One hundred years ago
CANON MacColl, in the interesting lecture on Socrates delivered at Leeds, of which the Yorkshire Post completed its report some ten days ago, expresses a strong desire for a modern Socrates. 'I have often wished of late,' he says, 'that we had Socrates back among us to cross-examine our political teachers in Parliament, in the press, and on the platform. What havoc he would make of many a fallacy which masquerades in the garb of wisdom! How many a sophist would be hunted to his last lair and exposed as a charlatan! How many a self-styled patriot would be convicted as a mere vulgar self-seeker! But how would it fare with Socrates himself, if he were to come among us here in Eng- land, and employ himself as he did of old in Athens? Doubtless he would run no risk of a compulsory draught of hemlock. That method of silencing in- convenient opponents is out of date. I wish I could think that the spirit which prescribed the method was also a thing of the past. But that is a kind of speculation which might lead us upon dangerous ground, and so I pass away from it.'
The Spectator, 16 April 1887
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