we examine the circumstances of the case, we shall find them all extenuating ; and so powerful, indeed, as to reduce such inferences to their minimum, consistent with the general class to which the incident belongs. 1 Dr. Thirhvall has given, in an Appendix to his fourth volume (Ap- pend, vii, p. 526, set].), an interesting and instructive review of the recent nentimcnts expressed by Ilcgcl, and by some other eminent German authors, on Sokrates and his condemnation. It affords me much satisfaction to see that he has bestowed such just animadversions on the unmeasured bitterness, as well as upon the untenable views, of M. Forchhammer's treatise respecting Sokriite>. I dissent, however, altogether, from the manner in which Dr. ThirlwaU peaks about the sophists, both in this Appendix and elsewhere. My opin- ion, respecting the pcrso~ so called, has been given at length in the pro tcding chapter.