====== The Inner Life ====== == THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE | MAY 1934 == ---- I meet after my manner and convincing him saying: “O, my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?” And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command of God, as I would have you know; and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, to take no thought for your person or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine that corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. . . . Wherefore, O men of Athens, . . . either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. After the vote of the Assembly, and Socrates was adjudged guilty, he says, “Someone will say: ‘Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you?’ Now, I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and that therefore I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious. . . . And yet what I say is true. . . .” While in prison some of his friends arranged for his escape, among them Crito, but he refused. “Listen, then Socrates,” said the Voice, “to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first and of justice afterward; but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. . . . Now you depart {{ :3405-28.jpg |}} ---- //⥳ [[socrates_apology|previous page]] // | // [[our_faces|next page]] ⥴ //