Philosopher to take from them all excuse of Ignorance Since besides that natural knowledge which God hath engraven upon the minds of all men there appeared in a most populous City and the noblest School of Learning this eminent witness endowed with this peculiar Gift that he would rowz up men sleeping profoundly in vain opinion of themselves and shew them their ignorance wherein they were shamefully involved the knowledge of this matter also being at length disseminated not only through all Greece but through the whole world by this writing of Plato This therefore is the Theme and this the Oeconomy or Method of this Oration THE ORATION HOw your minds His Exordium wherein he weakneth the credit of his Accusers by charging them with manifold falshoods Athenians are affected and inclined by the harangue of my Accusers I know not but I my self am so sensibly touched with it that I have almost forgot my self So fitly and advantagiously for the gaining of belief and perswasion have they spoken tho to comprehend all in one word they have spoken nothing of truth But among many falshoods they alleaged I chiefly admire this one that they have admonished you diligently to beware lest you be seduced by me as if I were singularly powerfull in the faculty of speaking and that they have not blusht to urge that wherein they will soon be found guilty of palpable lying when first I shall be found unfit to speak to you this seems to me the most impudent of all Unless perhaps their meaning be He renounces all eloquence but truth to engage the benevolence and attention of the Judges that he is powerfull in the art of speaking who speaks truely For if this be their sense I profess my self to be an Orator but not according to their opinion But they as I said have delivered nothing of truth from me on the contrary you shall receive nothing of falshood And yet I swear by Jove you shall not from me hear a formal Oration composed of the elegances of words and Ornaments of sentences as theirs was but plain truths expressed in unstudied language and vulgar phrases But the things I am going to speak I believe to be equitable and just nor let any among you expect other from me For it is not fit that I should at these years come to you like a boy with fiction and Romances This one thing I earnestly beg and require of you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pre-ocupation where in he excuseth his plain and familiar way of pleading by his being inconversant in Forensian controversies and by his custom which is equivalent to Law as also by this that a Judge ought to consider not the elegancy but truth of a defence that if you O Athenians hear me making my defence in the same way of speech and manner of reasoning I have used both in the Forum and at the Tables of the Bankers in which and other places most of you have seen me you neither wonder thereat nor raise a tumult thereupon For the truth of the matter is this is the first time I appear at your Tribunal being now more than 60 years of age so that I may well be a stranger in this way of pleading causes Allow me therefore the same favour as if I really were a stranger seeing I shall use both the same words and the same form of speech wherein I have been educated This also I beg of you and it seems most equitable you should grant it to me that you consider not the manner of my pleading whether it be rude or convenient but diligently examine and with all possible attention of mind perpend whether the matter or substance of it be just or unjust For this is the virtue of a Judge as the virtue of an Orator is to deliver truths The Partition of his plea according to the diversity of his accusations First then O ye Athenians I am obliged to answer to those lyes that are in the first place objected to me and so to my first Accusers then to my last accusations and my last Adversaries For many have accused me to you and long since in the space of many years yet have they never delivered a word of truth in all their charges and these indeed I more fear than I do Anitus and his fellows though they likewise press me with the weight of their enmity and malicious combination Yet the others truly are more pressing and more powerful who have even from your tender age O men perswaded you that the accusations are true which they objected against me falsly namely that there is one Socrates a wise man forsooth and one who searcheth into the nature of sublime things and enquireth into all things under the earth who can by his Sophistical way of speaking make a bad speech pass current with the hearers for a good one These men O Athenians having spread abroad this rumor concerning me these I say are vehement and prevalent accusers For they who give ear to these scandals presently entertain a belief that such persons as they represent me to be conversant and curious in the study of Natural Causes hold that there are no Gods Besides this the number of my accusers of this sort is great and their accusations are of a long date insinuated and ingraffed into your minds in that age which is credulous and easie to admit any perswasions when most of you were boys or rather little children so that they accused me behind my back and while I had no compurgator no advocate to vindicate me and what is extremely unjust and unreasonable I was not permitted either to know or to produce the names of my accusers Only there was a confused whisper a darksom muttering in the general that it was a certain Comical Poet. And they who by envy and calumny traduce me to you and breed in your minds an odium against me have so strongly possessed themselves with the crimes objected to me that they draw others also into the same perswasion but those no where appear in the light For I can by no means obtain that any one of them should be brought hither to confront me that I might have the liberty and opportunity to confute him but am forced while I make my defence against them and endeavour to convince them of forgery to combate as it were in the dark no man appearing in the Lists to answer me Know this therefore and consider with your selves that I have two sorts of accusers some who have but even now accused me others again who have been long versed in this clandestine practise of whom I speak and think that I am obliged to make answer to those in the first place Let it be so then that I must form a defence for my self and do my utmost devoir in this short time allowed me to remove and extirpate that sinister opinion which hath for a long time remained deeply rooted in your minds to my
and Pythia answered none was wiser The truth hereof the Brother of that Cherephon will attest for he is dead Now seriously consider I pray why I recount this to you For I am coming to explain the cause whence this calumny against me first arose When I had heard of Cherephons adventure I thus thought in my mind What doth the God say or what doth he signifie by these words For I esteem not my self to be wise neither little nor much What then can be his meaning when he affirms that I am the wisest of men Lye he doth not for that is to a God impossible And long did I remain in doubt profoundly considering his words then not without difficulty I converted my self to a certain disposition of this kind I came to one of those who seemed to be wise in hope I might here convince the saying of the Oracle and so commonstrate that he not I as the God had said was the wiser When therefore I had together with him examined the matter I need not name the man he is one of those who are imployed in Governing the Common-wealth and managing Affairs of State when I say I had conferred with him somewhat of the like nature Athenians hapned to me He seemed to me indeed to be accounted wise both by others and those many and by himself chiefly but was not really so Then I endevoured to demonstrate to him that though he thought himself wise yet he was not so in reality Hereby I fell into the displeasure and ill-will of him and of very many others who were present But retiring thence I thought with my self that I was wiser than that man because neither of us seemed to know anything Noble or Excellent only he thought I to my self believes he knows something when he knows nothing but I as I know nothing so I think I know nothing Herein therefore I took my self to be a little wiser of the two in that I deceived not my self with an Opinion that I knew that whereof really I was ignorant After this I addressed to another who seemed yet wiser than the first but found no difference betwixt them as to wisdom Whereupon I incurred his hatred also and that of many of his Admirers Then I went likewise to others being sensible of my ill success and grieved sufficiently therewith as much fearing lest I might stir up hatred and envy against my self Nevertheless I conceived my self under an absolute necessity of highly valuing the voice of God and turning my self to all parts by going to all those who thought they knew something that in the end I might explore the true sense of the Oracle But I Swear to you Athenians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per Canem by the Dogg-starr An Oath used by some Grecians even Philosophers but probably derived from the old Egyptians among whom the Dogg-star the brightest of all fixed stars was adored as a Divine Numen as well because the Exundation of their Nile began at the rising of that Star as because they believed their Isis to have been stellified into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Celestial Dogg for I must declare the Truth that while I persued my scrutiny according to the voice of God I met with the like Fortune discovering that such who attained to the greatest name and glory seemed to come vastly short of wisdom but others accounted inferior to them were more disposed to and better qualified for the acquisition of it 'T is fit and pertinent that I shew you my Errors what great pains I took to render the Faith and Authority of the Oracle Sacred and indubitate with me After these States-men and Grandees I addressed my self to Poets and Writers of Tragedies and Dithyrambios and others of the same Tribe as if here I should perspicuously and by Surprise as they say discover that I was more unskilful more ignorant than they Taking therefore their Poems into my hands and noting those things they seemed to have written with greater subtilty and higher strains of Wit I diligently asked them what they could say that I might at the same time learn something from them I blush to tell you the truth Athenians but do it I must though very briefly all that were present almost spake more favourably of those Poems than they who had made them So I soon found concerning Poets that they perform what they do not by the power of Wisdom but by a certain impetus of Nature and fury of Divine incitement as Prophets fore-tell things by Divine instinct or Enthusiasm prophesying many Noble and Notable things but not understanding so much as one word of what they deliver With the same affection Poets appeared to me to be inspired and incited and I discovered likewise that they upon the account of their faculty in Poetry think themselves the wisest of all men even in other things whereof notwithstanding they are utterly ignorant From these therefore I departed as from the former and with the same reason too thinking my self to excel as the Politicians so likewise the Poets At length I betook my self to Artificers of Mechanic Works conscious to my self that in those I knew nothing at all I comprehend all in a word and well understanding that I should find those plain People to have knowledge of many and excellent things Nor did my opinion deceive me for they knew things that I understood not and were so far wiser than I. Yet even the most eminent Artificers seemed involved in the very same Fault with the Poets in that they also because they had shewn themselves great Masters in their Mechanics would every one be accounted most skilful also in other even the greatest matters and this Fault of theirs wholly darkens the lights of their skill Wherefore I interrogated my self also about the sense of the Oracle whether I had rather be as I was neither wise with their wisdom nor unskilful with their unskilfulness or be as they are comparated or disposed both wayes and I answered my self and the Oracle that it was more commodious and profitable to me to be as I am From this Disquisition Athenians many offences and those most difficult too and grievous have come against me and thence as many imputations scandals and criminations and calumnies and so it came to pass that I was named the wise man For they who are in my company daily suppose me to be singularly knowing in those matters wherein I reprehend and evince other mens errors His Explanation of the sense of the Oracle But it seems Athenians that God alone is wise and the sense of the Oracle this that Humane wisdom is to be very little or nothing esteemed And the Oracle expresly nominated Socrates for no other reason but this that by misusing my name it might propose me as an example as if it would say this man O Mortals is the wisest of ye all who as Socrates well knows that as to wisdom he is not to
doubted of what we had embraced but inclined also to deny our assent to the like arguments in the future as if either we were not competent judges of these things or the things themselves were of that improbable nature as not to admit belief Ech. I excuse you Phedo by the immortal Gods for it came into my head to revolve the very same thing in my thoughts whilst I heard your recital of their uncomfortable exceptions and scruples To which reason therefore shall I give assent for that discourse of Socrates which to me seemed the more probable hath now lost its title to my belief For that opinion that holds the Soul to be an Harmony hath alwaies wonderfully prevailed and doth now prevail with me and the present rehersal recalls to my memory that the reasons thereof have heretofore pleased me And I again stand in need of some other discourse as a repetition from the very beginning to perswade me that when the Body dies the Soul doth not die too Tell me therefore by Jove how Socrates pursued that discourse whether he as you have confessed were observed to be more offended at the opposition or whether with a mild and composed mind he brought relief to his distressed assertion and whether that relief were effectually strong and prevalent or weak and destitute of solidity all which I pray recount to us as particularly and plainly as you can Phe. An opportune reflection upon the admirable modesty and exemplary humanity of Socrates shewn in Disputation Truly Echecrates I have alwaies much admired Socrates but never so much as at that time It was no wonder he was provided of an answer but well worthy the highest admiration that he first received and solved those Objections of the Young men pleasantly benignly and sweetly and then shewed himself sensible of and concerned in our dissatisfaction and perplexity Afterward he administred Physic most opportunely to our doubting minds recall'd us as overcome and flying away and made us turn our faces again with courage and hope that we might follow him and with recollected thoughts more attentively consider his Discourse Ech. How effected he that Phe. I will acquaint you how for I sate at his right hand near the little Bed on a low stool so that he was much above me When therefore he had rubbed his head a little and pressed down his hair for he used sometimes in that manner to play with his hair to morrow saith he Phedo you will perhaps cut off these fine locks That Socrates is convenient No saith he if you believe me Why quoth I. This very day saith he again both I will cut off mine and you shall cut off yours if our discourse be dead and we not able to revive it Were I you and had lost my discourse I would make a vow as the Argives did I would never let my hair grow till I had vanquished and subdued the Harangue of Simmias and Cebes But quoth I Hercules himself is said not to be sufficient to encounter with two at once But saith he encourage me as Jolaus while the day lasteth I do encourage you said I not as if I were Hercules and you Jolaus but as if I were Joalus and you Hercules No matter which saith he but first let us beware lest we be circumvented by some chance By what said I. That we be not saith he A previous caution that we entertain no prejudice against words as some do against particular persons because Human reason may invent various exceptions in this sublime Argument to elude the force of verity haters of words as they who pursue men with peculiar and personal hatred for a greater evil cannot fall upon any man than to be involved in that kind of Odium and Aversion And both sorts of hatred of men and of discourses flow from the same Fountain For hate towards mens persons flows and as it were steals in from hence that if a man hath without due circumspection given full credit to another taking him to be perfectly veracious and upright and faithful and afterward find him to be a knave faithless a turn-coat and time-server and this happen often to the same man and from those whom he took for his most loving and most familiar friends at length he feeling the shock of his wrongs and as it were bruised grows to hate all and to conclude within himself that there is nothing of integrity or sincerity in any man You are in the right say I. Is not that therefore shameful and odious and manifest it is this man would without skill in Human occurrents and the practice of the World hold a commerce with men For if he made use of men with discretion and art and estimated things according to their nature he would find that there are some men good and others bad not many very good nor very bad but every man of a middle order betwixt both How say you that said I. As of things replied he that are great or little in extremes do you think any thing more rare then a man extremely great or extremely little or a Dogg or any thing else or than one that is swift or slow or beautiful or deformed or white or black to the last degree Do you not observe that all extremes are very rare and that middle-rate things are frequent and numerous They are so said I. Do you then think that if there were appointed a combat of improbity that men of the highest rank therein would be found to be but few 'T is likely they would said I. It is so said he But in this manner discourses are not like to men for you going before me I tread in your foot-steps and follow you but thus far the resemblance and cognation betwixt them is to be observed when a man hath firmly assented to a discourse as true without any arguments of that art whereby belief is usually obtained and afterward the same discourse seem to some to be false and to others to be true * Against the Sceptics who disputed of things problematically concluding of nothing but this that nothing should be certainly known By this very place they may be undeceived who having not read or at least not understood Plato have yet been so bold as to accuse him of Scepticism as if he taught nothing of certainty and this come to pass chiefly from those men who are versed in that kind of discourse which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an account of Causes i. e. when upon examination of the causes of things what arguments can be alledged on either part are urged and debated they forsooth at length think themselves to be the wisest and alone to have understood that there is nothing of truth and certainty in things or words but that all are carried and tumbled up and down tumultuously as by some Euripus never continuing in the same state and posture You speak truth said I. Were it not then saith he a
it may not be thought impertinent nor vulgar if we observe that among the Jews the Pharises whose original our universally learned Sir John Marsham hath most plainly traced out in pag. 151. of his Chronic. Canon imposing only new terms upon the Philosophy of the Academics consented to the common opinion of the Greeks concerning the Soul as Josephus himself attesteth Belli Judaici lib. 2. cap. 7. who there delivers the belief of the Essens concerning the happy state of Good Souls separated from their bodies in the very words of Homer Nor is it obscure that the Jews themselves believed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Transmigration of Souls from one human body into another when some thought our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ to be St. John the Baptist some Elias others Jeremias or one of the Prophets Math. 16 v. 14. DIGRESSION How far the Souls Immortality may be proved by human Reason BUT is it not of more importance to know how strong and reasonable this Opinion of the perpetual duration of separate Souls appears to be than to investigate the age and tradition of it Certainly yes and should my Reader here require my estimate of the force and validity of the various Arguments or pretended Demonstrations brought by Plato in the precedent Dialogue to evidence the verity thereof I might justly enough make use of the licence thereby given me to examine what I designed only to translate But because it may be thought an indecency if not ingratitude in a mere Interpreter to censure the power and extent of the reasonings used and the conclusions thence drawn by his Author and because this laudable curiosity of the Reader whom I presume to be possessed with such may perhaps be more fully gratified by a frank communication of my sentiments concerning that more general Enquiry viz. How far the Immortality of the Soul may be proved by simple reason or the sole light of Nature without the illumination of sacred Writ or revelation Divine I shall therefore with the freedom belonging to a Philosopher and due submission to more elevated Wits adventure to acquaint him briefly with those my thoughts choosing rather to expose them to his severest scrutiny than by animadversions upon the arguments of Plato in particular to shew the least umbrage or irreverence towards his memory I confess then that tho I have read and with due attention of mind considered the utmost rigor of many Discourses professedly composed for and speciously promising a sufficient eviction of the sempiternal Existence of the Rational Soul after death by reasons drawn only from her own excellent nature faculties affections operations c. yet I could not perceive that any one of them taken single or all put together had the force of a perfect Demonstration so that were not the Light of the Holy Scriptures infinitely more clear and convincing as to that among many other important truths concerning the Soul I should still remain unassured of the endless Duration of my noblest part For First as to the Origine of this excellent Being the Doctrines of Natural Philosophers concerning this are no less various then their Sects and all but darksom opinions or precarious conjectures Nay even those few among them who held it to be of Divine Original tho therein they hit the very white of truth appear notwithstanding to have shot wide when they conceived it to have been Eternal ex parte ante a particle of the Divine Essence it self and pre-existent to its conjunction with the body Whereas that sacred Oracle the Word of God plainly teaches that the Soul of the first man was created immediately by God himself and united to the body then already perfectly formed and prepared to receive it Secondly As to the grand Difficulty the natural Exemption of it from the power of Death when thereby divorced from the body the Arguments brought from Physical Mediums for probation hereof do indeed suffice to convince us of the Spirituality and Seperability of the Soul but suffice not in my judgement at least to demonstrate the impossibility of its destruction or that absolutely it shall survive the dissolution of the body for ever the same I grant that some and chiefly that most rigid of Physico-Mathematicians Des Cartes in meditat Metaphysic de Anima respon ad object secund have gone so far as fairly to convince any man of competent understanding that the Soul tho in this life obliged to act for the most part by the Organs of the Senses doth yet discover its excellency by actions proper and peculiar to her spiritual nature wholly independent upon and distinct from the Senses and thence by genuine consequence inferred that the same Soul tho by a strict and intimate conjunction with the body united into one Compositum therewith is yet nevertheless a thing or substance distinct from the body I grant also that by this very Argument the Immortality of the Soul may be sufficiently proved against Epicureans and Atheists For these men taking the Soul to be not formally and truly a Substance but only a certain Modisication of body thereupon concluded that it must of necessity perish or cease to be the same when the fabrique or frame of the body from whence it resulted is destroyed by Death If therefore from some intellectual operations of this Soul such to which matter or body however modified or organized cannot possibly reach it be made appear and Des Cartes seems to have done it that she is a Substance distinct from and independent upon the body there will remain no reason much less an absolute necessity why the dissolution of the body should infer the destruction of the Soul as they imagine more especially if the latter be conceived to be what most certainly it is a simple and spiritual substance as incapable of destruction as themselves hold matter to be But I dare not grant that this Cartesian Demonstration holds good as against Epicureans and Atheists who exclude God from having any hand in the creation and conservation of the Soul so likewise against those who acknowledge God to be the sole Creator and preserver of all things For admitting the Soul to be both a substance distinct from the body and immediately created and continualy conserved by God yet can we not lawfully infer from thence that it is not possible for such a Soul ever to cease to be For what assurance can simple reason give us that God hath not ordained that this Soul as it had a beginning when it was created to be infused into the body so at the time of its separation from the body shall lose its being and vanish into its primitive nothing That the duration thereof necessarily depends upon Gods conserving power and influence is undeniable and it seems consentaneous that as the Union or Association of the Soul to the Body was at first made not by any Agents meerly Natural but upon conditions depending solely upon Gods free and arbitrary institution so
prejudice This I would wish might be effected to your and my own benefit for in this my defence I should desire to effect somewhat more But that I conceive to be weighty and difficult nor am I ignorant what will be the event of my Trial. Yet let the issue be such as may be gratefull to God I must obey the Law and answer Fetching then the first rise of my wrongs from their Original let us see in good earnest what is that accusation from whence this Indictment drawn against me hath proceeded whereupon Melitus relying thus chargeth me Let it be so What did my adversaries charge me with for their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. their Libel of accusation ratified on both sides by mutual oath is to be throughly read SOCRATES The State and several heads of his first accusation Contrary to right and equity doth more curiously investigate those things that are under the Earth and in Heaven and makes a bad speech by delivering it good and teacheth others also the same This forsooth is the Libel of the Action and form of the Indictment The like unto which you may see in a Comedy of Aristophanes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where is brought in the person of one Socrates who pretends to walk in the air and playes the Droll in a Farce of many other extravagances Wherein I am He disavows that sublime science imputed to him Athenians neither little nor much skilled Which I speak not out of design to condemn that Art or any man conversant therein that I be not by Melitus involved in that crime and made to undergo his punishment But true it is Athenians I had never any converse with things of this kind whereof I am able to produce many witnesses and I would intreat you that you inform each other and enquire among your selves who have ever heard me discoursing of any such matters and there are many present who have frequently heard me in free and familiar conferences Declare therefore openly whether any of you have ever heard me speaking little or much of these things and from thence you shall understand that the like credit is due to other fictions that very many scatter abroad concerning me But certainly of these nothing is true And denieth that he ever either usurped the Authority of a public Teacher or exacted reward for his private instruction of youth Enquire also whether you have heard from any man that I ever endeavoured to teach men and exact mony neither is this true Forasmuch as I ever held it a thing highly meritorious and honorable for a man to teach and instruct others in Learning and Virtue as Gorgias the Leontine and Prodicus Ceus and Hippias the Elean have done For each of these are able to what Cities soever they travel to perswade young men and yet it was lawfull for them frankly to converse with whomsoever they liked best of their own Citizens that quitting the converse of all others they would intirely give up themselves to their instructions and moreover give them mony in acknowledgment of the benefit received from their discipline and to requite the favour There is here present also another certain man a Parian and wise whose residence in this City was grateful to me For I by chance lighted upon a certain person who gave more mony to Sophists than all others namely Gallias the Son of Hipponichus and of him I asked this question Thou hast two Sons Gallias If those thy two Sons were Calves or Colts doubtless we should have some one set to be their Tutor and a reward given to him to teach them each according to his particular Genius and capacity for he should be skilful in Horsmanship or in Agriculture whereas now tho they be men thou yet takest no care to provide them a Teacher and Governor Who is there knowing and expert in this art of Humanity and Civility I suppose that being a Father of Sons thou hast considered of this matter Is there said I any man fit for this charge or not and for how much doth he teach Evenus answers he the Parian O Socrates and his demand is five Attic Minae And I presently commended Evenus as a happy man if he were really endowed with this most usefull art and taught so studiously and dextrously Truely I should glory and boast my self were I knowing in these things but I profess my self Athenians altogether unacquainted with them Here perhaps some one of you may object He derives the popular hate oppressing him from his frequent reprehension of men as if he thought himself wiser than all the rest of mankind but Socrates what is the matter then from whence these criminations have been produced against thee For unless thou didst often do something very remarkable singular and very different from the custom of others so great a rumor would not have flown abroad concerning thee For why should this ignominy have faln upon thee if thou hadst done nothing strange and unvulgar Tell therefore what it is lest we not understanding the matter give a rash judgement of thee Who urges this may seem to have reason for it And I therefore will endeavour to lay before you what it is that hath procured to me both a name and blame Hear ye then and tho to some of you I may seem to jest and droll yet be most confident of this that I will declare to you the whole truth For I Athenians have upon no other ground but that of some certain Wisdom acquired this name But what Wisedom that perhaps which is humane wisedom For with that I seem really to be endowed These perchance whom I lately named may be enriched with some greater wisedom than that which is incident to man To this I can oppose nothing for such wisdom I understand not But whosoever saith this doth lie and say it on purpose to raise an odium against me by calumny Nor be ye Athenians discomposed if I shall seem to declare to you something that is great and remarkable For I will deliver nothing from my self but refer to him who is above all exception who will himself communicate the same things to you For of my wisdom if I have any such as it is He justifies his practice of reprehending others by alleging the express command of God whom he ought to obey I will give you for a witness that Delphic God Cherephon ye all well know He was my familiar companion even from the time when we were boys together and also your Countrey-man who both fled and return'd with you and you cannot but remember of what humour and disposition he was who vehement whatsoever he undertok And indeed when on a time he came to Delphos he had the boldness to consult the Oracle about this matter Be not I beseech you Athenians moved to a tumult by what I shall speak He inquired of the God if there were any man wiser than my self