Note (return) — Chapter XV
Reading edition
When we read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially the "Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the voice of conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering such deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors of passion, the calculations of mere expediency, the sophism of mere personal interest and utility. If he calls us to witness the triumph of the wicked in the first part of the "Republic," it is in order that we may at the end of the book see the deceitfulness of their triumph. "As to the wicked," he says, "I maintain that even if they succeed at first in concealing what they are, most of them betray themselves at the end of their career. They are covered with opprobrium, and present evils are nothing compared with those that await them in the other life. As to the just man, whether in sickness or in poverty, these imaginary evils will turn to his advantage in this life, and after his death; because the providence of the gods is necessarily attentive to the interests of him who labors to become just, and to attain, by the practice of virtue, to the most perfect resemblance to God which is possible to man." 916 He rises above all "greatest happiness principles," and asserts distinctly in the "Gorgias" that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. 917 "I maintain," says he, "that what is most shameful is not to be struck unjustly on the cheek, or to be wounded in the body; but that to strike and wound me unjustly, to rob me, or reduce me to slavery--to commit, in a word, any kind of injustice towards me, or what is mine--is a thing far worse and more odious for him who commits the injustice, than for me who suffer it." 918 It is a great combat, he says, greater than we think, that wherein the issue is whether we shall be virtuous or wicked. Neither glory, nor riches, nor dignities, nor poetry, deserves that we should neglect justice for them. The moral idea in Plato has such intense truth and force, that it has at times a striking analogy with the language of the Holy Scriptures. 919