the greatest of the ancient philosophers, was born at Alopece, a village near Athens, in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad. His parents were of low rank; his father Sophroniscus being a flaxworker, and his mother Phaenareta a midwife. Sophroniscus brought up his son, contrary to his inclination, in his own manual employment; in which Socrates, though his mind was continually aspiring after higher objects, was not unsuccessful, for whilst he was a young man, he is said to have formed statues of the habited Graces, which were allowed a place in the citadel of Athens. Upon the death of his father he was left in such straitened circumstances as laid him under the necessity of exercising that art to procure the means of subsistence, though he devoted, at the same time, all the leisure which he could command, to the study of philosophy. His distress, however, was soon relieved by Crito, a wealthy Athenian; who, remarking his strong propensity to study, and admiring his ingenious disposition and distinguished abilities, generously took him under his patronage, and intrusted him with the instruction of his children. The opportunities which Socrates by this means enjoyed of attending the public lectures of the most eminent philosophers, so far increased his thirst after wisdom, that he determined to relinquish his occupation, and every prospect of emolument which that might afford, in order to devote himself entirely to his favourite pursuits. Under Anaxagoras and Archelaus he prosecuted the study of nature in the usual manner of the philosophers of the age, and became well acquainted with their doctrines. Prodicus the sophist was his preceptor in eloquence, Evenus in poetry, Thedorus in geometry, and Damo in music. Alcibiades, a woman no less celebrated for her intellectual than her personal accomplishments, whose house was frequented by the most celebrated characters, had also some share in the education of Socrates. Under such preceptors it cannot reasonably be doubted but that he became master of every kind of learning which the age in which he lived could afford; and being blessed with very uncommon talents by nature, he appeared in Athens, under the respectable characters of a good citizen and a true philosopher. Being called upon by his country to take arms in the long and severe struggle between Athens and Sparta, he signalized himself at the siege of Potidea, both by his valour and by the hardiness with which he endured fatigue. During the severity of a Thracian winter, whilst others were clad in furs, he wore only his usual clothing, and walked barefoot upon the ice. In an engagement in which he saw Alcibiades falling down wounded, he advanced to defend him, and saved both him and his arms: and though the prize of valour was on this occasion unquestionably due to Socrates, he generously gave his vote that it might be bestowed upon Alcibiades, to encourage his rising merit. He served in other campaigns with distinguished bravery, and had the happiness on one occasion to save the life of Xenophon, by bearing him, when covered with wounds, out of the reach of the enemy.

It was not till Socrates was upwards of 60 years of age that he undertook to serve his country in any civil office, when he was chosen to represent his own district, in the senate of five hundred. In this office, though he at first exposed himself to some degree of ridicule from the want of experience in the forms of business, he soon convinced his colleagues that he was superior to them all in wisdom and integrity. Whilst they, intimidated by the clamours of the populace, passed an unjust sentence of condemnation upon the commanders, who, after the engagement at the Arginian islands, had been prevented by a storm from paying funeral honours to the dead, Socrates stood forth singly in their defence, and to the last refused to give his suffrage against them, declaring that no force should compel him to act contrary to justice and the laws. Under the subsequent tyranny he never ceased to condemn the oppressive and cruel proceedings of the thirty tyrants; and when his boldness provoked their resentment, so that his life was in hazard, fearing neither treachery nor violence, he still continued to support with undaunted firmness the rights of his fellow citizens.

Having given these proofs of public virtue both in a military and civil capacity, he wished to do still more for his country. Observing with regret how much the opinions of the Athenian youth were misled, and their principles and taste corrupted by philosophers who spent all their time in refined speculations upon nature and the origin of things, and by sophists who taught in their schools the arts of false eloquence and deceitful reasoning; Socrates formed the wise and generous design of instituting a new and more useful method of instruction. He justly conceived the true end of philosophy to be, not to make an ostentatious display of superior learning and ability in futile disputations or ingenious conjectures, but to free mankind from the dominion of pernicious prejudices; to correct their vices; to inspire them with the love of virtue; and thus conduct them in the path of wisdom to true felicity. He therefore assumed the character of a moral philosopher; and, looking upon the whole city of Athens as his school, and all who were disposed to lend him their attention as his pupils, he seized every occasion of communicating moral wisdom to his fellow citizens. He passed the greater part of his time in public; and the method of instruction of which he chiefly made use was, to propose a series of questions to the person with whom he conversed, in order to lead him to some unforeseen conclusion. He first gained the consent of his respondent to some obvious truths, and then obliged him to admit others from their relation or resemblance to those to which he had already assented. Without making use of any direct argument or persuasion, he chose to lead the person he meant to instruct, to deduce the truths of which he wished to convince him, as a necessary consequence from his own conceptions. He commonly conducted these conferences with such address, as to conceal his design till the respondent had advanced too far to recede. On some occasions he made use of ironical language, that vain men might be caught in their own replies, and be obliged to confess their ignorance. He never assumed the air of a morose and rigid preceptor, but communicated useful instruction with all the ease and pleasantry of polite conversation. Though eminently furnished with every kind of learning, he preferred moral to speculative wisdom. Convinced that philosophy Socrates. Philosophy is valuable, not as it furnishes questions for the schools, but as it provides men with a law of life, he censured his predecessors for spending all their time in abstract researches into nature, and taking no pains to render themselves useful to mankind. His favorite maxim was, Whatever is above us doth not concern us. He estimated the value of knowledge by its utility, and recommended the study of geometry, astronomy, and other sciences, only so far as they admit of a practical application to the purposes of human life. His great object in all his conferences and discourses was, to lead men into an acquaintance with themselves; to convince them of their follies and vices; to inspire them with the love of virtue; and to furnish them with useful moral instructions. Cicero might therefore very justly say of Socrates, that he was the first who called down philosophy from heaven to earth, and introduced her into the public walks and domestic retirements of men, that she might instruct them concerning life and manners.

Through his whole life this good man discovered a mind superior to the attractions of wealth and power. Contrary to the general practice of the preceptors of his time, he instructed his pupils without receiving from them any gratuity. He frequently refused rich presents, which were offered him by Alcibiades and others, though importunately urged to accept them by his wife. The chief men of Athens were his stewards: they sent him provisions, as they apprehended he wanted them; he took what his present wants required, and returned the rest. Observing the numerous articles of luxury which were exposed to sale in Athens, he exclaimed, "How many things are there which I do not want!" With Socrates, moderation supplied the place of wealth. In his clothing and food, he consulted only the demands of nature. He commonly appeared in a neat but plain cloak, with his feet uncovered. Though his table was only supplied with simple fare, he did not scruple to invite men of superior rank to partake of his meals; and when his wife, upon some such occasion, expressed her dissatisfaction on being no better provided, he desired her to give herself no concern; for if his guests were wise men, they would be contented with whatever they found at his table; if otherwise, they were unworthy of notice. Whilst others, says he, live to eat, wise men eat to live.

Though Socrates was exceedingly unfortunate in his domestic connection, he converted this infelicity into an occasion of exercising his virtues. Xantippe, concerning whose ill humour ancient writers relate many amusing tales, was certainly a woman of a high and unmanageable spirit. But Socrates while he endeavored to curb the violence of her temper, improved his own. When Alcibiades expressed his surprise that his friend could bear to live in the same house with so perverse and quarrelsome a companion, Socrates replied, that being daily inured to ill humour at home, he was the better prepared to encounter perverseness and injury abroad.

In the midst of domestic vexations and public disorders, Socrates retained such an unruffled serenity, that he was never seen either to leave his own house or to return home with a disturbed countenance. In acquiring this entire dominion over his passions and appetites, he had the greater merit, as it was not effected without a violent struggle against his natural propensities. Zopyrus, an eminent physiognomist, declared, that he discovered in the features of the philosopher evident traces of many vicious inclinations. The friends of Socrates who were present ridiculed the ignorance of this pretender to extraordinary sagacity. But Socrates himself ingenuously acknowledged his penetration, and confessed that he was in his natural disposition prone to vice, but that he had subdued his inclinations by the power of reason and philosophy.

Through the whole of his life Socrates gave himself up to the guidance of unbiased reason, which is supposed by some to be all that he meant by the genius or daemon from which he professed to receive instruction. But this opinion is inconsistent with the accounts given by his followers of that daemon, and even with the language in which he spoke of it himself. Plato sometimes calls it his guardian, and Apuleius his god; and as Xenophon attests that it was the belief of his master that the gods occasionally communicate to men the knowledge of future events, it is by means improbable that Socrates admitted, with the generality of his countrymen, the existence of those intermediate beings called daemons, of one of which he might fancy himself the peculiar care.

It was one of the maxims of Socrates, "That a wise man will worship the gods according to the institutions of the state to which he belongs." Convinced of the weakness of the human understanding, and perceiving that the pride of philosophy had led his predecessors into futile speculations on the nature and origin of things, he judged it most consistent with true wisdom to speak with caution and reverence concerning the divine nature.

The wisdom and the virtues of this great man, whilst they procured him many followers, created him also many enemies. The Sophists*, whose knavery and ignorance he took every opportunity of exposing to public contempt, became inveterate in their enmity against so bold a reformer, and devised an expedient, by which they hoped to check the current of his popularity. They engaged Aristophanes, the first buffoon of the age, to write a comedy, in which Socrates should be the principal character. Aristophanes, pleased with so promising an occasion of displaying his low and malignant wit, undertook the task, and produced the comedy of The Clouds, still extant in his works. In this piece, Socrates is introduced hanging in a basket in the air, and thence pouring forth absurdity and profaneness. But the philosopher, showing in a crowded theatre that he was wholly unmoved by this ribaldry, the satire failed of its effect; and when Aristophanes attempted the year following to renew the piece with alterations and additions, the representation was so much discouraged, that he was obliged to discontinue it.

From this time Socrates continued for many years to pursue without interruption his laudable design of instructing and reforming his fellow-citizens. At length, however, when the inflexible integrity with which he had discharged the duty of a senator, and the firmness with which he had opposed every kind of political corruption and oppression, had greatly increased the number of his enemies, clandestine arts were employed to raise a general prejudice against him. The people were industriously reminded, that Critias, who had been one of the most cruel of the thirty tyrants, and Alcibiades, who Socrates, who had insulted religion, by defacing the public statues of Mercury, and performing a mock representation of the Eleusinian mysteries, had in their youth been disciples of Socrates; and the minds of the populace being thus prepared, a direct accusation was preferred against him before the supreme court of judicature. His accusers were Anytus a leather-dresser, who had long entertained a personal enmity against Socrates, for reprehending his avarice, in depriving his sons of the benefits of learning, that they might pursue the gains of trade; Melitus, a young rhetorician, who was capable of undertaking any thing for the sake of gain; and Lycon, who was glad of any opportunity of displaying his talents. The accusation, which was delivered to the senate under the name of Melius, was this: "Melius, son of Melius, of the tribe of Pythos, accuseth Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of the tribe of Alopece. Socrates violates the laws, in not acknowledging the gods which the state acknowledges, and by introducing new divinities. He also violates the laws by corrupting the youth. Be his punishment death."

This charge was delivered upon oath to the senate; and Crito a friend of Socrates became surety for his appearance on the day of trial. Anytus soon afterwards sent a private message to Socrates, assuring him that if he would desist from censuring his conduct, he would withdraw his accusation. But Socrates refused to comply with so degrading a condition; and with his usual spirit replied, "Whilst I live I will never disguise the truth, nor speak otherwise than my duty requires." The interval between the accusation and the trial he spent in philosophical conversations with his friends, choosing to discourse upon any other subject rather than his own situation.

When the day of trial arrived, his accusers appeared in the senate, and attempted to support their charge in three distinct speeches, which strongly marked their respective characters. Plato, who was a young man, and a zealous follower of Socrates, then rose up to address the judges in defence of his master; but whilst he was attempting to apologise for his youth, he was abruptly commanded by the court to sit down. Socrates, however needed no advocate. Ascending the chair with all the ferocity of conscious innocence, and with all the dignity of superior merit, he delivered, in a firm and manly tone, an unpremeditated defence of himself, which silenced his opponents, and ought to have convinced his judges. After tracing the progress of the conspiracy which had been raised against him to its true source, the jealousy and resentment of men whose ignorance he had exposed, and whose vices he had ridiculed and reproved, he distinctly replied to the several charges brought against him by Melitus. To prove that he had not been guilty of impiety towards the gods of his country, he appealed to his frequent practice of attending the public religious festivals. The crime of introducing new divinities, with which he was charged, chiefly as it seems on the ground of the admonitions which he professed to have received from an invisible power, he disclaimed, by pleading that it was no new thing for men to consult the gods and receive instructions from them. To refute the charge of his having been a corrupter of youth, he urged the example which he had uniformly exhibited of justice, moderation, and temperance; the moral spirit and tendency of his discourses; and the effect which had actually been produced by his doctrine upon the manners of the young. Then, disdaining to solicit the mercy of his judges, he called upon them for that justice which their office and their oath obliged them to administer; and professing his faith and confidence in God, resigned himself to their pleasure.

The judges, whose prejudices would not suffer them to pay due attention to this apology, or to examine with impartiality the merits of the cause, immediately declared him guilty of the crimes of which he stood accused. Socrates, in this stage of the trial, had a right to enter his plea against the punishment which the accusers demanded, and instead of the sentence of death, to propose some pecuniary amercement. But he at first peremptorily refused to make any proposal of this kind, imagining that it might be construed into an acknowledgment of guilt; and asserted, that his conduct merited from the state reward rather than punishment. At length, however, he was prevailed upon by his friends to offer upon their credit a fine of thirty mina. The judges, notwithstanding, still remained inexorable: they proceeded, without farther delay, to pronounce sentence upon him; and he was condemned to be put to death by the poison of hemlock.

The sentence being passed, he was sent to prison; which, says Seneca, he entered with the same resolution and firmness with which he had opposed the thirty tyrants; and took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison while he was there. He lay in fetters 30 days; and was constantly visited by Crito, Plato, and other friends, with whom he passed the time in dispute after his usual manner. Anxious to save so valuable a life, they urged him to attempt his escape, or at least to permit them to convey him away; and Crito went so far, as to assure him that, by his interest with the jailor, it might be easily accomplished, and to offer him a retreat in Thessaly; but Socrates rejected the proposal, as a criminal violation of the laws; and asked them, whether there was any place out of Attica which death could not reach.

At length the day arrived when the officers to whose care he was committed delivered to Socrates early in the morning the final order for his execution, and immediately, according to the law, fet him at liberty from his bonds. His friends, who came thus early to the prison that they might have an opportunity of conversing with their master through the day, found his wife sitting by him with a child in her arms. Socrates, that the tranquillity of his last moments might not be disturbed by her unavailing lamentations, requested that she might be conducted home. With the most frantic expressions of grief she left the prison. An interesting conversation then passed between Socrates and his friends, which chiefly turned upon the immortality of the soul. In the course of this conversation, he expressed his disapprobation of the practice of suicide, and assured his friends that his chief support in his present situation was an expectation, though not unmixed with doubts, of a happy existence after death. "It would be inexcusable in me (said he) to despise death, if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me into the presence of the gods, who are the most righteous governors, and into the society of just and good men; but I derive confidence from the hope that something of man remains after death," death, and that the condition of good men will then be much better than that of the bad." Crito afterwards asked him, in what manner he wished to be buried? Socrates replied, with a smile, "As you please, provided I do not escape out of your hands." Then, turning to the rest of his friends, he said, "Is it not strange, after all that I have said to convince you that I am going to the society of the happy, that Crito still thinks that this body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, is Socrates? Let him dispose of my body as he pleases, but let him not at its interment mourn over it as if it were Socrates."

Towards the close of the day he retired into an adjoining apartment to bathe; his friends, in the meantime, expressing to one another their grief at the prospect of losing so excellent a father, and being left to pass the rest of their days in the solitary state of orphans. After a short interval, during which he gave some necessary instructions to his domestics, and took his last leave of his children, the attendant of the prison informed him, that the time for drinking the poison was come. The executioner, though accustomed to such scenes, shed tears as he presented the fatal cup. Socrates received it without change of countenance or the least appearance of perturbation: then offering up a prayer to the gods that they would grant him a prosperous passage into the invisible world, with perfect composure he swallowed the poisonous draught. His friends around him burst into tears. Socrates alone remained unmoved. He upbraided their pusillanimity, and entreated them to exercise a manly constancy worthy of the friends of virtue. He continued walking till the chilling operation of the hemlock obliged him to lie down upon his bed. After remaining for a short time silent, he requested Crito (probably in order to refute a calumny which might prove injurious to his friends after his decease) not to neglect the offering of a cock which he had vowed to Eucalypus. Then, covering himself with his cloak, he expired. Such was the fate of the virtuous Socrates! A story, says Cicero, which I never read without tears.

The friends and disciples of this illustrious teacher of wisdom were deeply afflicted by his death, and attended his funeral with every expression of grief. Apprehensive, however, for their own safety, they soon afterwards privately withdrew from the city, and took up their residence in distant places. Several of them visited the philosopher Euclid of Megara, by whom they were kindly received. No sooner was the unjust condemnation of Socrates known through Greece, than a general indignation was kindled in the minds of good men, who universally regretted that so distinguished an advocate for virtue should have fallen a sacrifice to jealousy and envy. The Athenians themselves, so remarkable for their caprice, who never knew the value of their great men till after their death, soon became sensible of the folly as well as criminality of putting to death the man who had been the chief ornament of their city and of the age, and turned their indignation against his accusers. Melitus was condemned to death; and Anytus, to escape a similar fate, went into voluntary exile. To give a farther proof of the sincerity of their regret, the Athenians for a while interrupted public business; decreed a general mourning; recalled the exiled friends of Socrates; and erected a statue to his memory in one of the most frequented parts of the city. Socrates' death happened in the fifth year of the 96th olympiad, and in the 70th year of his age.

Socrates left behind him nothing in writing; but his illustrious pupils Xenophon and Plato have in some measure supplied this defect. The Memoirs of Socrates, written by Xenophon, afford, however, a much more accurate idea of the opinions of Socrates, and of his manner of teaching, than the Dialogues of Plato, who everywhere mixes his own conceptions and dictum with the ideas and language of his master. It is related, that when Socrates heard Plato recite his Lyfs, he said, "How much does this young man make me say which I never conceived?"

His distinguishing character was that of a moral philosopher; and his doctrine concerning God and religion was rather practical than speculative. But he did not neglect to build the structure of religious faith upon the firm foundation of an appeal to natural appearances: He taught, that the Supreme Being, though invisible, is clearly seen in his works; which at once demonstrate his existence and his wise and benevolent providence. He admitted, besides the one Supreme Deity, the existence of beings who possess a middle station between God and man, to whose immediate agency he ascribed the ordinary phenomena of nature, and whom he supposed to be particularly concerned in the management of human affairs. Hence he declared it to be the duty of every one, in the performance of religious rites, to follow the customs of his country. At the same time, he taught, that the merit of all religious offerings depends upon the character of the worshipper, and that the gods take pleasure in the sacrifices of none but the truly pious.

Concerning the human soul, the opinion of Socrates, according to Xenophon, was, that it is allied to the Divine Being, not by a participation of essence, but by a similarity of nature; that man excels all other animals in the faculty of reason; and that the existence of good men will be continued after death in a state in which they will receive the reward of their virtue. Although it appears that on this latter topic he was not wholly free from uncertainty, the consolation which he professed to derive from this source in the immediate prospect of death, leaves little room to doubt that he entertained a real expectation of immortality: and there is reason to believe that he was the only philosopher of ancient Greece whose principles admitted of such an expectation (see METAPHYSICS, Part III. Chap.iv.). Of his moral system, which was in a high degree pure, and founded on the surest basis, the reader will find a short view in our article MORAL PHILOSOPHY, No. 4.

SOCRATES was also the name of an ecclesiastical historian of the 5th century, born at Constantinople in the beginning of the reign of Theodosius: he professed the law and pleaded at the bar, whence he obtained the name of Scholasticus. He wrote an ecclesiastical history from the year 309, where Eusebius ended, down to 440; and wrote with great exactness and judgement. An edition of Eusebius and Socrates, in Greek and Latin, with notes by Reading, was published at London in 1720.