Why was Socrates executed?

Somewhere in the spring and summer of 399 B.C., in the city of Athens, the ruling democrats formed a court of five hundred and one to hear a special case. The defendant was the philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.), who was seventy years old at the time, and was familiar to many of the citizens because of his constant activity in the marketplace, stadiums, artisanal workshops, and other public ****ing places. The trial was completed on the same day and resulted in a death sentence for dishonoring God and corrupting the youth. It was one of the most grotesque pages in the history of mankind, where a man was murdered by his fellow citizens simply because he had persuaded them to lead a better life. Athens was a shrine to philosophy, but it seems not to have been a paradise for philosophers; there were only two philosophers of native origin; Socrates was put to death, and the young Plato fled abroad after the death of his teacher. This is another of the most glorious pages in the history of mankind, where a man who would rather die than give up his right to inquire into the truths of life, and who was martyred in the service of philosophy, proves the heights to which the human spirit is capable of attaining. It is precisely because of Socrates that Athens deserves to be called the Holy Land of Philosophy.

Thanks to Plato's skillful writing, from the trial to the execution of the whole process vividly described down, so that today we can appreciate Socrates in the last moments of life of the philosophers. Plato studied under Socrates for ten years, was twenty-eight years old, was present at the trial, but also went on stage to try to defend his teacher, the judge suspected him of being young and blasted him down. Critics have recognized that Plato was too literary a talent for the inevitable fictional elements in his account. He had begun to record his teacher's remarks at about the same time, and is said to have once read them aloud to Socrates, who said, "My God, how many stories this young man has made up for me!" Nonetheless, the critics again all admit that since he himself was a great philosopher and was able to understand his teacher, his testimony was far more reliable than that offered by Xenophon. Xenophon, who was also a student of Socrates, but had no philosophical talent and was not present at the trial, and after the death of his teacher, was y distressed by the two charges that had been brought against his teacher's head, and wanted to clear him of them, and in his memoirs portrayed Socrates as a pious and law-abiding mediocrity. The British scholar Burnett said, "Xenophon's defense of Socrates was so successful that if Socrates had really been that way, he would never have been sentenced to death." As if he had learned a lesson from this, the English philosopher Russell took the attitude, "If it is necessary to have my words repeated, I would prefer a philosophizing my mortal enemy to an unphilosophizing my close friend." But he needn't have worried about that, because while Socrates recounted without writing, he was amazingly prolific, and where else would someone else be able to recount.

Now let us look at the case mainly on the basis of Plato's account, with reference to Xenophon's recollections in several particulars. There were three plaintiffs. The one who jumped in front of the stage was the nameless poet Meleto, with a hawkish nose, long thin hair, and a thin beard, a troublemaker at first sight. There was also a nameless orator named Lecan. The actual main messenger was the tanner Anitus, an active politician who finally became one of the two chiefs of the democratic regime. His son was an ardent listener of Socrates, and often deserted his leather work for this reason, much to his annoyance. After he had gained power in politics, Socrates once sarcastically said, "Now you don't need to make your son a tanner anymore." This further incited him to resentment, and he instigated Meleto to bring a lawsuit. The cause of the matter seems to be too small to be small, it seems to be an individual to vent his personal anger, how could it be able to set off if a big wave, and finally took Socrates' life?

In fact, the stream of Anitus annoyed Socrates, more or less on behalf of the general public mood. Socrates liked to talk about philosophy in the public **** place, the content of the traditional morality, religion and way of life is questioned, the audience is more like the son of Anitus such as youth. The citizens of Athens were very conservative and wanted their children to follow their father's example and live in peace. To recruit a group of youths like Socrates to talk about philosophy all day long and not do his job would already be a corrupted youth in their eyes, and so they were prone to agree with them once someone sued them. Of course, putting a philosopher - Socrates or not - on trial by a few hundred people who don't know what philosophy is all about ends badly anyway.

Another reason for Socrates' disadvantage is that the judges in the room had been accustomed to hearing rumors and forming stereotypes about him at an early age. Knowing this, he begins his defense by saying that those who spread the rumors were the more formidable plaintiffs because they were so numerous, nameless, and unnamed, and had put him in a position where he could not confront them but had to defend himself. He said that he knew of only one of them, a writer of comedy, whom he did not name, but who understood that Aristophanes was meant. Twenty-four years ago, in his comedy "The Clouds," Aristophanes had brought Socrates to the stage, portraying him as a natural philosopher who spouted theories of the heavenly bodies, and as a wise man who taught the young men to engage in ludicrous sophistry. In the audience's mind, the former's behavior is exactly dishonoring the gods, and the latter's behavior is exactly corrupting the youth, and the two merge into an ugly image of Socrates. The real Socrates is different from the two; he brings philosophy back from the sky to the earth, from words to substance, but the audience does not care to tell the difference. Socrates is a friend of Aristophanes, when the comedy was staged, he also went to support the audience, Socrates on the stage, he stood up in the audience to make a funny appearance, it is really naive can be. He and Aristophanes about did not expect, love the theater do not love to use the brain of the people will take the play seriously, blackmail, add oil and vinegar, and finally got to the point of making him have no defense.

Two

In all fairness, at the beginning of the trial, both the three plaintiffs and the people who acted as judges did not necessarily want to put Socrates to death. They preferred a result that would force Socrates to give in, admit his fault, and stop talking about philosophy in the future, so that the city-state would be quieter. But Socrates, as if he had seen through their intentions, did not show any weakness, and spoke in his usual style, with a sneer in his plainness, and with eloquence and wit. This personality and intellectual nobility really enraged the audience, he pleaded, the trial table a burst of commotion, the contradiction is more and more intensified.

Socrates made up his mind to go to his death about the beginning. When news spread that Meleto was preparing to prosecute, some sympathizers, seeing that he cared nothing and was behaving as usual, reminded him that he should think about how to defend himself, to which he replied, "Don't you think that I have spent my whole life doing this, thinking about what is just and what is unjust, practicing justice and avoiding injustice, and doing nothing else? " It is true that he did not need to prepare for this, but had only to maintain his usual position in court. He knew, of course, perfectly well what the consequences of this would be. He foresaw the end more soberly than the plaintiff or the judge, and the trial proceeded substantially in accordance with his will. He had his mind made up, step by step, to bring the trial to a climax, and that climax was the death sentence.

According to the program, the trial was in two stages. In the first, the plaintiff presents his case, the defendant presents his defense, and the judges vote on guilt or innocence. In this segment, Socrates recalls the cause and experience of his street-philosophical activity, asserting that it was a mission entrusted to him by God. The indignation of the people was focused on this matter, and if he wanted to pass, he should at least show a little flexibility, but he did not leave any room for error, declaring: "The gods have sent me to spend my life in philosophical activity, and it is absurd that I should go AWOL for fear of death. I love you, O Athenians, but I will obey God more than I will obey you. As long as I live, I will never give up philosophy." He compares himself to a gadfly whose duty it is to keep biting people, to wake them up, to make them ashamed of a life that is preoccupied with money and honor and unconcerned with the intellect and the soul.

The principle refuses to give up, and there is another way to influence the verdict. It was customary in Athens for the wife and children of a defendant to appear in court to plead for a lighter sentence, and this often worked. Socrates had a wife and three sons, two of whom were still young, but he did not allow them to be present in court. He disdained this, saying sarcastically, "I commonly see men of repute on trial making such grotesque gestures and acting out such pathetic dramas; they are the shame of the state."

The result of the vote was that he was pronounced guilty by two hundred and eighty-one votes to two hundred and twenty. The votes were fairly close, indicating that many of those present still sympathized with him. The trial proceeded to the second step, in which the plaintiff and the defendant proposed the penalty which each thought proper, and the judges voted to choose between the two. Meleto proposes the death penalty. Socrates says, "What penalty do I propose instead? For a man like me, who has contributed to the city-state, let me be sentenced to dine at the state house, which specializes in entertaining meritorious and distinguished guests." Saying this with the intention of exasperating people, he next said, somewhat helplessly: My daily discussion of moral issues, introspection of myself and others, is originally the most beneficial thing for people. However, the death penalty case was decided in one day, which is too short a time for me to convince you of the truth, which is that "the unexamined life has no value".

One common way to escape the death penalty is to pay a self-admittedly large fine. If the amount is large enough, the judge will often prefer the fine to the death penalty. Speaking at this level, Socrates states that he has no money, and can perhaps afford only one silver coin. This is true; how can he not be poor when he has deserted his profession and spends his days talking to people and never charging for it. However, he goes on to state that since Plato, Crito, and others present are willing to vouch for him and urge him to pledge thirty silver coins, he will pledge that amount. The number was also very small, and this, together with the fact that his tone gave the impression of slighting the court, removed the limited sympathy of the judges. It was at last realized that the least trouble was not to listen to his advice to reflect on himself, but to put this unforgiving fellow to death.

After the verdict, Socrates made his final speech, saying, "It is not words that I lack, but chutzpah, and weeping, and saying what you love to hear. You are accustomed to seeing others like this, but such things are not worthy of me. "It is not hard to escape death, but it is hard to escape sin, and sin pursues a man faster than death. I am old and obtuse, so I am pursued by the slow runner; you are agile, so you are pursued by the fast runner. We are each punished in our own way, and it is fitting that it should be so." Then, with his characteristic irony, he entrusted the judges with one more thing: "If my sons, when they grow up, are concerned about money before virtue, and have no talent but think they have it, chastise them as I chastise you." This famous defense ends with the unmistakably calm words, "The time of parting is come; I go to die, you go to live; whose way is good, God alone knows."

III

Every year, on the feast of Delia, the Athenian government sends a pilgrimage across the sea in a boat to Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, to offer sacrifices, and the law stipulates that the pilgrimage shall not be executed until the pilgrimage has returned. The trial of Socrates took place the day after the ship left, so he had to wait some days in prison. While the ship has not returned, let us take a closer look at the philosopher and review his life and deeds.

The first thing that attracts our attention is his peculiar looks. Although he was born in Athens, he was not at all like a Greek. He had a flat face, a broad lion's nose, and two fat lips. So distinctive was the ugliness of this face that a pagan who knew how to read faces passed through Athens, saw him, and said to his face that he was a monster. He had a large belly, but a strong body, and always talked to people with his head bowed sideways and his eyes gleaming like a bull's.

He came from a poor background, his father was a carver and his mother a midwife. His son followed in his father's footsteps, and in his own youth he made a career of carving, and it is said that the group of the goddess Maeve at the entrance to the Acropolis was his work. However, he had a strong opinion of the trade, ridiculing the carvers for trying to make stone look like human beings, but not themselves, and as a result making themselves look like stone instead of human beings. In order to maintain a minimum of subsistence, he still carves stones, but more often takes up the business of carving human souls. In the same sense, he also inherited his mother's business, delighting in being the midwife of ideas.

Unlike many philosophers of his time and later, who were celibate, he went with the tide in the matter of marriage and took two wives. The first wife, Ctesiphas, bore him a son, and later, when the authorities allowed him to take a concubine because of the wars that were said to have depopulated Athens, he married Mildo, the daughter of a judge, and had two more sons. Ctesiphas was known as a shrew, and a well-known story is that once after Socrates had received a bad scolding, Ctesiphas put another pot of filth on his head, and he merely laughed at himself lightly, saying, "Didn't I say that Ctesiphas's thunder would end in rain?" He explained the benefits of being with a shrew this way: once you tame a fiery horse, other horses are better to deal with; with Kshansipa, he learned to adjust himself so that he could adapt to anyone. In fact, he knew in his heart that it was not easy to be a wife with a man like him who did not care about his family, so he often admitted after being scolded that the scolding was justified. He is reasonable, the eldest son can not stand his mother's bad temper, complained to him, he always stood in his mother's position on the good advice.

Socrates' family must have been very poor. He said in the court, "For many years I have left all my own affairs and have only been busy for you without pay, and my poverty is evidence of this." There is no doubt about that. He called himself an "amateur philosophical researcher" and talked to people just for the sake of hobby, and anyone who wanted to listen to him could do so, and he did not want to be a teacher himself, so he did not charge any fees. He was shocked by the fact that a group of wise men at that time were making money out of philosophy, and said that he was shocked by the fact that people who claimed to be teaching virtue could ask for money as a reward. He also never accepted gifts, believing that a person who received money from anyone was setting himself up as a master and turning himself into a slave. He refused all invitations and gifts from eminent men and kings. When a rich and powerful admirer wanted to give him a large piece of land to build a house, he asked, "If I need a pair of shoes, and you give me a whole animal skin for that purpose, and I should accept it, would it not be ridiculous?" In fact, he didn't even need shoes; he was barefoot in winter and summer and wore a ragged coat. This may have the reason of being poor, but it is more for the purpose of exercising the ability to bear hardships and stand hard work.

Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, founded the philosophy of cynicism, which advocates minimizing material needs in order to maximize spiritual freedom. This idea actually originated with Socrates. He used to say that while others lived to eat, he ate to live. He attended occasional banquets of his friends and was an unrivaled drinker, but usually ate in moderation and hated to gorge himself. The sorceress Circe in Homer's epic Odyssey of the Odysseus uses witchcraft to turn Odessus' companions into swine, and he puts forward a distorted interpretation: that Circe turns people into pigs by feasting. One day he wandered through the Athenian market and sighed after looking around, "So many things I don't need!" Antiphon the Wise asked him, "Philosophers are supposed to teach happiness, but you eat the coarsest food and wear the most ragged clothes, aren't you teaching misfortune?" He replied, "On the contrary, needing nothing is most like God, and the less you need the nearer you are to God."

However, though he despised material things, he took great care to exercise his body. In fact, both were meant to be the master of the body so that it was not held back by materialistic desires but could also cope with the rigors of the environment. Every morning he went to the gymnasium to exercise, and his health surpassed that of ordinary men. There were several epidemics of plague in Athens and he was the only one who was not infected. The second half of his life was spent in the twenty-seven-year-long Peloponnesian War, participating in three campaigns, where his strong physique - and, of course, his bravery - showed its advantages in the circumstances of the war. Alkibiades, a young man who fought with him at the time, recalled that his body had a marvelous capacity for adaptation, enduring hunger better than anyone else when food was scarce, and eating more than anyone else when supplies were plentiful. In the cold, he walked barefoot on the ice while others were wrapped in felt. In a defeat, the whole army fled, but he was the only one who retreated gracefully. He was a heavily armored infantryman, his body was full of provisions, "striding with his head high, looking around", at a glance is not to be messed with, the enemy will not dare to mess with him. He also killed alone into the siege, rescued the wounded Alkibiades, and afterwards awarded the medal, and gave it to Alkibiades.

As a philosopher, Socrates held to the tenet of staying out of politics. However, once involved against his will, he would stand up for justice as an upstanding citizen. At the age of sixty-three, he represented his people in the Senate and was on duty as president on a particular day. This was the only time in his life that he was an "official". At that time, the Athenian navy had won a victory, and when it retreated, due to a violent wind, it failed to retrieve the bodies of the fallen soldiers, and the people were outraged and demanded that the ten generals who had led the retreat should be sentenced to death en masse. On the very day he became President, this proposal was submitted to the court, and he rejected it in offense. Unfortunately, the next day someone else was president and the ten generals were still not spared from death. Some years later, the tyrant came to power and ordered him and four others to catch a rich man to be executed.

From the outline sketched above, we can see that Socrates has self-control, generosity, courage, integrity and other virtues that are generally praised by the people, such a person should be very good people. In the end, he was killed, it seems that can only be attributed to his philosophical talk, seems to be all that mouth caused the trouble. So, let's see what that mouth actually said, and it will lead to murder.

IV

According to Cicero, Socrates was the first to summon philosophy from the sky to the earth, to ground it in the city-state, to enter the family, and to study the problems of life and morality. This assessment has been recognized by later generations. The philosophers who preceded Socrates, from Thales to Anaxagoras, were concerned with the universe and were natural philosophers and astronomers. According to his own account, he also enjoyed the study of nature when he was young, and then realized that he was not naturally cut out for it. By not being of this material, I do not mean about ability, but should mean temperament. He reproached those who had their eyes fixed on the sky, whether they already knew enough about human affairs, or whether they had completely ignored them. He asserts that the study of nature should be confined to what is useful for human affairs, beyond which it is neither worthwhile nor desirable. The reason why it should not be done is because man must not inquire into what God does not wish to reveal, and those who violate it will be punished, and Anaxagoras lost his sanity in this way.

Socrates took a radical turn in his thinking around the time he was in his early to mid-forties. He speaks of the cause of the turnaround in his pleadings. On one occasion, his boyhood friend Caillefon went to the temple of Delphi to ask the oracle if anyone was wiser than Socrates, and the oracle replied that there was not. He was shocked at the news and thought it impossible, and in order to refute the oracle, interviewed people in the city of Athens who were known for their wisdom, including politicians, poets, and craftsmen. It turned out that all of these people were self-righteous by virtue of their expertise, not realizing that they were actually ignorant. Then he realized: equally ignorant, they know by not knowing, I know that I know nothing, and in this I am indeed wiser than they. From this he further realized that the oracle actually meant that true wisdom belongs to the gods, that human wisdom is insignificant, and that among men only those who know this truth, like Socrates, are wise. From then on, he went about in public places, visiting those who thought they were wise, questioning them, and exposing their unwisdom, as a "divine mission" assigned to him by the gods. "For this cause I had no time for the affairs of my country or my family; and because of God's service I was left penniless." And a group of idle youths and rich boys followed him and followed his example, giving him a bad name for compelling the youth.

Socrates' way of cross-examining people is exasperating. He was humble in his manner, as if he had no preconceptions of his own, and just asked you step by step for advice, with the result that your ignorance revealed itself. This often makes the person being questioned very wretched. Admirers say, he pretends to be stupid, in fact, a big belly wisdom. Resenters say, he is false humility. Often people couldn't stand it anymore and beat him up, even pulling out his hair, but he never fought back and bore it patiently. The most exasperating point was that he was always ridiculing, questioning, and refuting people, denying every answer, but, until the end, he never came up with an answer of his own. Indeed, many people brought this reproach to him and got angry about it. His defense to this was, "God compelled me to be a midwife, but forbade me to procreate." This one statement is not a self-effacing remark, but accurately expresses his view of the function of philosophy.

It was said above that Socrates began his characteristic philosophical activity from the self-knowledge of his ignorance. In fact, in his view, this is where all philosophical reflection should begin. Knowing that one knows nothing is the starting point of loving wisdom. Ignorance of what? Of what is most important, that is, what is in the soul. People usually always live to serve the flesh, and all that knowledge they think they possess, after all, serves the survival of the flesh. Therefore, a loud cry must be given to people to let them know that they are actually ignorant of the most important things, that they are inwardly disturbed and in a difficult situation, so that they can begin to care for their souls. "Know thyself" - an aphorism inscribed on the Temple of Delphi, which Socrates used to paraphrase the mission of philosophy. To "know thyself" is to know your soul, because "thyself" is not your body, but your soul, which is the divine thing in you, the thing that makes you who you are.

The soul is sacred because it is the dwelling place of goodness and all virtues. Therefore, to know yourself is also to know your moral nature. The only way to live as a human being is to uncover and realize one's moral nature and live a proper life. Virtue is happiness in itself and needs no other reward. Evil people cannot really harm good people, because the only real harm is spiritual harm, which can only be caused by bad things that people do themselves. With the Stoics, this argument that virtue is happiness developed into the cornerstone of all philosophy. Kant used the existence of the moral law to prove that man is able to legislate for his own behavior, and thus to prove the freedom and dignity of man as a soul, a line of thought that also finds its origin in Socrates.

Everyone has a moral nature, but people seem to be ignorant of it. Socrates used to say to people: Let a man learn to be a cobbler, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and people will know where to send him to learn, but let a man learn to lead a proper life, and people will not know where to send him. He must have said this so many times that during the reign of the thirty tyrants, the government forced him not to talk to young people on the grounds that "you have already talked about cobblers, carpenters and blacksmiths". In fact, he was satirizing people for not caring about their own souls, because in his opinion, it was clear where to learn virtue, and it was only in one's own soul. It turns out that there is not only morality in the soul, but also the rational faculty, which leads us to morality. People lead immoral lives because they do not use this faculty and allow themselves to be in ignorance. In this sense, ignorance is evil and virtue is knowledge.

As for how to use the faculty of reason to know morality, Socrates' typical method is dialectic, the inductive argument and universal definition that Aristotle regarded as his main contribution. For example, if he asks you what a virtue is, and you cite justice, temperance, bravery, bravado, etc., he presses you to ask on what basis you call all these different things virtues, forcing you to think about their ****ness and to seek a definition of virtue itself. In order to define virtue, you might have to talk about justice again, and he mocks you for still defining the whole of virtue in terms of one of the virtues. All such discussions almost always end in nothing, and result only in the questioner admitting to not actually knowing what he thought he knew, but Socrates also fails to provide a satisfactory definition of the concept under discussion. Logically, this is quite explicable, since any concept can only be defined in relation, and there is no such thing as a pure concept that does not involve other concepts. But Socrates seems to believe that there is such a concept, or at least that there is a pure supreme good, which is the ultimate source and goal of all virtues.

Now we can explain the real intent of the Socratic dialectic. He was actually trying to tell people that the human heart has an inherent inclination towards the good, and that it should be awakened to follow this inclination to its source. However, once we do this, we realize that the limited capacity of human reason makes it impossible to actually reach that source. Only God can recognize the supreme good, and human reason can only pursue it in that direction. Thus, Socrates says that God alone is wise, and man can only be said to love wisdom. However, to be able to pursue it is good enough, and shows that there is an upward force in the soul. The love of wisdom is the most valuable trait latent in the human soul, and it is the role of philosophy to give birth to this trait. This is the meaning of Socrates' claim to be a midwife. But the philosopher does not possess the wisdom of the gods to provide the final answer, so he adds that the gods have forbidden him to procreate.

Whether the definition of universality that Socrates seeks is conceptual or actual, and whether the gods he speaks of are metaphorical or actual, is a complex question that I do not want to discuss here. It seems to me that the line between them is blurred, and he had no intention of dividing it too clearly. What he really wants to address is not a theoretical issue but a practical one, that is, how to live righteously. Whereas the religionists assert the absolute existence of God, the philosophers tell us to live as if God exists, whether he does or not, to care for our souls, to scrutinize our lives, and to value the meaning of life far more than life itself.

V

Let us now return to Socrates, condemned to death, who has been in prison for almost a month. During this time he has lived a quiet and pleasant life, not a bit different from his usual. In the last days of his life he also developed a sudden literary interest, rewriting Aesop's fables into rhymes and writing an ode to Apollo. Many wealthy friends who wanted to contribute to his escape were refused, and he asked, "Do you know of any place where death will not come?" One admirer complained, "It is too much for me to bear to see you put to death in such an unjust manner." He asked in return, "What, do you wish to see me put to death justly?"

On the twenty-eighth day of his imprisonment, the ship of nuisance was seen to have sailed past a neighboring city, and his old friend Crito, having received the news, came to the prison at daybreak, and saw him sleeping soundly. When he awoke, Crito made a last effort to persuade him to escape. He cites various reasons, such as that others will blame you for not doing your best and tarnishing your reputation, that you have left orphans and failed in your fatherly duties, and so on, all of which are refuted. Socrates emphasizes that although the verdict is unjust, fleeing is destroying the law, and you cannot repay wrong for wrong and evil for evil.

On the thirtieth day, the notice of execution is given, and a number of the closest friends go to the prison to say goodbye. Ctesanthippa, holding her little son, was sitting by Socrates when she saw the visitor and cried out, "O Socrates, this is your last talk with your friends!" Socrates immediately told Crito to get someone to send her away. He then says to his friends, "I am about to go to the other world, and to talk about what is going on over there is the right time and the most appropriate thing that can be done now." The whole conversation centers around the theme of death, to the effect that -

Philosophy is learning to die, learning to be in a state of death. True philosophers practice death all the time, training themselves to remain in a state of death while they are alive, and so are least afraid of death. Why do you say this? Because death is nothing but the detachment of the soul from the body, and it is the transcendence of the soul from the body that philosophy seeks. The soul, free from the entanglement of the body, including its desires and senses, lives in peace and pursues truth with reason alone, and this state of its being is called wisdom. However, it is not possible for the soul to completely transcend the body while alive, so pure wisdom is not available, but only after death.

Translated here, we can not help but raise a question: the above insights to be established, the premise that the soul does not die with the body, Socrates believe that the soul does not die? It seems to believe, he made a variety of arguments, including: life and death are transformed into each other, the soul if the death of the soul can not be transformed into life; awareness is recalled, proving that the soul before the birth of the soul has existed; the soul possesses a thing, this thing has life, it can be seen that the soul is incompatible with the death of the incompatibility. He then talks a great deal about the cultivation of the soul, reincarnation and karma, and that the souls of philosophers have been cultivated to be so pure that after death they will associate with the gods. It is hard to believe that this was the thought of Socrates himself, and I fear that it was mostly Plato who heard it from Eastern teachings and placed it in his teacher's head. A statement in the court's defense reveals Socrates' true thoughts: "No one knows what happens after death, but everyone is afraid of it, as if they knew for certain that death is the worst of all worlds. I for one will never fear and avoid the realm where good and bad are not yet known too much to know that it is bad." We can at least believe that he greeted death with joy. Whereas people often interpret the swans' last song as a lamentation, he said that they sang the most joyful song of their lives in anticipation of the happiness to come in the other world. His dying talk was exactly a swan's last song.

The final moment came. Crito asked him, "How shall we bury you?" He replied, "If you can catch me, bury me however you want." Then to the rest he said, "He thought I was just going to be a corpse in a moment and asked how to bury me. Drink the poison and I will not be here." When he had said this, he went to take a bath, and when he came back, he followed the instructions of the jailer and drank the poison. All the people cried out together, and he reproved, "You people are unreasonable. I sent all the women away just to keep them from doing such ridiculous things." Before he breathed his last, he said, "Crito, don't forget to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius, the god of medicine." This mockery-loving soul could not help but play a joke on the god of physical healing as he disengaged himself from the flesh he had scorned.

The tragedy of Socrates comes to an end when Plato concludes the play with the words, "He was the kindest, the wisest, and the most upright man we have ever known." Indeed, whatever may be said of his doctrines, it cannot be denied that he has set an example to succeeding generations in the pursuits of life and in character. It is said that after his death the Athenians repented, erected a statue of him, and executed Meleto and expelled Anitus. It has also been pointed out that the alleged punishment of the accuser is pure fabrication. But all this is no longer important. What is important is that we remember the legacy of Socrates, care for our souls, and live a worthy life.