Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/596

586 Socrates^ Schleiermachei and Delbrueck. applicable to his case, is much more forcibly expressed in his own speech. If we might hope that we have despatched Mr Delbrueck'^s first two objections, we should proceed with great confidence to meet the remaining one, which relates to the language of So- crates on the subject of death. The former passages, when they are torn from the context undoubtedly present an ap- pearance of difficulty : but the third seems to carry its meaning so clearly on its face that it requires some ingenuity to mis- interpret it. Whoever the author of the Apology was, he was certainly not a person of such contemptible understanding as to make Socrates express contradictory sentiments in the course of the same passage. When therefore we find him speaking with transport of the hope of a future life, we cannot suppose that he had just before been describing annihilation as a thing in itself better than existence. The mention of the Great King, which is so peculiarly offensive to Mr Delbrueck, seems to suggest a natural explanation of the sentiment, which renders it perfectly worthy and characteristic of Socrates. Assuredly he who had lived so long in the extreme of poverty, and yet was conscious of having enjoyed the highest happiness that man can taste on earth, did not mean to represent the condition of the Persian king as supremely desirable. But he may have meant to indicate that, according to the use which most men make of life, and according to their ideas of its value, the good and evil are so nearly balanced, as to neutralize each other, and frequently to render the loss of it a gain. Certainly if, as Mr Delbrueck suggests, the wise and good man had been mentioned instead of the Great King, it must have been for a very differ- ent purpose. But if Socrates could have alluded to his own particular case, he might perhaps have consoled his friends with the remark : that to him death was a gain, as it enlarged and perpetuated the moral influence of his life ; or, as Mr D. says, because his truly happy life began with and arose out of his death. Surely these are not difficulties which need drive a man to despair, or which ought to embitter his solitary hours with melancholy, or from which he can reasonably hope to be relieved by a special dispensation of Providence. It is a case in which