Schleiermacher on Plato's Apology. 557 we not only find detached intimations of this kind scattered over his later writings, but we shall soofi be introduced to an important work, one which cannot be denied to be closely enough interwoven with his scientific speculations, in which a collateral object, but one made distinctly prominent, is to place the conduct and virtue of Socrates as an Athenian citizen in a clear light. Now this is intelligible enough : but Plato could scarcely have found any inducement at a later period to com- pose a work which merely confronts Socrates with his actual accusers. It must have been then during the process that he wrote this speech. But for what purpose ? It is manifest that he could have rendered his master no worse service, than if, before he had defended himself in court, he had published a defense under his name, just as if to help the prosecutors to the arguments which it would be their business to parry or to elude, and to place the defendant in the difficult situation of being reduced either to repeat much that had been said before, or to say something less forcible. Hence the more excellent and the better suited to the character of Socrates the defense might be, the more harm it would have done to him. But this is a supposition which will scarcely be maintained. After the decision of the cause there were two purposes which Plato might have had, either that of making the course of the proceedings more generally known at the time, and of framing a memorial of them for posterity, or that of setting the diff*erent parties and their mode of proceeding in a proper light. Now if we inquire about the only rational means to the latter of these ends: all will agree that the speech should have been put into the mouth, not of Socrates, but of some other person defending him. For the advocate might have brought forward many things, which the character of Socrates rendered improper for him to urge, and might have shewn by the work that, if the defendant's cause had only been pleaded by a person who had no need to disdain resources which many men of honour did not think beneath them, it would have had a very diff*erent issue. Now if there were any foundation for an anecdote, not indeed a very probable one, which Diogenes Laertius has preserved from an insignificant writer, Plato's most natural course would have been, to publish the speech which he would himself have made on the same occasion, if he had not
