was to come, as described in the celebrated chapter of Isaiah. The best man is also the happiest, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. In the "Crito" Socrates will not escape from prison if it is not right, though he suffer death or any other calamity. "Virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul." He is a fool who laughs at aught but folly and vice. The possession of the whole world is of no value without the good. No pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure. "Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man?" "How would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst?" "The Holy is loved of God because it is Holy." Not pleasure, but wisdom and knowledge and right opinions and true reasonings are better, both now and forever. The good ruler considers not his own interest, but that of the state. The governing class are to be told that gold and silver they have from God; the divine metal is in them.
Any one who finds in these views a doctrine of pleasure must seek with a prejudiced eye. Plato, as usual, anticipates later ethical discussions, and points to the fact that there is a quality in pleasure; and quality in conduct is the very contention of absolute moralists. He speaks of the soul whose dye of good quality is washed out by pleasure. The attainment of genuine well-being, the development of divine qualities within men, was the aim, and the consciousness of this priceless possession of rational manhood was the incidental reward. His doctrine places be-
