3 JULY 1947, Page 20

SIR,— By abandoning his principles Socrates could have escaped the

death penalty, but I never have heard it suggested that he committed suicide. When the intellectually brilliant choose self-annihilation to an existence dispossessed of the factors essential to the thinking mind, they display a very.high degree of moral courage and their death should not be regarded as a criminal act. I must further own to a degree of admiration for the Roman stoicism, so well exemplified by Shakespeare.— " Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong."