towards their domestics, their relations, their friends, and their fellow-
citizens. All these persons led very innocent lives; and, whether we
consider them in their youth or examine their behaviour in a more
advanced age, we shall find that they never were guilty of any bad
action, nay, that they never gave the least ground to suspect them of
being so.

But the accuser says that Socrates encouraged children to despise their
parents, making them believe that he was more capable to instruct them
than they; and telling them that as the laws permit a man to chain his
own father if he can convict him of lunacy, so, in like manner, it is but
just that a man of excellent sense should throw another into chains who
has not so much understanding. I cannot deny but that Socrates may have
said something like this; but he meant it not in the sense in which the
accuser would have it taken: and he fully discovered what his meaning by
these words was, when he said that he who should pretend to chain others
because of their ignorance, ought, for the same reason, to submit to be
chained himself by men who know more than he. Hence it is that he argued
so often of the difference between folly and ignorance; and then he
plainly said that fools and madmen ought to be chained indeed, as well
for their own interest as for that of their friends; but that they who
are ignorant of things they should know, ought only to be instructed by
those that understand them.

The accuser goes on, that Socrates did not only teach men to despise
their parents, but their other relations too; because he said that if a
man be sick, or have a suit in law, it is not his relations, but the
physicians, or the advocates who are of use to him. He further alleged
that Socrates, speaking of friends, said it was to no purpose to bear
goodwill to any man, if it be not in our power to serve him; and that the