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    at what is best , not at what is most agreeable , and not choosing to do those fine things which you recommend , I shall not know what to say in a court of justice . What I said to Polus , would apply to myself . I shall be judged as a physician would , if tried ^ before children , on the accusation of a cook . What could such a person say in his defence ?

    Suppose his accuser to say , See what evils this man has inflicted upon you , cutting and burning and emaciating you , giving you bitter draughts , and forcing you to fast ; not like me , who have feasted you with every thing that is delightful . What could the physician say to all this ? If he said the truth , " I did all these things for your health , " do you not think that such judges would hoot him down V C . * Probably /

    S . * And I myself , I well know , should be treated in a similar manner , if I were brought before a court of justice . For I shall not be able to remind the judges of any pleasures that I have procured for them , which are what they understand by benefits . But I do not envy either the providers or those for whom they provide . And if any one should say that I corrupt the youth by unsettling their minds , or libel the older men by bitter speeches , either in private or in public , I shall neither be able

    to say the truth , viz . " I say and do all these things justly , and therefore for your good , " nor shall I have any other defence ; so that I must be content to undergo my fate . * C . * Does a man , then , who is thus situated , so unable to protect himself , appear to you to be as he should be ? ' S . ' If that be in him , of which we have so often spoken : if he have protected himself , by never having said or done anything unjust , either towards men or gods . For this is , as we have frequently

    admitted , the best sort of self-protection . If , therefore , any one should convict me of being incapable of affording this protection to myself or others , I should be ashamed , whether I were convicted in the presence of many , or of one only ; and if I were to perish from this kind of incapability , I should . be grieved ; but if I should die for want of Adulatory

    Rhetoric , I should bear my death very easily . Death itself no one fears , who is not altogether irrational and unmanly ; but to commit injustice is an object of rational fear , for to arrive in the other world with the soul loaded with crimes , is the greatest of evils . I will , if you please , set forth to you in what manner this happens . I will relate to you a history , which you will , as I think , consider a fable , but I shall

    state it to you as true . Socrates then introduces a mythos or legend , of the description so frequent in Plato , and which he never seems to deliver as truth , but as a symbol of some truth . This mythos relates to a future state , and a general judgment of mankind . Formerly ( he says ) men were judged on the day on which they were destined to die , and were tried by living judges :. but Pluto and the guardians of Elysium complained to Jupiter , that people frequently were sent to them who were undeserving ; for ,

    being tried while yet alive , they were tried with their mortal garments not stripped off ; and many whose souls were evil , had dressed them out in a handsome body , and rank and wealth , and when the trial came on , they produced many witnesses , to assert that they had led a just life : and the judges were imposed upon by these means , more especially as they also were still alive , and gross material organs obstructed the clearness of ( heir mental sight . On this account it was ordered that men should no longer foresee their own death ; and tliat they should be tried naked , that i ^ ,

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    888 Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Gorgias .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 838, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/20/