In the Gorgias Socrates maintains, not only that it is
always better to suffer injustice than to commit it, but that it is
better to be punished for injustice than to escape, and better to die
than to do wrong; and it is better not only because of the effect on
others but for our own sake. We are naturally led to ask what support a
righteous man unjustly condemned could find, supposing he were about to
be executed, if he had no faith in personal immortality and knew that
his martyrdom could not have the least effect for good. Imagine him,
for example, shut up in a dungeon and about to be strangled in it and
that not a single inquiry will be made about him--where will he look for
help? what hope will compose him? He may say that in a few hours he
will be asleep, and that nothing will then be of any consequence to him,
but that thought surely will hardly content him. He may reflect that he
at least prevents the evil which would be produced by his apostasy; and
very frequently in life, when we abstain from doing wrong, we have to be
satisfied with a negative result and with the simple absence (which
nobody notices) of some direct mischief, although the abstention may
cost more than positive well-doing.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72