The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates | Page 7

of another master? If a young man gets an acquaintance that brings
him into debauchery, ought his father to lay the blame on the first
friends of his son among whom he always lived virtuously? Is it not
true, on the contrary, that the more he finds that this last friendship
proves destructive to him, the more reason he will have to praise his
former acquaintance. And are the fathers themselves, who are daily
with their children, guilty of their faults, if they give them no ill
example? Thus they ought to have judged of Socrates; if he led an ill
life, it was reasonable to esteem him vicious; but if a good, was it just
to accuse him of crimes of which he was innocent?

And yet he might have given his adversaries ground to accuse him, had
he but approved, or seemed to approve those vices in others, from
which he kept himself free: but Socrates abhorred vice, not only in
himself, but in everyone besides. To prove which, I need only relate his
conduct toward Critias, a man extremely addicted to debauchery.
Socrates perceiving that this man had an unnatural passion for
Euthydemus, and that the violence of it would precipitate him so far a
length as to make him transgress the bounds of nature, shocked at his
behaviour, he exerted his utmost strength of reason and argument to
dissuade him from so wild a desire. And while the impetuosity of
Critias' passion seemed to scorn all check or control, and the modest
rebuke of Socrates had been disregarded, the philosopher, out of an
ardent zeal for virtue, broke out in such language, as at once declared
his own strong inward sense of decency and order, and the monstrous
shamefulness of Critias' passion. Which severe but just reprimand of
Socrates, it is thought, was the foundation of that grudge which he ever
after bore him; for during the tyranny of the Thirty, of which Critias
was one, when, together with Charicles, he had the care of the civil
government of the city, he failed not to remember this affront, and, in
revenge of it, made a law to forbid teaching the art of reasoning in
Athens: and having nothing to reproach Socrates with in particular, he
laboured to render him odious by aspersing him with the usual
calumnies that are thrown on all philosophers: for I have never heard
Socrates say that he taught this art, nor seen any man who ever heard
him say so; but Critias had taken offence, and gave sufficient proofs of
it: for after the Thirty had caused to be put to death a great number of
the citizens, and even of the most eminent, and had let loose the reins to
all sorts of violence and rapine, Socrates said in a certain place that he
wondered very much that a man who keeps a herd of cattle, and by his
ill conduct loses every day some of them, and suffers the others to fall
away, would not own himself to be a very ill keeper of his herd; and
that he should wonder yet more if a Minister of State, who lessens
every day the number of his citizens, and makes the others more
dissolute, was not ashamed of his ministry, and would not own himself
to be an ill magistrate. This was reported to Critias and Charicles, who
forthwith sent for Socrates, and showing him the law they had made,
forbid him to discourse with the young men. Upon which Socrates

asked them whether they would permit him to propose a question, that
he might be informed of what he did not understand in this prohibition;
and his request being granted, he spoke in this manner: "I am most
ready to obey your laws; but that I may not transgress through
ignorance, I desire to know of you, whether you condemn the art of
reasoning, because you believe it consists in saying things well, or in
saying them ill? If for the former reason, we must then, from
henceforward, abstain from speaking as we ought; and if for the latter,
it is plain that we ought to endeavour to speak well." At these words
Charicles flew into a passion, and said to him: "Since you pretend to be
ignorant of things that are so easily known, we forbid you to speak to
the young men in any manner whatever." "It is enough," answered
Socrates; "but that I may not be in a perpetual uncertainty, pray
prescribe to me, till what age men are young." "Till they are capable of
being members of the Senate," said Charicles: "in a word, speak to no
man under thirty years of age." "How!" says Socrates, "if I would buy
anything of a tradesman who is not