Socrates^ Schleiermache} cmd Delbrzieck, 581 may it not be possible that, if we had the speech of Meletus before us, we might find in it a key to the tone in which Socrates addresses him ? But we proceed to examine the manner in which the author of the Apology endeavours to repel the second charge, that of impiety and unbelief. The charge itself consists of two heads. Socrates is accused of rejecting the gods acknowledged by the state, and of substituting for them a different object, of which we shall speak presently. Schleiermacher has ob- served, that the first part of the charge is not answered so forcibly as it might have been : and the defect which he points out is exactly similar to that which we have noticed in the preceding branch of the defense. An answer is given, but it is not formally and directly applied to the question. Socrates declares, that the greater part of his life has been spent in the service of the Delphic god : but he draws no inference from this fact against the charge of impiety. It may be said that his assertion was no proof of the fact ; but it was as strong a one as his accusers could have brought against him, and as the nature of the case admitted. For his religious con- victions could only be known to himself, and his conformity to the worship of the state, which is the argument used in Xenophon'^s Apology, 11, was no less equivocal evidence. A much more difficult question arises on the second branch of the charge, as to the meaning attached by the prosecutor himself to the terms he used, and the sense in which they are taken by the defendant. Mr Ast states the charge to be, that Socrates introduced new gods in the room of those wor- shipped by his countrymen : and he censures the author of the Apology for having mistaken the meaning of the word ^aiixovia^ and Schleiermacher for having suffered himself to be misled by this mistake. In the Apology the word is used adjectively, and it is on this use of it that the argument turns. Mr Ast undertakes to correct this error, by explaining the real meaning of the word. But we are afraid his explanation will not be thought to throw much light on the subject: for he begins by informing us, that haifxivtov is neither simply an adjective, so that it should he necessary to supply epyov, . crtj^eTov, or the like, nor yet a substantive denoting a j^cirticular or peculiar being (he refers to Lennep on Phalaris, p. SS8). In-
