actions are to be avoided, but that light and idle words are to be shunned: for an avenging Nemesis was appointed to take account of, and severely to punish, even these ". That this vengeance of the gods, the wicked man could by no efforts either elude or escape; if he could take wings and fly up to heaven, or could penetrate into the very depths of the earth, it would still pursue and search him out, either here or hereafter". Such maxims are certainly admirable, and inferior only to that perfect wisdom which came from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake°, and who proposed to the imitation of his followers no imaginary pattern, removed alike from their sight and their comprehension, but descended upon

- Διότι ΚΟΥΦΩΝ καὶ ΠΤΗΝΩΝ ΛΟΓΩΝ βαρυτάτη ζημία· πᾶσι γὰρ ἐπίσκοπος τοῖς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐτάχθη Δίκης Néμeσis ayyeλos. De Legibus, lib. iv. p. 357.

n

Οὐχ οὕτω σμικρὸς ὢν δύσει κατὰ τὸ τῆς γῆς βάθος, οὐδ ̓ ὑψηλὸς γενόμενος εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναπτήσει, τίσεις δὲ αὐτῶν, τὴν προσήκουσαν τιμωρίαν εἴτ ̓ ἐνθάδε μένων εἴτε καὶ ἐν "Αιδου διαπο peubels. De Legibus, lib. x. p. 219.

• Mirantur quidam nobis in gratia Christi sociati cum audiunt vel legunt Platonem de Deo ista sensisse quæ multum congruere veritati religionis nostræ agnoscunt. Augustin. Civ. Dei, lib. viii. c. 11.

earth, and went about doing good, the visible and embodied model and archetype of truth. Whether these precepts are called morality or philosophical purification, which necessarily included within it the idea of morality, their natural tendency, unless counteracted by other causes, must have been beneficial?; for those only who trained themselves by them were to be admitted to the future happiness; those who did not, were to be excluded from it; whether the participation or exclusion were derived from some law of physical necessity inherent in the soul, or depended on the decision of a supreme Judge. For allusions to a future judgment, including as it does the idea of retribution in its more strict and proper sense, are by no means wanting. In the same treatise, in which we find him declaring before the tribunal of his country, that there was a divine voice within him which

P Apologia Socratis, Plato, Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. p. 118. Hist. Crit. Phil. Brucker, vol. i. p. 564.

9 Phædo, Bekker, pars ii. vol. iii. p. 107. Epist. 7. Bekker, pars iii. vol. iii. p. 448. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 167.

commanded him to obey God rather than man', he is represented as deriving consolation from the reflection that there would be a more just judgment hereafter. And after his condemnation, when his friends had made all things ready for his escape from prison, and urged him to fly from his impending fate, he refuses at once, alleging as the grounds of his refusal the duty of submission to the laws: when they persist in their solicitations, urging that the injustice of the law, in condemning him though innocent, would warrant his disobedience; he answers them with the Christian maxim, that it is our duty to return good for evil';

· ΠΕΙΣΟΜΑΙ ΔΕ ΜΑΛΛΟΝ ΤΩΙ ΘΕΩΙ Η ΥΜΙΝ. Apologia, Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. p. 115. eúρýσes Toùs as 'AAHεὑρήσει τοὺς ΘΩΣ ΔΙΚΑΣΤΑΣ, οἵ πες καὶ λέγονται ἐκεῖ δικάζειν. ΑροApologia, p. 138. The practical effects of his belief in a future judgment are stated also in the Gorgias: 'Yò TOÚTWV τῶν λόγων πέπεισμαι, καὶ σκοπῶ ὅπως ἀποφανοῦμαι τῷ κριτῇ ὡς ὑγιεστάτην τὴν ψυχήν. χαίρειν οὖν ἐάσας τὰς τιμὰς τὰς τῶν πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὴν ἀλήθειαν σκοπῶν, πειράσομαι τῷ ὄντι ὡς ἂν δύνω μαι βέλτιστος ὢν καὶ ζῆν καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἀποθνήσκω ἀποθνήσκειν. Παρακαλῶ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πάντας ἀνθρώπους. Gorgias, Plato, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 170.

s The passage is very strong in the original: Socrates denies that we have the right, under any circumstances,

assigning at the same time as the motive of his conduct, that he may be able to give a good account to the gods who reign in Hades'. Thus the very same man whose arguments for the soul's immortality are unsatisfactory or unintelligible, teaches in plain and simple language the right source of moral obligation ", the most perfect moral precept, and the strongest motive and encouragement for the practice of it

of returning evil for evil : Οὔτε ἄρα 'ΑΝΤΑΔΙΚΕΙΝ δεῖ οὔτε ΚΑΚΩΣ ΠΟΙΕΙΝ οὐδένα ἀνθρώπων, ΟΥ̓Δ' ΑΝ ΟΤΙΟΥΝ ПAΣXHI TIT ATTON. Crito, Bekker, pars i. vol. ii. p. 157.

In the Gorgias also he declares that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it: Σὺ ἄρα βούλοιο ἂν ἀδικεῖσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ ἀδικεῖν ; (Soc.) Βούλοιμην μὲν ἂν ἔγωγε οὐδέτερα· εἰ δ ̓ ἀναγκαῖον εἴη ἀδικεῖν ἢ ἀδικεῖσθαι, ἑλοίμην ἂν μᾶλλον ἀδικεῖobasádixiv. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 49.

ι Μήτε παῖδας περὶ πλείονος ποιοῦ μήτε τὸ ζῆν μήτε ἄλλο μηδὲν πρὸ τοῦ δικαίου, ἵνα εἰς "Αιδου ἐλθὼν ἔχῃς ταῦτα πάντα ἀπολογή σασθαι τοῖς ἐκεῖ ἄρχουσιν. Crit. p. 167.

u The statement here given by no means coincides with the following assertions of Warburton: "The ancients "neither knew the origin of obligation nor the consequence of obedience. Revelation hath discovered these

66

66

66

principles; and we now wonder that such prodigies of

parts and knowledge could commit the gross absurdities "which are to be found in their best discourses on mo"rality." Divine Legation, lib. iii. s. 5. vol. iii. p. 144.

in the expectation of future retribution. It is not my intention to pursue the subject at length through the different schools of antiquity; through the scepticism of some, the atheism of others, or the systems of those who allowed the existence, yet denied the providence of God; nor to examine how far their principles are consistent with their ordinary precepts, and the comparative credit due to either in deciding upon their own belief. But it may be a matter of interesting inquiry to investigate the opinions of one distinguished teacher respecting a future state, who more than divided with Plato the empire of philosophy. It is however by no means easy to ascertain the sentiments of Aristotle on the subject as he taught that happiness would be the reward of virtue in this life, he makes few allusions in his practical works to the destinies of the soul in another state of being. He never directly proposes the doctrine of a future retribution as the motive of our morality: and though he certainly held the soul's immortality, it is doubted by some if he believed its exist