"We only pound so much, Socrates," he said, "as we think sufficient to drink."

"I understand you," he said, "but it is certainly both lawful and right to pray to the gods that my departure hence thither may be happy; which therefore I pray, and so may it be." And as he said this he drank it off readily and calmly. Thus far, most of us were with difficulty able to restrain ourselves from weeping; but when we saw him drinking, and having finished the draught, we could do so no longer; but in spite of myself the tears came in full torrent, so that, covering my face, I wept for myself, for I did not weep for him, but for my own fortune, in being deprived of such a friend. But Crito, even before me, when he could not restrain his tears, had risen up. But Apollodorus even before this had not ceased weeping, and then bursting into an agony of grief, weeping and lamenting, he pierced the heart of every one present, except Socrates himself. But he said, "What are you doing, my admirable friends? I indeed, for this reason chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind. For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens. Be quiet, therefore, and bear up."

When we heard this we were ashamed, and restrained our tears. But he, having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, laid down on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time he who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short interval examined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot hard, he asked if he felt it: he said that he did not. And after this he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher, he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when, uncovering himself, for he had been covered over, he said, and they were his last words, "Crito, we owe a cock to Esculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it."

"It shall be done," said Crito, "but consider whether you have anything else to say."

To this question he gave no reply; but shortly after he gave a convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed; and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.

This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, the best of all of his time that we have known, and, moreover, the most wise and just.

CONCLUSION OF PLATO'S GORGIAS.1

I suppose, you, Now listen to a very beautiful story, which will regard as a fable, but which I deem a genuine account. For what I am going to say I shall rehearse to you as being true.

According to a tradition in Homer, the government was administered by Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, when they had received it of the Father. There was formerly in the time of Saturn, and always has been, and is yet now, among the gods, this law respecting men: that whosoever of mankind has conducted justly and religiously in life shall depart when he dies to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell in all felicity beyond the reach of evils; but whosoever has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the prison of retribution and punishment, called Tartarus. Now men in the time of Saturn, and yet more recently in the reign of Jupiter, received while alive their sentence from living judges, and judgment was administered on that very day on which they were to die. Of course, the judgments were badly administered. Whereupon Pluto and the keepers of the Happy Islands went to Jupiter, and told him that men very often came to them appointed to each of the two places, not according to their deserts. Then Jupiter replied: "I will put a stop to these proceedings. The judgments are now indeed badly administered. For," said he, "the persons who are judged are covered all up when they are judged, since they are judged while living. Hence," continued he, "while having

This extract from Plato is justly ranked among the most remarkable passages in Greek literature. It presents in a form sufficiently distinct, through the fable or myth in which it is conveyed, the idea which the best and most enlightened of the Greeks entertained respecting the future state, and shows how they derived from the doctrine a motive for living a good fe here below. It insists that we ought to be more anxious not to do injury than to escape injury ourselves. It teaches that a man's supreme care should be, not to seem, but to be good, in private and in public; and admonishes us so to live in this world as to be accepted when called to our final account. Perhaps we see in this passage the utmost limit to which the light of nature has ever conducted the human mind; and the coincidence between parts of it and the highest Christian precepts is certainly very striking. But Jesus has revealed the Father as neither Socrates nor Plato ever saw or could see him, and more fully and spiritually illustrated the Divine law, and brought life and immortality into brighter light, and by these revelations has supplied immeasurably higher motives to a good life.

Socrates is here addressing Callicles, who is one of the characters of the dialogue: the other two are Polus and Gorgias.

That is, the bad to the Happy Islands, the good to Tartarus.

depraved souls, they are apparelled in beautiful bodies, and are aided by family rank and wealth; and when the judgment takes place, many witnesses appear to testify how justly they have lived. Of course, the judges are perplexed by these things. They themselves, too, are all covered up when they administer judgment, having eyes, and ears, and the whole body, spread as a veil before their souls. Now all these things, both their own coverings and those of the persons judged, are in their way. Wherefore," said he, "a stop must be put to their foreseeing death; for now they perceive it beforehand. Accordingly Prometheus has already been requested to prevent this. Next, they must be stripped of all these coverings when they are judged. In order to this, it is necessary to judge them after death. It is necessary, also, that the judge be in the same naked condition, and that he himself also, having died, should with the soul itself inspect the very soul of each person as soon as he dies and is removed away from his kindred, leaving behind him on the earth all that former pomp and circumstance, so that the judgment may be just. Having known these things, then, already before you came, I have constituted my sons the judges-two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Eacus. When, therefore, these shall have died, they shall sit in judgment in the grassy plain, where three roads meet, two of which lead away-one to the Islands of the Blessed, the other to Tartarus. Those from Asia Rhadamanthus shall judge; those from Europe, Eacus. To Minos I will give the rights of seniority, to rejudge any decision of the other two which may admit of doubt, in order that the sentence respecting the road for men to take may be most just."

These, Callicles, are matters which I, having heard, believe to be true; and I draw from them the following conclusions. Death, as it appears to me, is nothing but the unloosing of two things, the soul and the body, from one another. When they have become unloosed, each of them has about the same habitude and condition which it had when the person was living; and its nature, and culture, and whatever it has suffered, are all apparent. As, for instance, if the body of any person while living was large by nature, or by training, or by both, the same person's dead body is large after he has died; and if fat, the dead person's is also fat, and so in other respects. If a person adopted the custom of wearing long hair, the same person's dead body has the hair long. If a person has been punished with scourging, and has borne on his body the marks of blows-scars, whether from the lash or any other instru

ment-you can see that the dead person's body has the same. And if the limbs of any person living were maimed or distorted, these have the same appearance after death. In a word, such as any one had trained himself to be in body, while he was living, the same, either entirely or in greater part, does he continue to be for a considerable time after the person is dead.

Now this same principle seems to me to hold good of the soul, Callicles. After the soul has been stripped of the body, all things become manifest in it—its natural endowments, and the passions which the individual has acquired by every practice he has pursued. When, therefore, they come into the presence of the judge-those from Asia, for example, before Rhadamanthus-Rhadamanthus, placing them near, inspects the soul of every one, not knowing whose it is; but if, upon laying hold of some great king, or any other king or ruler whatsoever, he discovers nothing at all sound in the soul, but perceives that it has been scourged, and is full of scars which perjuries and injustice have made, and which the deeds themselves imprinted on each one's soul, and that all has become distorted by lying and boasting, and nothing is straight because the soul has been trained up without truth-that, in short, it is destitute of symmetry and full of turpitude, through power, and luxury, and pride, and intemperance-he sends this soul away forthwith in ignominy into imprisonment, where it will endure the requisite sufferings. Now it is necessary that every one who is visited with just punishment should either derive advantage from it and grow better, or furnish an example to others, so that others, beholding him suffer, may through fear of what he suffers grow better. Some are really benefited by undergoing punishment both from gods and men. They are those who commit remediable offences. Through their griefs and pains a benefit arises to them both here and in Hades. Nor can they free themselves from unrighteousness in any other way. But those who do wrong to the very last degree, and by such acts of injustice become incurable, are set forth for an example. They themselves are benefited no more, because they are incurable; but others receive benefit from beholding them suffer the greatest and most excruciating and terrible tortures, forever and ever, being held up there in Hades altogether as examples-a perpetual spectacle and admonition to those of the unrighteous who come thither.

Of whom I assert that Archelaus also will be one (if Polus1

Polus had mentioned Archelaus as a prince who was fortunate and happy, although he was cruel and unjust.

tells the truth), and any other tyrant of a similar character. Indeed, it is my opinion that the most numerous class of these examples will consist of tyrants, and kings, and lords, and administrators of civil affairs. For it is by abuse of power that they commit the greatest and most impious crimes. Homer also bears testimony to these facts. For those in Hades whom he hath set forth as suffering eternal torment, Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus, were kings and rulers. But Thersites, or any other private individual of bad character, has never been set forth as suffering severe punishments and in an incurable condition, for I think he had not the opportunity of incurring such a fate, and on this account he was more fortunate than those who had. Most surely, Callicles, it is to the ranks of the powerful that the most depraved men belong. Nothing, however, renders it impossible that there should be good men also among them; and when there are such, it is worthy of special note. For it is difficult, and most praiseworthy, for men who have great opportunity of doing injustice to live justly. Of this class there are a few. There have been both here and elsewhere, and I think will still be, honorable and good men, who possess the virtue to execute justly whatever is committed to them. And one has become even very illustrious among his Greek countrymen-I mean Aristides, the son of Lysimachus. But the greater portion of those in power, my excellent friend, are bad. Accordingly, as I said before, when Rhadamanthus takes any such person in hand, he perceives nothing else about him-neither who he is, nor of what origin— but only that he is bad; and on perceiving this, first putting a mark upon him to denote whether he seems to be curable or incurable, he sends him away to Tartarus; to which place. coming, he suffers due punishment. But sometimes beholding another soul that has lived religiously and according to truth, the soul of some private or other man-and especially, let me say, Callicles, of some philosopher who has minded his own business in life, and meddled with no one's else he is very much pleased, and sends him away to the Islands of the Blessed. The same course Eacus also pursues. Each holds a sceptre while he judges. Minos sits considering apart by himself, holding a golden sceptre, as Homer's Ulysses says he saw him

"A golden sceptre holding, administering laws to the dead." I therefore, Callicles, have been influenced by these facts, and have considered how I may exhibit to the judge a soul in the soundest state possible. Relinquishing, therefore, the