come a day of judgment and retribution, when each man shall receive the just reward of his deeds.
Now I (concludes Socrates) am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the Judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when the time comes, to die. And to the utmost of my power, I exhort all men to do the same. And in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.—J.
But in spite of his triumphant defence of Virtue, there is a bitter tone of isolation and loneliness in the last part of this Dialogue. "I, and I only, am left," Socrates seems to say—like Elijah upon Carmel—among ten thousand who know not the truth. My own generation will not hear me or believe me; they will not even understand me; and in the end I shall probably be accused—as a physician might be arraigned by a pastry-cook before a jury of children; and as I cannot refer to any pleasures which I have provided for the people, but can only appeal to my own blameless life, any one may foresee the verdict. "Not that I fear death"—he says, with a noble scorn—only the coward and the profligate need fear that. There is something nobler than mere ease and personal safety. "He who is truly a man, ought not to care much how long he lives; he knows, as women say, that none can escape the day of destiny, and therefore is not too fond of life; all that he leaves to heaven, and
