GENIUS OF SOKRATES. 411 way which doubtless they caught from himself. 1 But to his ene- mies and to the Athenian public, it appeared in the light of an offensive heresy ; an impious innovation on the orthodox creed, and a desertion of the recognized gods of Athens. Such was the daemon or genius of Sokrates, as described by himself and as conceived in the genuine Platonic dialogues ; a voice always prohibitory, and bearing exclusively upon his own personal conduct. 2 That which Plutarch and other admirers of Sokrates conceived as a daemon, or intermediate being between gods and men, was looked upon by the fathers of the Christian church as a devil ; by LeClerc, as one of the fallen angels ; by some other modern commentators, as mere ironical phraseology on the part of Sokrates himself. 3 Without presuming to deter mine the question raised in the former hypotheses, I believe the last to be untrue, and that the conviction of Sokrates on the point was quite sincere. A circumstance little attended to, but deserv- ing peculiar notice, and stated by himself, is, that the restraining voice began when he was a child, and continued even down to the end of his life : it had thus become an established persuasion, long before his philosophical habits began. But though this pe- culiar form of inspiration belonged exclusively to him, there were 1 Xcnoph. Sympos. viii, 5 ; Plato, Euthydem. c. 5, p. 272, E. 2 See Plato (Theietct. c. 7, p. 151, A; Phoedrus, c. 20, p. 242. C; Repub He, vi, 10, p. 496, C) in addition to the above citations from the Apology. The passage in the Euthyphron (c. 2, p. 3, B) is somewhat less specific. The Pseudo- Platonic dialogue, Theages, retains the strictly prohibitory attribute of the voice, as never in any case impelling ; but extends the range of the warning, as if it was heard in cases not simply personal to Sokrats himself, but referring to the conduct of his friends also (Theages, c. 11, 12, pp. 128, 129). Xenophon also neglects the specific attributes, and conceives the voice generally as a divine communication with instruction and advice to Sok- nites. so that he often prophesied to his friends, and was always right (Mcmor. i, 1. 2-4 ; iv, 8, 1). 1 See Dr. Forster's note on the Euthyphron of Plato, c. 2, p. 3. The treatise of Plutarch (Do Genio Socratis) is full of speculation on the subject, but contains nothing about it which can be relied upon iu matter of fact. There are various stories about prophecies made bj Sokrates, and verified by the event, c. 11, p. 582. See also this matter discussed, with abundant references, in Zeller Philosophic dcr Gricchcn, v. ii, pp. 25-28.
