Note 39 — Chapter I
Reading edition
A situation forecast in the well-known passage of Plato’s Republic, 619 C, in reference to the soul who has chosen for his lot in life “the most absolute despotism he could find.”—“He was one of those who had lived during his former life under a well-ordered constitution, and hence a measure of virtue had fallen to his share, through the influence of habit, unaided by philosophy.” (Davis and Vaughan’s translation.) What could more accurately describe the character of early Roman morality than these words?