Socrates say? "Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot hurt
me": and further, he says, "If it so pleases God, so let it be."
But show me that he who has the inferior principles overpowers him
who is superior in principles. You will never show this, nor come near
showing it; for this is the law of nature and of God that the superior
shall always overpower the inferior. In what? In that in which it is
superior. One body is stronger than another: many are stronger than
one: the thief is stronger than he who is not a thief. This is the
reason why I also lost my lamp, because in wakefulness the thief was
superior to me. But the man bought the lamp at this price: for a
lamp he became a thief, a faithless fellow, and like a wild beast.
This seemed to him a good bargain. Be it so. But a man has seized me
by the cloak, and is drawing me to the public place: then others
bawl out, "Philosopher, what has been the use of your opinions? see
you are dragged to prison, you are going to be beheaded." And what
system of philosophy could f have made so that, if a stronger man
should have laid hold of my cloak, I should not be dragged off; that
if ten men should have laid hold of me and cast me into prison, I
should not be cast in? Have I learned nothing else then? I have
learned to see that everything which happens, if it be independent
of my will, is nothing to me. I may ask if you have not gained by
this. Why then do you seek advantage in anything else than in that
in which you have learned that advantage is?
Then sitting in prison I say: "The man who cries out in this way
neither hears what words mean, nor understands what is said, nor
does he care at all to know what philosophers say or what they do. Let
him alone."
But now he says to the prisoner, "Come out from your prison." If you
have no further need of me in prison, I come out: if you should have
need of me again, I will enter the prison. "How long will you act
thus?" So long as reason requires me to be with the body: but when
reason does not require this, take away the body, and fare you well.
Only we must not do it inconsiderately, nor weakly, nor for any slight
reason; for, on the other hand, God does not wish it to be done, and
he has need of such a world and such inhabitants in it. But if he
sounds the signal for retreat, as he did to Socrates, we must obey him
who gives the signal, as if he were a general.
"Well, then, ought we to say such things to the many?" Why should
we? Is it not enough for a man to be persuaded himself? When
children come clapping their hands and crying out, "To-day is the good
Saturnalia," do we say, "The Saturnalia are not good?" By no means,
but we clap our hands also. Do you also then, when you are not able to
make a man change his mind, be assured that he is a child, and clap
your hands with him, and if you do not choose to do this, keep silent.
A man must keep this in mind; and when he is called to any such
difficulty, he should know that the time is come for showing if he has
been instructed. For he who is come into a difficulty is like a
young man from a school who has practiced the resolution of
syllogisms; and if any person proposes to him an easy syllogism, he
says, "Rather propose to me a syllogism which is skillfully