Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/568

558 558 Schleiermacher on Plato's Apology. been hindered ^ He would then have had an opportunity of exemplifying those gteat precepts and expedients of rhetoric, the force of which he had himself first disclosed ; and un- doubtedly he might have applied them with great truth and art to the charges concerning the new deities and the corruption of youth. And so it would have been far better for him to have used any other person'^s name for the purpose of retorting on the accusers of Socrates, and to have spoken of his merits in a different tone. Whereas in a speech put into the mouth of Socrates himself, yet different from that which he really delivered, he can have had no other object than to shew what Socrates voluntarily neglected or involuntarily let slip, and how his defense should have been framed so as to produce a better effect. Now not to mention that this would have been scarcely possible without departing from the character of Socrates, it is evident that the defense we now have was not framed with this view. For how could such a speech have been followed by the address after the verdict, which implies an issue not more favorable than the real one ? The only supposition then that remains is, that this work was designed simply to exhibit and record in substance the real proceedings of the case, for those Athenians who were not able to be hearers, and for the other Greeks, and posterity. Now are we to believe that, in such a case and under such circumstances, Plato was unable to resist the temptation of fathering upon Socrates a work of his own art, which in all but the outline was perhaps entirely foreign to him, like a boy who has a theme set him to declame on. This we cannot believe, but must presume that in this case, where nothing of his own was wanted, and he had entirely devoted to himself to his friend, especially so short a time before or after the death of Socrates, as this work was undoubtedly composed, he considered his departing friend too sacred to be disguised even with the most beautiful of or- naments, and his whole form as so faultless and majestic, that it was not right to exhibit it in any dress, but, like the statue of a god, naked, and wrapt only in its own beauty. And so in ' " See Diog. Laert. ii. 41. where it is related that Plato was prepared to defend Socrates, but in the first sentence of his speech was interrupted by the petulance of the jurors, and compelled to descend from the bema. But this anecdote is too little attested and too improbable in itself to build upon.'' vSchleiermachcr.