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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: vindication of the credit of the oracle, and in the vain hope of finding a
wiser man than himself. Yet this singular and almost accidental character
of his mission agrees with the divine sign which, according to our notions,
is equally accidental and irrational, and is nevertheless accepted by him
as the guiding principle of his life. Socrates is nowhere represented to
us as a freethinker or sceptic. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity
when he speculates on the possibility of seeing and knowing the heroes of
the Trojan war in another world. On the other hand, his hope of
immortality is uncertain;--he also conceives of death as a long sleep (in
this respect differing from the Phaedo), and at last falls back on
resignation to the divine will, and the certainty that no evil can happen
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