"I have a great many faults," the pretty American heiress said, "but scandal never was one of them. Look at that little wretch of a Mosley Harcourt. Nobody likes him, and nobody is free from his poisonous tongue, but he goes everywhere because he has the very latest gossip."
It is evident, then, that Aristotle cannot be approached with the same perfect dispassionateness as the other great thinkers of antiquity. He is, if not a living force, still a force which must be reckoned with in contemporary controversy. His admirers persist in making an authority of him, or at least of quoting him in behalf of their own favourite convictions. We are, therefore, bound to sift his claims with a severity which would not be altogether gracious in a purely historical review. At the same time it is hoped that historical justice will not lose, but gain, by such a procedure. We shall be the better able to understand what Aristotle was, after first showing what he neither was nor could be. And the utility of our investigations will be still further enhanced if we can show that he represents a fixed type regularly recurring in the revolutions of thought.221
TWO:"Nor must you tell them that we detained you here. That was really not our intention at all, but just now we had no time to examine your papers."48
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The next day I got to The Netherlands with my small protge, after a tiring walk from Herstal to Eysden, where we could take the train to Maastricht. Here the father of the little girl came to meet his daughter, and took her to Amsterdam, to her "Mummy," of whom she had been speaking during the whole journey with so much longing.As we crossed the bridge, I asked my escort why these houses were set on fire. I heard then, for the first time, that "they had been shooting," and they told me of cowardly civilians, who shot from the windows at unsuspicious soldiers, or24 stabbed them treacherously. But of course they had experienced nothing of the kind; it had happened to troops who were now moving ahead. They had, however, taken part in the revenge, and told of it with glittering eyes: how they fired the houses of francs-tireurs and then shot the people who, nearly stifled, appeared at the windows; how in "holy" anger, in order to avenge their comrades, they subsequently entered the houses and destroyed everything. I did not answer, did not know what to think of it, but shuddered, because it was so gruesome.CHAPTER XLVIII. HETTY SPEAKS OUT.This Daemonium, whatever it may have been, formed one of the ostensible grounds on which its possessor was prosecuted and condemned to death for impiety. We might have spared ourselves the trouble of going over the circumstances connected with that tragical event, had not various attempts been made in some well-known works to extenuate the significance of a singularly atrocious crime. The case stands thus. In the year 399 B.C. Socrates, who was then over seventy, and had never in his life been brought before a law-court, was indicted on the threefold charge of introducing new divinities, of denying those already recognised by the State, and of corrupting young men. His principal accuser was one Meltus, a poet, supported by Lycon, a rhetorician,162 and by a much more powerful backer, Anytus, a leading citizen in the restored democracy. The charge was tried before a large popular tribunal, numbering some five hundred members. Socrates regarded the whole affair with profound indifference. When urged to prepare a defence, he replied, with justice, that he had been preparing it his whole life long. He could not, indeed, have easily foreseen what line the prosecutors would take. Our own information on this point is meagre enough, being principally derived from allusions made by Xenophon, who was not himself present at the trial. There seems, however, no unfairness in concluding that the charge of irreligion neither was nor could be substantiated. The evidence of Xenophon is quite sufficient to establish the unimpeachable orthodoxy of his friend. If it really was an offence at Athens to believe in gods unrecognised by the State, Socrates was not guilty of that offence, for his Daemonium was not a new divinity, but a revelation from the established divinities, such as individual believers have at all times been permitted to receive even by the most jealous religious communities. The imputation of infidelity, commonly and indiscriminately brought against all philosophers, was a particularly unhappy one to fling at the great opponent of physical science, who, besides, was noted for the punctual discharge of his religious duties. That the first two counts of the indictment should be so frivolous raises a strong prejudice against the third. The charges of corruption seem to have come under two headsalleged encouragement of disrespect to parents, and of disaffection towards democratic institutions. In support of the former some innocent expressions let fall by Socrates seem to have been taken up and cruelly perverted. By way of stimulating his young friends to improve their minds, he had observed that relations were only of value when they could help one another, and that to do so they must be properly educated. This was twisted into an assertion that ignorant parents might properly be placed163 under restraint by their better-informed children. That such an inference could not have been sanctioned by Socrates himself is obvious from his insisting on the respect due even to so intolerable a mother as Xanthipp.108 The political opinions of the defendant presented a more vulnerable point for attack. He thought the custom of choosing magistrates by lot absurd, and did not conceal his contempt for it. There is, however, no reason for believing that such purely theoretical criticisms were forbidden by law or usage at Athens. At any rate, much more revolutionary sentiments were tolerated on the stage. That Socrates would be no party to a violent subversion of the Constitution, and would regard it with high disapproval, was abundantly clear both from his life and from the whole tenor of his teaching. In opposition to Hippias, he defined justice as obedience to the law of the land. The chances of the lot had, on one memorable occasion, called him to preside over the deliberations of the Sovereign Assembly. A proposition was made, contrary to law, that the generals who were accused of having abandoned the crews of their sunken ships at Arginusae should be tried in a single batch. In spite of tremendous popular clamour, Socrates refused to put the question to the vote on the single day for which his office lasted. The just and resolute man, who would not yield to the unrighteous demands of a crowd, had shortly afterwards to face the threats of a frowning tyrant. When the Thirty were installed in power, he publicly, and at the risk of his life, expressed disapproval of their sanguinary proceedings. The oligarchy, wishing to involve as many respectable citizens as possible in complicity with their crimes, sent for five persons, of whom Socrates was one, and ordered them to bring a certain Leo from Salamis, that he might be put to death; the others obeyed, but Socrates refused to accompany them on their disgraceful errand. Nevertheless, it told heavily against the philosopher that164 Alcibiades, the most mischievous of demagogues, and Critias, the most savage of aristocrats, passed for having been educated by him. It was remembered, also, that he was in the habit of quoting a passage from Homer, where Odysseus is described as appealing to the reason of the chiefs, while he brings inferior men to their senses with rough words and rougher chastisement. In reality, Socrates did not mean that the poor should be treated with brutality by the rich, for he would have been the first to suffer had such license been permitted, but he meant that where reason failed harsher methods of coercion must be applied. Precisely because expressions of opinion let fall in private conversation are so liable to be misunderstood or purposely perverted, to adduce them in support of a capital charge where no overt act can be alleged, is the most mischievous form of encroachment on individual liberty.
