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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: sophistries; (2) as designedly irritating the judges? Or are these
sophistries to be regarded as belonging to the age in which he lived and to
his personal character, and this apparent haughtiness as flowing from the
natural elevation of his position?
For example, when he says that it is absurd to suppose that one man is the
corrupter and all the rest of the world the improvers of the youth; or,
when he argues that he never could have corrupted the men with whom he had
to live; or, when he proves his belief in the gods because he believes in
the sons of gods, is he serious or jesting? It may be observed that these
sophisms all occur in his cross-examination of Meletus, who is easily
foiled and mastered in the hands of the great dialectician. Perhaps he
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