Page:The trial and death of Socrates (1895).pdf/95

Rh forcing his countrymen to give an account of their lives. But he believed that God had sent him to be a preacher of righteousness to the Athenians; and he refused to be silent on any terms. 'I cannot hold my peace,' he says, 'for that would be to disobey God.' Tennyson's famous lines have been often and well applied to him:

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear: And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'

They illustrate his faith, 'his burning faith in God and Right.' Knowing nothing certainly of what comes after death, and having no sure hope of a reward in the next world, he resolutely chose to die sooner than desert the post at which God had placed him, or do what he believed to be wrong.