Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 98
GREEK PHILOSOPHY prophetic message delivered to them during their maddest moments of 'hallucination'? What hallucination indeed!. One only wishes that their accusers had remembered their own hallucinatory experiences while they were stricken, for instance, by a severe attack of septic fever or typhoid. Do they ever remember a wise code of life bestowed upon them during those temporary derangements which could stand the test of time and deliver a new message to mankind to be taken seriously by them?. Rationality and hallucination never cohabit healthy minds. How we wish that whoever accused him of hallucination had further elaborated his statement by quoting from his own experience. Had a sane person ever learnt an exceptionally sound philosophy of life through his occasional outbursts of delusion? How we wish the author had remembered that all the wisdom and all the piety and all the rationality and faith, which Socrates displayed, he had learnt from the so-called voices of his 'hallucination'!. If his faith in revelation is to be rejected as based on hallucination, then all his philosophy of life, and all his wisdom must also be rejected by the same token. He can never be separated from his rationality. . We accept the whole of Socrates. Noble was his character, noble his vision, noble was the life he led. Such as he are never forged by hallucinations. Peace was with him when he was born, peace was with him while he lived, peace was with him when he died smilingly while the throng of his admirers bitterly wailed and cried and sobbed around him. Athens had never seen the departure of a soul as noble as that of Socrates. . Allah be pleased with him! May He shower His choicest blessings upon him; but woe to his murderers. . Athens will never see the like of him again! 98