University of Virginia Library

In the case of a name of such wide significance as Socrates, it were superfluous to encumber the page with any display of learned notes. Suffice it to say that everything in the ballad is strictly historical, and taken directly from the original authorities. The indifference shown by Socrates to the αναγκαι or necessary laws of physical science, as contrasted with the freedom of practical reason in which moral science delights, is distinctly emphasised by Xenophon in the opening chapters of the ‘Memorabilia’; and the argument with the atheist—a little perking, self-sufficing creature, as atheists are wont to be—will be found at full length in the same sensible and judicious writer. It is this argument, commonly called the argument from design, that, passing through the eloquent pages of Cicero in his book ‘De Naturâ Deorum,’ has formed the groundwork of all works on Natural Theology up to the present time; and it is an argument that, however misapplied here and there by shallow thinkers and presumptuous dogmatists, has its roots so deep in the instincts of all healthy humanity, and in the very essence of reason, that, though it may be illustrated indefinitely

by example, it never can have anything either added to its certainty or abstracted from its significance. The early occupation of Socrates as a moulder of statues is mentioned by Pausanias; and the name of Critias is introduced to indicate the offence given by the free-mouthed talk of the great teacher to the leaders of the political parties of his time, which may have had as much to do with his martyrdom as the charge of irreligion that, according to Xenophon, was the main count of the indictment against him. His big round eye, and other features of his personal appearance, are minutely and humorously described by the same author in the ‘Banquet.’