A Life of Socrates by Dr. G. Wiggers [pp. 236-265]

Last Day of htis Life.
told that he must that day at the going down of the sun drink
the hemlock.
The manner in which he spent the last day of his life is given
us in the Phedo of Plato. We never look at this book without
being reminded of two celebrated sayings of Cicero respecting
it; one of which was, that he never read the arguments there
given for the immortality of the soul without being convinced,
but so soon as he closed the book, he began to doubt. The
other was, that he never read the account of the death of Socrates without having his face suffused with tears. We cannot
wonder that the Roman orator felt so in both cases. We should
strongly sympathize with him in the first, had we no clearer or
more solid ground of belief in the immortality of the soul than
even the powerful mind of Socrates, groping through heathen
darkness, was able to discover. "Life and immortality are
brought to light by the gospel." And we should feel like Tully
concerning the death of Socrates, were not our minds too busily
occupied, despite the admirable simplicity of the narrative, with
thoughts upon the horrible depravity of heathen nations, and
with the deplorable condition of a man, comparatively virtuous,
dying without any certain knowledge "of the way, the truth
and the life."
The main subject of the whole day's conversation was that of
the immortality of the soul, a subject well suited to the thoughts
of a man so near the solemn close of his earthly existence. One
cannot refrain from comparing the conduct of Socrates, on this,
the last day of his life, with the account Dr. Adam Smith gives
of the last days of David Hume. The Athenian is serious, calm
and dignified; the Scotsman plays the jester and the buffoon.
The former seems to be almost struggling to become a Christian,
though in the midst of heathendom; the latter seems anxious to
be a heathen though in the most enlightened kingdom of Christendom. It is not our purpose to review the argument of Socrates on the immortality of the soul. It could hardly be
abbreviated without making it obscure. Parts of it, indeed, are
clearly unsound, depending on the doctrine of the pre-existence
of souls, and on the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.
Still, there is a candour and an earnestness in his statements, that
must deeply impress every thinking man. The iron fetters had
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1851.]
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