statesmanship might have provided, was an organization of intelligence for intelligence, an organization of all the forces of intelligence in the state in a persistent intellectual campaign. If that could not save Athens, Athens could not be saved. But the myopic leaders of the Athenian state could not see salvation in intelligence, they could only see it in hemlock. And Socrates had to die.

It will take a wise courage to accept the Socratic challenge,—such courage as battle-fields and senate-chambers are not wont to show. But unless that wise courage comes to us our civilization will go as other civilizations have come and gone, “kindled and put out like a flame in the night.”