Page:The Apology of Socrates (Nevill, 1901).djvu/9



'Apology' can hardly be described as a technical defence. The charges which it was intended to answer were not directed against any particular act on Socrates’ part, but against his whole manner of life. It is, therefore, only natural that he should have treated the indictment as a challenge to him to give a general justification of his life's work. There are many pleas which might serve to justify Socrates before men of all time—his single-hearted love of truth, his fearless opposition to injustice, his earnest desire to improve his fellow-citizens. But the possession of these qualities, although abundantly illustrated in the course of the 'Apology,' is not used by Socrates as a means of self-justification. Tho point with which he begins, and to which he constantly recurs, is his belief that he was the recipient of a divine injunction to work for the improvement of himself and others. The