Part 48 (1/2)

BENJAMIN JOWETT--1817-

_Froained, O Athenians, in return for the evil naet from the detractors of the city, ill say that you killed Socrates, a wise h I am not wise, when they want to reproach you If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature For I am far advanced in years, as younow only to those of you who have conde to say to theh deficiency of words--Iundone, nothing unsaid, I ained an acquittal Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words--certainly not But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked , and saying and doing s which you have been accustomed to hear froht that I ought not to do anything coer: nor do I now repent of thespoken after my manner, than speak in your ht anydeath For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throay his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he ers there are other ways of escaping death, if aThe difficulty, hteousness; for that runs faster than death I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them And now I depart hence, condeo their ways, conde; and I must abide by s arded as fated,--and I think that they are well

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I aifted with prophetic power And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives

But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whoer they will be more severe with you, and you will beyour lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushi+ng others, but to be i yourselves This is the prophecy which I utter before es who have condemned me

Friends, ould have acquittedwhich has happened, while the o to the place at which I must die Stay then a while, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time You areof this event which has happened to es--I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance Hitherto the familiar oracle withinto ; and now as you see there has coenerally believed to be, the last and worst evil But the oracleup into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in theI either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you I regard this as a proof that what has happened to ood, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error This is a great proof to n would surely have opposed ood

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as ration of the soul from this world to another

Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of hiht of dreaain For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreahts of his life, and then were to tell us how hts he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that anywill not find hts, when compared with the others Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as es, can be greater than this?

If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and, aeacus, and Triptolehteous in their own life, that pilgriht converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Hoain I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telah an unjust judgment; and there will be no ss with theirs Above all, I shall be able to continue e; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not What would not a reat Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or nuht would there be in conversing with the them questions! For in that world they do not put ahappier in that world than in this, they will be ies, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth--that no evil can happen to a good lected by the Gods; nor hasend happened by mere chance But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for n For which reason, also, I ary with my accusers or h neither of theently blame them

Still I have a favor to ask of therown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them, and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they see,when they are really nothing,--then reprove the about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are so And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live Which is better God only knows

_Be of good cheer then,my body only_

_Socrates, in the_ PHaeDO--PLATO

LxxxVI THE EMPIRE OF THE CaeSARS

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE--1818-

_From_ CaeSAR

Of Caesar it may be said that he came into the world at a special tiions were dead, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile, and the principles on which human society had been constructed were dead also There remained of spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of justice and overnment had to be constructed, under which quiet men could live, and labor, and eat the fruit of their industry Under a rule of this material kind there can be no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the heroic type It was not to last forever A new life was about to dawn for ain out of the seeds which were sleeping in the heart of hurows slowly; and as the soil must be prepared before the wheat can be sown, so before the Kingdodom of this world where the nations were neither torn in pieces by violence nor were rushi+ng after false ideals and spurious adom where peaceful men could work, think, and speak as they pleased, and travel freely a provinces ruled for the most part by Gallios who protected life and property, and forbade fanatics to tear each other in pieces for their religious opinions ”It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,” was the coovernor Had Europe and Asia been covered with independent nations, each with a local religion represented in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle If St Paul had escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he would have been torn to pieces by the silversment-seat was the shi+eld of his mission, and alone made possible his success

LxxxVII OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

JOHN RUSKIN--1819-

_Fro to the broader question what these arts and labors of life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the work of people who _feel the for the fulfilrasp of a loveliness, which they have not yet attained, which they feel even farther and farther fro, the more they strive for it And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of people who know also that they are right The very sense of inevitable error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the continued sense of failure arises fro of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth