Mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was once a man
named Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public
opinion of his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an
age and country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been
handed down to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the
most virtuous man in it; while we know him as the head and prototype of
all subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty
inspiration of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, the
two headsprings of ethical as of all other philosophy. Their
acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers who have since
lived—whose fame, still growing after more than two thousand years, all
but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which make his native
city illustrious—was put to death by his countrymen, after a judicial
conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the Gods
recognized by the State; indeed his accusers asserted (see the
“Apologia”) that he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in being, by
his doctrines and instructions, a “corrupter of youth.” Of these charges
the tribunal, there is every ground for believing, honestly found him
guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved
best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.