ing his avarice, in depriving his sons of the benefits of learning, that they might pursue the gains of trade; Melitus, a young rhetorician, who was capable of undertaking any thing for the sake of gain; and Lycon, who was glad of any opportunity of displaying his talents. The accusation, which was delivered to the senate under the name of Melitus, was this: Melitus, son of Melitus, of the tribe of Pythos, accuseth Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of the tribe of Alopece. Socrates violates the laws, in not acknowledging the gods which the state acknowledges, and by introducing new divinities. He also violates the laws by corrupting the youth. Be his punishment DEATH.' This charge was delivered upon oath to the senate; and Crito, a friend of Socrates, became surety for his appearance on the day of his trial. Anytus soon afterwards sent a private message to Socrates, assuring him, that if he would desist from censuring his conduct, he would withdraw his accusation. But Socrates refused to comply with so degrading a condition; and with his usual spirit replied, Whilst I live I will never disguise the truth, nor speak otherwise than my duty requires.' The interval between the accusation and the trial he spent in philosophical conversations with his friends, choosing to discourse upon any other subject rather than his own situation. When the day of trial arrived, his accusers appeared in the senate, and attempted to support their charge in three distinct speeches, which strongly marked their respective characters. Plato, who was a young man, and a zealous follower of Socrates, then rose up to address the judges in defence of his master; but, whilst he was attempting to apologize for his youth, he was abruptly commanded by the court to sit down. Socrates, however, needed no advocate. Ascending the chair with all the serenity of conscious innocence, and with all the dignity of superior merit, he delivered, in a firm and manly tone, an unpremeditated defence of himself, which silenced his opponents, and ought to have convinced his judges. After tracing the progress of the conspiracy which had been raised against him to its true source, the jealousy and resentment of men whose ignorance he had exposed, and whose vices he had ridiculed and reproved, he distinctly replied to the several charges brought against him by Melitus. To prove that he had not been guilty of impiety towards the gods of his country, he appealed to his frequent practice of attending the public religious festivals. The crime of introducing new divinities, with which he was charged, chiefly, as it seems, on the ground of the admonitions which he professed to have received from an invisible power, he disclaimed, by pleading that it was no new thing for men to consult the gods and receive instructions from them. To refute the charge of his having been a corrupter of youth, he urged the example which he had uniformly exhibited of justice, moderation, and temperance; the moral spirit and tendency of his discourses; and the effect which had actually been produced by his doctrine upon the manners of the young. Then, disdaining to solicit the mercy of his judges, he called upon them for that justice which their office and their oath obliged them to administer; and, professing his faith and confidence in God, resigned himself to their pleasure. The judges, whose prejudices would not suffer them to pay due attention to this apology, or to examine with impartiality the merits of the cause, immediately declared him guilty of the crimes of which he stood accused. Socrates, in this stage of the trial, had a right to enter his plea against the punishment which the accusers demanded, and, instead of the sentence of death, to propose some pecuniary amercement. But he at first peremptorily refused to make any proposal of this kind, imagining that it might be construed into an acknowledgment of guilt; and asserted that his conduct merited from the state reward rather than punishment. At length, however, he was prevailed upon by his friends to offer upon their credit a fine of thirty minæ. The judges, notwithstanding, still remained inexorable; they proceeded, without farther delay, to pronounce sentence upon bim; and he was condemned to be put to death by the poison of hemlock. The sentence being passed, he was sent to prison; which, says Seneca, he entered with the same resolution and firmness with which he had opposed the thirty tyrants: and took away all ignominy from the place. He lay in fetters thirty days; and was constantly visited by Crito, Plato, and other friends, with whom he passed the time in dispute, after his usual manner. Anxious to save so valuable a life, they urged him to attempt his escape, or at least to permit them to convey him away; and Crito went so far as to assure him that, by his interest with the jailor, it might be easily accomplished, and to offer him a retreat in Thessaly; but Socrates rejected the proposal, as a criminal violation of the laws, and asked them whether there was any place out of Attica which death could not reach? At length the day arrived, when the officers to whose care he was committed delivered to Socrates, early in the morning, the final order for his execution, and immediately, according to the law, set him at liberty from his bonds. His friends, who came thus early to the prison that they might have an opportunity of conversing with their master through the day, found his wife sitting by him with a child in her arms. Socrates, that the tranquillity of his last moments might not be disturbed by her unavailing lamentations, requested that she might be conducted home. With the most frantic expressions of grief she left the prison. An interesting conversation then passed between Socrates and his friends, which chiefly turned upon the immortality of the soul. In the course of this conversation, he expressed his disapprobation of the practice of suicide, and assured his friends that his chief support in his present situation was an expectation, though not unmixed with doubts, of a happy existence after death. It would be inexcusable in me,' said he, 'to despise death, if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me into the presence of the gods, who are the most righteous governors, and into the society of just and good men; but I derive confidence from the hope that something of man remains after death, and that the condition of good men will then be much better than that of the bad.' Crito afterwards asking him, in what manner he wished to be buried? Socrates replied, with a smile, as you please, provided I do not escape out of your hands.' Then, turning to the rest of his friends, he said, 'is it not strange, after all that I have said to convince you that I am going to the society of the happy, that Crito still thinks that this body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, is Socrates? Let him dispose of my body as he pleases, but let him not at its interment mourn over it as if it were Socrates.' Towards the close of the day he retired into an adjoining apartment to bathe; his children, in the mean time, expressing to one another their grief at the prospect of losing so excellent a father, and being left to pass the rest of their days in the solitary state of orphans. After a short interval, during which he gave some necessary instructions to his domestics, and took his last leave of his children, the attendant of the prison informed him that the time of drinking the poison was come. The executioner, though accustomed to such scenes, shed tears as he presented the fatal cup. Socrates received it without change of countenance, or the least appearance of perturbation then, offering up a prayer to the gods that they would grant him a prosperous passage into the invisible world, with perfect composure he swallowed the poisonous draught. His friends around him burst into tears. Socrates alone remained unmoved. He blamed their pusillanimity, and entreated them to exercise a manly constancy worthy of the friends of virtue. He continued walking till the chilling operation of the hemlock obliged him to lie down upon his bed. After remaining for a short time silent, he requested Crito (probably to refute a calumny which might prove injurious to his friends after his decease) not to neglect the offering of a cock which he had vowed to Esculapius: then, covering himself with his cloak, he expired. Such was the fate of the virtuous Socrates! A story, says Cicero, which I never read without tears. The friends and disciples of this illustrious teacher of wisdom were deeply afflicted by his death, and attended his funeral with every expression of grief. Apprehensive, however, for their own safety, they soon afterwards privately withdrew from the city, and took up their residence in distant places. Several of them visited the philosopher Euclid of Megara, by whom they were kindly received. No sooner was the unjust condemnation of Socrates known through Greece, than a general indignation was kindled in the minds of good men, who universally regretted that so distinguished an advocate for virtue should have fallen a sacrifice to jealonsy and envy. The Athenians themselves, so remarkable for their caprice, who never knew the value of their great men till after their death, soon became sensible of the folly as well as criminality of putting to death the man who had been the chief ornament of their city and of the age, and turned their indignation against his accusers. Melitus was condemned to death; and Anytus, to escape a similar fate, went into voluntary exile. To give a farther proof of the sincerity of their regret, the Athenians for a while interrupted public business; decreed a general mourning; recalled the exiled friends of Socrates; and erected a statue to his memory in one of the most frequented parts of the city. His death happened in the first year of the ninety-sixth Olympiad, and in the seventieth year of his age. Socrates left behind him nothing in writing; at least nothing that has reached us, though he wrote a great deal; but his illustrious pupils Xenophon and Plato have in some measure supplied this defect. The Memoirs of Socrates, written by Xenophon, afford, however, a much more accurate idea of the opinions of Socrates, and of his manner of teaching, than the Dialogues of Plato, who every where mixes his own concep tions and diction with the ideas and language of his master. It is related that, when Socrates heard Plato recite his Lysis, he said, 'how much does this young man make me say which I never conceived!' His distinguishing character was that of a moral philosopher; and his doctrine concerning God and religion was rather practical than speculative. But he did not neglect to build the structure of religious faith upon the firm foundation of an appeal to natural appearances. He taught that the Supreme Being, though invisible, is clearly seen in his works; which at once demonstrate his existence and his wise and benevolent providence. He admitted, besides the one Supreme Deity, the existence of beings who possess a middle station between God and man, to whose immediate agency he ascribed the ordinary phenomena of nature, and whom he supposed to be particularly concerned in the management of human affairs. Hence he declared it to be the duty of every one, in the performance of religious rites, to follow the customs of his country. At the same time, he taught that the merit of all religious offerings depends upon the character of the worshipper, and that the gods take pleasure in the sacrifices of none but the truly pious. Concerning the human soul, the opinion of Socrates, according to Xenophon, was, that it is allied to the Divine Being, not by a participation of essence, but by a similarity of nature; that man excels all other animals in the faculty of reason; and that the existence of good men will be continued after death in a state in which they will receive the reward of their virtue. Although it appears that on this latter topic he was not wholly free from uncertainty, the consolation which he professed to derive from this source in the immediate prospect of death leaves little room to doubt that he entertained a real expectation of immortality: and there is reason to believe that he was the only philosopher of ancient Greece whose principles admitted of such an expectation. Of his moral system, which was in a high degree pure, and founded on the surest basis, the reader will find a short view in our article MORAL PHILO SOPHY. SOCRATES, an ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century, boru at Constantinople in the beginning of the reign of Theodosius. He professed the law, and pleaded at the bar, whence he obtained the name of Scholasticus. wrote an ecclesiastical history, from the year 309, where Eusebius ended, down to 440; and He wrote with great exactness and judgment. An edition of Eusebius and Socrates, in Greek and Latin, with notes by Reading, was published at London in 1720. SOCRATIC (from Socrates) of, or belonging to, or in the manner of Socrates: as, SOCRATIC REASONING, reasoning by questions which the respondent cannot but answer in the affirmative, and thus admit the consequences. SOD, n. s. Belg. soed. A turf; clod. Swift. Collins. Gen. xxv. 29. Can sodden water, their barley broth, Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat? Shakspeare. Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase indeed! Id. Thou sodden-witted lord, thou hast no more brain than I have in my elbows. Id. Troilus and Cressida. With so much fervour, fed with all the store Chapman. Bacon. Try it with milk sodden, and with cream. Mix it with sodden wines and raisins. Dryden. SODA, in chemistry, the mineral alkali of the old system, because under the name of natron it is found native in mineral seams or crusts. The impure commercial substance called barilla is the incinerated salsola soda. Kelp, the incinerated sea-weed, is a still coarser article, containing seldom above from two to five per cent. of real soda, while barilla occasionally contains twenty per cent. The crystallised carbonate of soda of commerce is procured from the decomposition of sulphate of soda, or muriate of soda. The former is effected by calcination with charcoal and chalk in a reverberatory furnace; the latter is accomplished by the addition of carbonate of potash. To procure pure soda we must boil a solution of the pure carbonate with half its weight of quicklime, and after subsidence decant the clear ley, and evaporate in a clean iron or silver vessel till the liquid flows quietly like oil. It must then be poured out on a polished iron plate. It concretes into a hard white cake, which is to be immediately broken in pieces, and put up, while still hot, in a phial, which must be well corked. If the carbonate of soda be some what impure, then, after the action of lime, and subsequent concentration of the ley, alcohol must be digested on it, which will dissolve only the caustic pure soda, and leave the heterogeneous salts. By distilling of the alcohol in a silver alembic the alkali may then be obtained pure. This white solid substance is, however, not absolute soda, but a hydrate, consisting of about 100 soda + 28 water; or of nearly 77+23, in 100. If a piece of this soda be exposed to the air it softens and becomes pasty; but it never deliquesces into an oily-looking liquid as potash does. The soda in fact soon becomes drier, because, by absorption of carbonic acid from the air, it passes into an efflorescent carbonate. Soda is distinguishable from potash by sulphuric acid, which forms a very soluble salt with the former, and a sparingly soluble one with the latter; by muriate of platina and tartaric acid, which occasion precipitates with potash salts, but not with those of soda. The basis of soda is a peculiar metal called sodium, discovered by Sir H. Davy in 1807, a few days after he discovered potassium. It may be procured in exactly the same manner as potassium, by electrical or chemical decomposition of the pure hydrate. A rather higher degree of heat, and greater voltaic power, are required to decompose soda than potash. Sodium resembles potassium in many of its characters. It is as white as silver, possesses great lustre, and is a good conductor of electricity. It enters into fusion at about 200° Fahrenheit, and rises in vapor at a strong red heat. Its specific gravity is, according to MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, 0.972, at the temperature of 59° Fahrenheit. In the cold it exercises scarcely any action on dry air or oxygen. But when heated strongly in oxygen or chlorine it burns with great brilliancy. When thrown upon water it effervesces violently, but does not inflame, swims on the surface, gradually diminishes with great agitation, and renders the water a solution of soda. It acts upon most substances in a manner similar to potassium, but with less energy. It tarnishes in the air, but more slowly; and, like potassium, it is best preserved under naphtha. Sodium forms two distinct combinations with oxygen; one is pure soda, whose hydrate is above described; the other is the orange oxide of sodium, observed, like the preceding oxide, first by Sir H. Davy in 1807, but of which the true nature was pointed out, in 1810, by MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard. Pure soda may be formed by burning sodium in a quantity of air, containing no more oxygen than is sufficient for its conversion into this alkali; i. e. the metal must be in excess : a strong degree of heat must be employed. Pure soda is of a gray color, it is a non-conductor of elec tricity, of a vitreous fracture, and requires a strong red heat for its fusion. When a little water is added to it there is a violent action between the two bodies; the soda becomes white, crystallice in its appearance, and much more fusible and volatile. It is then the substance commonly called pure or caustic soda; but properly styled the hydrate. The other oxide or peroxide of sodium may be formed by burning sodium in oxygen in excess. It is of a deep orange color, very fusible, and a non-conductor of electricity. When acted on by water it gives off oxygen, and the water becomes a solution of soda. It deflagrates when strongly heated with combustible bodies. The proportions of oxygen in soda, and in the orange peroxide of sodium, are easily learned by the action of sodium on water and on oxygen. If a given weight of sodium, in a little glass tube, be thrown by means of the finger under a graduated inverted jar filled with water, the quantity of hydrogen evolved will indicate the quantity of oxygen combined with the metal to form soda; and when sodium is slowly burned in a tray of platina (lined with dry common salt), in oxygen in great excess, from the quantity of oxygen absorbed the composition of the peroxide may be learned. From Sir H. Davy's experiments compared with those of MM. Gay Lussac and The nard, it appears that the prime equivalent of sodium is 3.0, and that of dry soda, or protoxide of sodium, 4.0; while the orange oxide or deutoxide is 50. The numbers given by M. Thenard are, for the first 100 metal + 33.995 oxygen; and for the second, 100 metal + 67.990 oxygen. Another oxide is described containing less oxygen than soda; it is therefore a suboxide. When sodium is kept for some time in a small quantity of moist air, or when sodium in excess is heated with hydrate of soda, a dark grayish substance is formed, more inflammable than sodium, and which affords hydrogen by its action upon water. Only one combination of sodium and chlorine is known. This is the important substance common salt. It may be formed directly by combustion, or by decomposing any compound of chlorine by sodium. Its properties are well known, and are already described under ACID (MURIATIC). It is a non-conductor of electricity, is fusible at a strong red heat, is volatile at a white heat, and crystallises in cubes. Sodium has a much stronger attraction for chlorine than for oxygen; and soda, or its hydrate, is decomposed by chlorine, oxygen being expelled from the first, and oxygen and water from the second, Potassium has a stronger attraction for chlorine than sodium has; and one mode of procuring sodium easily is by heating together to redness common salt and potassium. This chloride of sodium, improperly called the muriate, consists of 45 chlorine + 30 sodium. There is no known action between sodium and hydrogen or azote. Sodium combines readily with sulphur and with phosphorus, presenting similar phenomena to those presented by potassium. The sulphurets and phosphurets of sodium agree in their general properties with those of potassium, except that they are rather less inflammable. They form, by burning, acidulous compounds of sulphuric and phosphoric acid and soda. Potassium and sodium combine with great facility, and form peculiar compounds, which differ in their properties according to the proportions of the constituents. By a small quantity of sodium potassium is rendered fluid at common temperatures, and its specific gravity is considerably diminished. Eight parts of potassium and one of sodium form a compound that swims in naphtha, and that is fluid at the common temperature of the air. Three parts of sodium and one of potassium make a compound fluid at common temperatures. A little potassium destroys the ductility of sodium, and renders it very brittle and soft. Since the prime of potassium is to that of sodium as 5 to 3, it will require the former quantity of potassium to eliminate the latter quantity of sodium from the chloride. The attractions of potassium, for all substances that have been examined, are stronger than those of sodium. Soda is the basis of common salt, of plate and crown glass, and of all hard soaps. SODALITE. Color green. Massive and crystallised in rhomboidal dodecahedrons, and shining. Cleavage double. Fracture small conchoidal. Translucent. As hard as felspar. Brittle. Specific gravity 2-378. It is infusible; becoming only dark gray before the blowpipe. Its constituents are, silica 38.5 or 36, alumina 27-48 or 32, lime 27 or 0, oxide of iron 1 or 0-25, soda 255 or 25, muriatic acid 3 or 6.75; volatile matter 2.10 or 0, loss 17 or 0.-Thomson and Ekeberg. It was discovered in West Greenland by Sir Charles Gieseke, in a bed in mica slate. SODALITY, n. s. Lat. sodalitas. A fellowship; a fraternity. A new confraternity was instituted in Spain, of the slaves of the blessed Virgin, and this sodality established with large indulgencies. Stillingfleet. SOD'ER, v. a. & n. s. Fr. souder; Dut. souderen. It is generally written solder, from Ital. soldare; Lat. solidare. To cement with some metallic matter: a metallic cement. He that smootheth with the hammer encourageth him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for sodering. Isaiah xli. Still the difficulty returns, how these hooks were made what is it that fastens this soder, and links these first principles of bodies into a chain? Collier on Pride. SODOM, an ancient city of Palestine, in Asia, infamous in Scripture for the wickedness of its inhabitants, and their destruction by fire from heaven on that account, along with the adjacent cities of Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, whose inhabitants had been equally wicked. Zoar was preserved at the intreaty of Lot. These cities had met with a glorious deliverance from captivity by the bravery of Abraham about sixteen years before. The place where these cities stood is now covered by the waters of the Dead Sea, or the lake Asphaltites. See ASPHALTITES. SODOMY, an unnatural crime, so called from the city of Sodom, which was destroyed by fire for it. The delicacy of our English law treats it, in its very indictments, as a crime not fit to be named; peccatum illud horribile, inter Christianos non nominandum. The edict of Constantius and Constantine observes a similar taciturnity; ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit scire, jubemus insurgere leges, armari jura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis pœnis subdentur infames, qui sunt, vel qui futuri sunt rei. The Levitical law adjudged those guilty of this execrable evil to death, Lev. xviii. 22, 23; xx. 15, 16; and the civil law assigns the same punishment to it. Our ancient law commanded such miscreants to be burnt to death (Brit. c. 9), though Fleta says (1. i. c. 37) they should be buried alive; either of which punishments was indifferently used for this crime among the ancient Goths. At present our laws make it felony: 25 Hen. VIII. c. 6; 5 Eliz. c. 17. And the rule of the law is, that if both are arrived at years of discretion, agentes et consentientes pari pœna plectantur. 3 Inst. 50. There is no statute in Scotland against sodomy; the libel of the crime is therefore founded on the divine law, and practice makes its punishment to be burning alive. SOE, n. s. Scott. ́sae. A large wooden vessel with hoops, for holding water; a cowl. A pump grown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason-full you may fetch up as many soe-fulls. More. Cowper. A SOFA, in the east, is a kind of alcove raised half a foot above the floor of a chamber or other apartment; and used as the place of state, where visitors of distinction are received. Among the Turks the whole floor of their state rooms is covered with a kind of tapestry, and on the window side is raised a sofa or sopha, laid with a kind of mattress covered with a carpet much richer than the other. On this carpet the Turks are seated, both men and women, like the tailors in England, cross-legged, leaning against the wall, which is bolstered with velvet, satin, or other stuff suitable to the season. Here they eat their meals; only laying a skin over the carpet to serve as a table cloth, and a round wooden board over all covered with plates, &c. SOFALA, a country and town of Eastern Africa, at the mouth of a river of the same name. At the time of the arrival of the Portuguese it was a place of great importance for the gold and ivory brought in large quantities from the interior; but, since Mosambique became the capital of the Portuguese settlements, the fort of Quilimane has been the channel by which this trade is conducted. The Portuguese, however, still maintain a fort here, which holds the supremacy over those of Inhambane and Corrientes, and an annual vessel comes from Mosambique, bringing coarse cottons and other articles suited to the taste of the natives; receiving in return gold, ivory, and slaves. The great bank of Sofala extends for two days sail, and appears to have been thrown up by the violence of the south-easterly winds, which generally prevail in direct opposition to the currents of many rapid rivers, which here flow into the sea. Ships, however, by carefully tracing their course, may find a channel of twelve fathoms, and should never go into a smaller depth. Whales are found here in vast multitudes.. The town is situated up a river, navigable only for small vessels, and having a bar at its entrance only twelve or fourteen feet deep at low water. The anchorage is about four miles from the fort; but ships ought not to enter without a pilot. Oppo site to the mouth of the river is a small island, called also Sofala. The surrounding country is wild, and thinly inhabited, traversed by vast herds of elephants, the ivory from which affords a staple article of commerce. The people, in their stature, color, habits, and language, appear nearly allied to the Kaffres. They are well armed, brave, and apparently quite independent. The villages consist of huts, interspersed with large trees like the Indian fig. On the upper part of the river is Zimboas, capital of the domninions of the Quiteue. According to Vincent and other learned enquirers Sofala is the Ophir of Solomon, whither the fleets of that monarch made regular voyages in search of gold. The town is in long. 34° 45′ E., lat. 20° 15′ S. SOFFIT, or SOFFITA, in architecture, any timber ceiling formed of cross beans of flying cornices, the square compartments or pannels of which are enriched with sculpture, painting, or gilding; such are those in the palaces of Italy, and in the apartments of Luxembourg at Paris. SOFFITA, COFFIT, is also used for the underside or face of an architrave; and more particularly for that of the corona or larmier, which the ancients called lacunar, the French plafond, and we usually the drip. It is enriched with compartments of roses; and in the Doric order has eighteen drops, disposed in three ranks, six in each, placed to the right of the gutta, at the bottom of the triglyphs. SOFIA, or SOPHIA, the capital of Bulgaria, European Turkey, is pleasantly situated in a plain at the foot of the mountains of Argentaro, on the Bogana. It carries on, though an inland place, a very extensive trade, which is for the most part in the hands of Greeks and Armenians, and contains a number of handsome baths and mosques, but the streets are narrow, uneven, and dirty, and the air unhealthy. Sophia was built by the emperor Justinian on the ruins of the ancient Sardica. It is the see of a Greek metropolitan and of a Catholic bishop. It stands on the high road leading from Constantinople to Belgrade. Inhabitants 50,000. It is 280 miles W. N. W. of Constantinople, and 160 W. N. W. of Adrianople. SOFT, adj. & interj. SOFTEN, v. a. & v. n. SOFT'LY, adv. SOFTNER, n. s. SOFT'NESS. Sax. roft; Belg. saft; Teut. saafte. Tender; smooth; ductile; flexible: hence mild; gentle; simple; meek; timorous; placid; weak: as an interjection, it means hold, stop! to soften is to mollify; make less hard; intenerate; make easy as a verb neuter to grow less hard; to relax: the adverb and noun substantives follow the sense of soft, adjective. Ahab rent his clothes, and went softly. : 1 Kings xxi. 27. What went ye out for to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft raiment are in kings' houses. Matthew. Such was the ancient simplicity and softness of spirit, which sometimes prevailed in the world, that they, whose words were even as oracles amongst men, seemed evermore loth to give sentence against any thing publickly received in the church of God. Hooker. What he hath done famously, he did it to that end; though soft conscienced men can be content to say, it was for his country. Shakspeare. Coriolanus. Thou art their soldier, and, being bred in broils, Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess |