580 Socrates^ Schleiermacher^ and DelhruecTc. decisive answer to the charge of corrupting the young, is con- tained in the description Socrates gives of his pursuits and habits, which were a matter of public notoriety, and in the testimony which he was ready to produce of the parents and friends of those who had experienced the influence of his so- ciety. But the admission which he draws from Meletus, though not sufficient of itself to prove his innocence, was still an important step toward that end, which is completed in the context. For though, as Mr Delbrueck observes, it would have served to acquit the worst of the Sophists as well as Socrates, what is here left wanting to distinguish his case from theirs is elsewhere abundantly supplied. The Sopliists could not have pleaded that, because no man can be impelled by the simple desire of making his neighbours worse, therefore they could not voluntarily have corrupted their hearers ; be- cause the answer would immediately have presented itself: that their wickedness was not gratuitous, but stimulated by the prospect of reputation and gain. But Socrates could con- fidently appeal to that depth of poverty {/mvpia 'irevia) in which he had voluntarily passed his life, and to the hatred and persecution which he had incurred, and to the very situa- tion in which he then stood, as so many proofs, that, if he had misled or corrupted any one by his conversation, it must have been unwittingly. So that if Meletus had been able to draw that distinction between the two meanings of ckcov^ which Mr Delbrueck has explained to us, he might have brought the question a step nearer to the issue, but the issue must still have been decided against him, and not on any verbal subtilty, but on the justice of the case. And hence it does not seem necessary to suppose, either that Socrates was himself deceived by the ambiguity of the word, or that he designed to deceive others. It may indeed be said that this dialogue, since by itself it proves nothing, is superfluous, and then it would be a weak point, such as Schleiermacher admits the work contains: but there will be nothing in it to offend or distress us so deeply as Mr Delbrueck. Was it however so trivial an advantage, or so unworthy of Socrates, to shew the emptiness and feebleness of the man who had undertaken to decide on the tendency of his life and doctrines? And
