Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/576

566 566 Socrates^ Schleiermacher^ and Delbrueck. Socrates makes to the charge of not acknowledging the ^cities acknowledged by the state^ but some new supernatural powers or agencies. Socrates is represented in the Apology as first complaining of the ambiguity of the charge, and asking Mele- tus, whether he means to accuse him of believing in gods differ- ent from those of the state, or of absolute atheism : and Meletus is made to say that he charges him with not believing in any gods whatever. To repel this charge Socrates, in the passage of which Mr D. complains, endeavours to shew, that the very word which Meletus has used in his indictment, to describe the new objects of belief, which Socrates has substituted for those recognised by the state, (Saijuopia) implies a contradiction of the charge. For one who holds the existence of things pertaining to daemons (^aiiuovia)^ must believe in the beings to whom they pertain (^aifjLoi^e^) ; and Meletus is brought to admit that all beings of tl^is class are either gods, or the offspring of gods, whence it follows that no one who acknowledges their existence can deny that of the gods. This argument, Mr D. conceives, contains a complication of fallacies. In the first place a belief in the existence of divine things does not imply belief in the existence of any deity ; there is no analogy between the mutual relation of the terms man and human, and the terms deity and divine ; for experience informs us, that both in individuals and in communities the notion of a something divine precedes and gives birth to that of a deity ; and in fact the great glory of Socrates consisted in this : that he was able to distinguish that which belonged to the former notion in the religion of his coun- trymen, its sacred and unchangeable foundation, which is ever^ lastingly grounded in the nature of man, from the light and worthless superstructure of legends and ceremonies, which chance, ignorance, and superstition, had grounded upon it. This pure faith, Mr D. thinks, it would have become Socrates to confess before his judges. He might have admitted that he did not in all points agree with the poets, the priests, and the soothsayers, with respect to divine things : but he might at the same time have maintained that his creed, instead of being new, was eternal as deity itself, and was the primaeval faith revealed to every member of the human race, who would listen to the voice of his own heart : that it was not inconsistent with the religious institutions of his country, which he had always re-