FORE:Epicurus was assuredly not a master of language, but had he meant all that is here put into his mouth, he would hardly have been at a loss for words to say it. Remembering that the Κ?ριαι δ?ξαι constituted a sort of creed drawn up by the master himself for his disciples to learn by heart,144 and that the incriminated passage is one of the articles in that creed, we need only look at the context to make certain that it has been entirely misread by his apologist.145 In the three preceding articles, we are told that justice is by nature a contract for the prevention of aggressions, that it does not exist among animals which are unable, nor among tribes of men which are either unable or unwilling to enter into such an agreement, andwith reiterated emphasisthat, apart from contracts, it has no original existence (o?κ ?ν τ? καθ ?αυτ? δικαιοσ?νη). There is nothing at all about a true as distinguished from a false justice; there is no allusion whatever to the theories of any contemporaries of Socrates; the polemic reference, if any, is to Plato, and to Plato alone. Then comes the declaration quoted above, to the effect that injustice is not an evil in itself, but only an evil through the dread of punishment which it produces. Now, by injustice, Epicurus must simply mean the opposite of what he defined justice to be in the preceding paragraphthat is, a breach of the agreement not to hurt one another (μ? βλ?πτειν ?λλ?λου?). The authority of the State is evidently conceived, not as superseding, but as enforcing agreements. The succeeding article still further confirms the view rejected by Mr. Wallace. Epicurus tells us that no man who stealthily evades the contract to abstain from mutual aggressions can be sure of escaping detection. This is72 evidently added to show that, apart from any mystical sanctions, fear of punishment is quite enough to deter a prudent man from committing crimes. And we can see that no other deterrent was recognised by Lucretius, when, in evident reference to his masters words, he mentions the fears of those who offendnot against mere conventional rules, but against human rights in generalas the great safeguard of justice.146
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FORE:
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FORE:Such was the transaction which some moderns, Grote among the number, holding Socrates to be one of the best and wisest of men, have endeavoured to excuse. Their argument is that the illustrious victim was jointly responsible for his own fate, and that he was really condemned, not for his teaching, but for contempt of court. To us it seems that this is a distinction without a difference. What has been so finely said of space and time may be said also of the Socratic life and the Socratic doctrine; each was contained entire in every point of the other. Such as he appeared to the Dicastery, such also he appeared everywhere, always, and to all men, offering them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If conduct like his was not permissible in a court of law, then it was not permissible at all; if justice could not be administered without reticences, evasions, and disguises, where was sincerity ever to be practised? If reason was not to be the paramount arbitress in questions of public interest, what issues could ever be entrusted to her decision? Admit every extenuating circumstance that the utmost ingenuity can devise, and from every point of view one fact will come out clearly, that Socrates was impeached as a philosopher, that he defended himself like a philosopher, and that he was condemned to167 death because he was a philosopher. Those who attempt to remove this stain from the character of the Athenian people will find that, like the blood-stain on Bluebeards key, when it is rubbed out on one side it reappears on the other. To punish Socrates for his teaching, or for the way in which he defended his teaching, was equally persecution, and persecution of the worst description, that which attacks not the results of free thought but free thought itself. We cannot then agree with Grote when he says that the condemnation of Socrates ought to count as one of the least gloomy items in an essentially gloomy catalogue. On the contrary, it is the gloomiest of any, because it reveals a depth of hatred for pure reason in vulgar minds which might otherwise have remained unsuspected. There is some excuse for other persecutors, for Caiaphas, and St. Dominic, and Calvin: for the Inquisition, and for the authors of the dragonnades; for the judges of Giordano Bruno, and the judges of Vanini: they were striving to exterminate particular opinions, which they believed to be both false and pernicious; there is no such excuse for the Athenian dicasts, least of all for those eighty who, having pronounced Socrates innocent, sentenced him to death because he reasserted his innocence; if, indeed, innocence be not too weak a word to describe his life-long battle against that very irreligion and corruption which were laid to his charge. Here, in this one cause, the great central issue between two abstract principles, the principle of authority and the principle of reason, was cleared from all adventitious circumstances, and disputed on its own intrinsic merits with the usual weapons of argument on the one side and brute force on the other. On that issue Socrates was finally condemned, and on it his judges must be condemned by us.
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THREE:This isnt such a bad scheme, at that, Dick concluded mentally. If there should be anybody on the lookoutrobbers or somebody who wants to see whats going onno one will see any connection between us passing here and then climbing to get a good wind for a run down the coast toward Maine, and a hydroplane thats acting as if it had some engine trouble.
THREE:"I should say a great deal," Lawrence chuckled. "In the first place, I should like to hear something of the history of one Maitrank."
