TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THE only version of the entire works of Plato, which has appeared in the English language, is that published by Taylor; in which nine of the Dialogues previously translated by Floyer Sydenham are introduced. Taylor's portion of the work is far from correct, and betrays an imperfect knowledge of Greek: that by Sydenham is much better, and evidently the work of a scholar, but in many instances, and those chiefly where difficulties present themselves, he obscures his author's meaning by too great amplification. Translations of several detached Dialogues have appeared at various times, but of those which have fallen into my hands none appear to me deserving of notice, with the exception of a little volume containing the Phædrus, Lysis, and Protagoras, by Mr. J. Wright, of Trinity College, Cambridge, the production of a promising scholar.

In the volume now offered to the public, I have endeavoured to keep as closely to the original as the idioms of the two languages would allow.

In the introduction to each Dialogue I have contented myself with giving a brief outline of the arguments; sufficient, I trust, to enable a reader not familiar with the rigid dialectics of Plato to follow the chain of his reasoning, and catch the points at which he so frequently diverges from, and again returns to, the main subject of each Dialogue.

The editions which have been made use of are those of Bekker, Ast, and Stallbaum, though with very few exceptions the readings of the latter have been adopted. The division into sections, according to the London edition of Bekker, has been retained, because the arrangement is convenient, and it is believed that that edition is more generally to be met with in this country than any other.

Oxford, Nov. 28, 1848.

H. C.

ERRATUM.

Page 428, § 114, 1. 6, for objects, both, read both objects.

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES.

Two charges were brought against Socrates, one, that he did not believe in the gods received by the state, the other, that he corrupted the Athenian youth by teaching them not to believe.

Plato, who was present at the trial, probably gives us the very arguments employed by the accused on that occasion. Socrates disdained to have recourse to the usual methods adopted by the popular orators of the day to secure an acquittal; and, having devoted his whole life to the search after and the inculcation of religious, philosophical, and moral truth, resolved to bear himself in this extremity in a manner consistent with his established character, and to take his stand on his own integrity and innocence, utterly uninfluenced by that imaginary evil, death. From this cause it is that his defence is so little artificial. In his discussions with others, on whatever subject, it was his constant habit to keep his opponents to the question before them, and he would never suffer them to evade it, but by a connected series of the most subtle questions or arguments compelled them to retract any erroneous opinion they might have advanced: whereas, in defending himself, he never once fairly grapples with either of the charges brought against him. With regard to the first accusation, that he did not believe in the established religion, he neither confesses nor denies it, but shews that he had in some instances conformed to the religious customs of his country, and that he did believe

B

in God, so much so indeed that even if they would acquit him on condition of his abandoning his practice of teaching others, he could not consent to such terms, but must persevere in fulfilling the mission on which the Deity had sent him, for that he feared God rather than man. With reference to the second charge which he meets first, by his usual method of a brief but close cross-examination of his accuser Melitus, he brings him to this dilemma, that he must either charge him with corrupting the youth designedly, which would be absurd, or with doing so undesignedly, for which he could not be liable to punishment.

The Defence itself properly ends with the twenty-fourth section. The second division to the twenty-ninth section relates only to the sentence which ought to be passed on him. And in the third and concluding part, with a dignity and fulness of hope worthy even of a Christian, he expresses his belief that the death to which he is going is only a passage to a better and a happier life.