Socrates - Sir Richard Livingstone

                                                     Socrates

                                                                               -  Sir Richard Livingstone

Introduction

      Socrates is a biographical work written by Sir Richard Livingstone (1880-1960).  He was the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Vice chancellor of the University of Oxford.  He was interested in Greek civilization.  His lectures on education appeared under the title Some Tasks for Education.  In this essay Sir Richard Livingstone has given the biographical sketches of Socrates regarding his life, works and death.  Socrates (469-399 B.C) was born in the city of Athens which belongs to the country Greece. He was a great philosopher who was engaged in questioning Truth and Virtue (purity), but finally faced death since he refused to give up the truth.

Topics for discussion in the lesson:

     The ‘Apology’ describes the last address of Socrates to the Athenians after the sentence of death was pronounced.  The second half of the lesson ‘Phaedo’ describes his last moments.  The author translated the dialogues of Plato in English. Socrates feels that the Athenians will get a bad name from the criticizers of the city who is about to kill a so called wise man.  If they had waited a little, their desire would have been achieved by the course of nature.

Views of Socrates about death:

     He feels that ‘death’ is supposed to be good.  He also talks about the two alternatives of death. Death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or it is the migration of soul from this world to another. In another world no one will put a man to death for asking questions and he feels too happy to be immortal.  He is not feeling angry with his condemners or with his accusers; since they have not done any harm to him rather they did good unknowingly. 

     He asks for a favour from those who victimized him, to punish his sons as they grew up, if his sons seem to care about riches, or anything more than virtue.  If they do this, both he and his son’s would be happy to receive justice at their hands.  He feels that the hour had come for his departure from this mortal world, and finally uttering that the true justice is better known to God and only to him.

Golden words

     Socrates use to talk with his friends and share new ideas with them but he never put anything in the form of writing.  Plato, his close friend made notes of what Socrates spoke and they were written down and published after the death of Socrates.  Many thought that he is the wisest (one who have good knowledge) of all men.  Later he decided to spend his time towards Philosophy or love of wisdom.  His wise sayings are as follows;

          § ‘Truth is beautiful and enduring’

          § ‘The uncriticized life is not worth living’

          §   The noblest of all studies is the study of ‘What a man should be and what he should do’.

Death Trial

     When he was at the age of 70 some people started to suspect and criticize him.  When he asked people to think they thought that Socrates was trying to destruct (destroy) the peace of Athens city. They began to think that he was against the government and he was later accused as criminal.  But he was not worried at all.  There was a custom (practice) that every accused will be given a chance to speak and to defend himself.  For this Socrates said ‘I have been preparing this all my life’.  Meletus and Anytus were the two who said Socrates was going against the government and disloyal.

     He was later sentenced to death.  He was given a cup of poison.  His friends tried to save Socrates life by giving bribe to the guards of the jail. But Socrates refused it.  The day of putting him to death came and jailor gave him the cup of poison and he asked Socrates to drink it.  Socrates wanted to give a part of poison as an offering to God but the jailor declined (didn’t accept) it.  He prayed for good luck on his journey to death and he drank the poison.  Later he asked Crito to give a cock as a sacrifice to God of Healing (Asclepius, the name of the God of Healing). He asked Crito not to forget the offering.  He covered his eyes with cloak (loose cloth) and soon died.

Conclusion

     This was the end of a good man, the noblest, the wisest and the best of all men. Thus this summary consists of all the happenings in the life of a great philosopher Socrates which has been clearly portrayed by Sir Richard Livingstone.