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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1885)
THE HESPERIAN STUDENT t of the Parthenon; for Thucydldes with his kounnesB o thought mill elegance of style. And wp shall remember it also for a nnme which is, in some respects, nbuvo all these; a nnme to which modern history pnys reverent horns age, a name which adorns that period ns nu Uistrious di- ndem, the nnme of Socrates. In following the career of .1 public man, it is often well to ex-inline the clumicloi1 of the times in which ho lived. Surrounding influences may hftvo had much to do with his success, and the wants of the period may havo suggested his calling. Lotus con aider then more cnrefully the age of Socrates. Lot ub dctci mine, if possible, how much his greatness waB due to circumstances, aud how much in turn that age was indebted to him. As we have seen, Greece was enjoying the golden period of her existence. The Persian wnra had closed and the mighty hosts of Darius and Xerxes had been driven back over the sea, from whence they came. The Hel lenic states had risen to commence lite anow in the sunshine of liberty. Athons, tho "eye of Greece," the centre of art and culture, sat upon her crowned Acro polis and from her "(hrono of beauty" led, if she did not "rule, the world." As one author says "to have lived in such a city, iu such an age, was no mean train ing for auy mau." But, at the same time, the civilization of the day had ft false basis; it was built solely upon talent. Power, el oquence, nrtislicskill, these were the glittering crowns held aloft the goal of man's ambition. The Greeks had deified the intellect, and had forgotten all else in its ad oration. Philosophers had come and gone, but had said little or nothing upon the great subject of moral responsibility. Thales and Pythagoras Had contented Miemsclves with studying the grand question of what is scientifically true; but none had, a& yet, Bolvcd the grander problem of what is ethically right. Ohristi" anity with its attendant blc'ssings, had not yet appeared. More than four centuries and a half must elapse be fore the star of Bethlehem should guide the wondering sages to tho cradle of the nuw born child. Greece ' b her wisdom knew not God" or his laws, and moral dark ness brooded over tho heathen world. It was in the midst of intellectual splendor so incomparably grand, iu the midst of moral desolation so unconcoivably doso luto that tho labors of Socrates bogan. It is a singular fact that he spent the first half of his lifo in obscurity. Wo know that his father was a sculp tor, and it is claimed that his occupation suggested his own. For while tho father chiseled naught but cold and lifeless marble, lie would mould the future and shape the destiny of human souls. When ho begun his life-work, ho saw arouud him tho joulhofhls native city, under the iuslruolion of the Sophists, a class of men who cared loss for the substance of their teachings, than for the manner in which they taught. They laid great stress upon the arts of rhetoric but spent their time in idle discussions and profitless argument. Socrates folt that the condition of tho ago de manded something more than these gilded baubles. Ho saw that the teachings of the Sophists wore shallow fallacious, and he resolved that he would overthrow their system and build a nobler structure on iu ruins. His own view of his mission, was th.it of a dhBomlnator of truth in tho broadest sense of tho term, and besought, by directing the minds of men 'o lofty themes, to lilt them also to a higher and nobler sphere of existence Upon one occasion lie said : "1 pass my time iu doing nothing but persuading you both, young, and old, that you care so earnestly neither for tho body, nor for tho treasures, nor for any other thing as for tho soul, by wha1 means it may bo ennobled in the highest degree." Hci endeavored therefore to quicken the moral senso in man for as Victor Hugo says: "An awakened conscience is gntatuos-s of soul." He believed that virtue could bo taught, and should bo studied, as one of the chief ends of living. His aim, as ho professed, was only to teach men to think for themselves, no sought by his penetrating questions to arouse in each individual mind, a train of thought that would work out great results. Accordingly upon all occasions ho interrogated men ; on tho street, in tho Agora, at tho Lyceum, wherever ho could reach the ear of tho multitude. His methods of instruction were tho simplest; ho employed cone of the flowers of rhetoric , he assumed no dramatic postures, ho taught in tho plain conversational style represented in tho dialogues of Plato. Unlike his great rivals the Sophists he demanded no pny, for his reward was the consciousness of work well done. Before hla time, philosophers generally looked upon death ns an o'ernnl sleep. Pythagcras, indeed, had brought forward the idea of tho transmigration of the soul, but it was Socrates who first formulated the doctrine of tho soul's immortality. There is something infinitely sad in the very word used by tho undent Greeks to designate the resting place of the dead. They looked upon the forms of their departed friends, they saw that life had gone, they knew not whore, and they named the pi ice Hades the unseen tho unknown, the unknow able, djtitv.- imagine for a moment, an ancient Philoso phei musing by a. tombofsrme friend lately decensed How aptly might behave used those pathetic words of a great modern agnostic. "Again" he would have said,"wo nro face to fuce with tho great mystery that shrouds the world. We question, but thoro is no reply. Out on the wide waste seas there floats no spar. Over the desert of death the Sphinx gazes forever but never speaks. The golden bridge of life, from gloom emorgos and J on shallow rests. Beyond this, we do not know. Pate is speechless; destiny is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been told." Such were tho views ot tho most cultured of the Greeks, before the time of Socrates Having made life so beautiful and sublime, death was the most awful tiling that could befall them. They shrank from it as one would from the jaws of a hideous monster. Lifo was lovely; death was loathsome. Socrates came speaking words of hope. Ho came announcing his beliof that while it frail tenoment crumbled to the dust, the soul of man lives ou, forovor on, throughout tho endless ages of eternity. With a lifo so pure, so noble, so unselfish, it might seem that Socrates would have been the idol of his age. But the history of the human race, teaches a different lesson. Ingratitude is the proverbial vice of republics and the world at large has often been ungrateful towards Its truest benefactors. The noble Ariatides had been ban m t V X r 1