POLITICAL CENSURES. 475 on which they still continue to be abundantly instituted in France, under the first President of the Republic. There can hardly be a more serious political mischief than such confusion of the dis- approving critic with a conspirator, and imposition of silence upon lissentient minorities. Nor has there ever been any case in which such an imputation was more destitute of color than that of Sokrates, who appealed always to men's reason and very little to their feelings ; so little, indeed, that modern authors make his coldness a matter of charge against him ; who never omitted to inculcate rigid observance of the law, and set the example of such observance himself. Whatever may have been his senti- ments about democracy, he always obeyed the democratical gov- ernment, nor is there any pretence for charging him with parti- cipation in oligarchical schemes. It was the Thirty who, for the first time in his long life, interdicted his teaching altogether, and were on the point almost of taking his life ; while his intimate friend Chrerephon was actually in exile with the democrats. 1 Xenophon lays great emphasis on two points, when defending Sokrates against his accusers. First, that his own conduct was virtuous, self-denying, and strict in obedience to the law. Next, that he accustomed his hearers to hear nothing except appeals to their reason, and impressed on them obedience only to their rational convictions. That such a man, with so great a weight of presumption in his favor, should be tried and found guilty as a corruptor of youth, the most undefined of all imaginable charges, is a grave and melancholy fact in the history of man "rind. Yet when we see upon what light evidence modern authors are willing to admit the same charge against the sophists, we have no right to wonder that the Athenians when addressed, not through that calm reason to which Sokrates appealed, but through all their antipathies, religious as well as political, public as well as private were exasperated into dealing with him as the type and precursor of Kritias and Alkibi;ul<"-. After all, the exasperation, and the consequent verdict of guilty, were not wholly the fault of the dikasts, nor wholly brought about by his accusers and his numerous private enemies. No such verdict would have been given, unless by what we must - Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 5, p. 21, A; c. 20, p. 32, E; Xcn. Mem. 1, 2, 31
