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RV 325 (Chap. 1.) No: but like a single Man. And how doth he behave, when he was to drink the Poison? When he might have escaped, and Crito persuaded him to get out of Prison, for the Sake of his Children, what doth he lay? Doth he esteem it a fortunate Opportunity? How should he? But he considers what is becoming, and neither sees nor regards any thing else. "For I am not desirous, says he, to preserve this pitiful Body; but that [Part of me] which is improved and preserved by Justice, and impaired and destroyed by Injustice." Socrates is not to be basely preserved. He, who refused to vote for what the Athenians commanded: he, who contemned the Thirty Tyrants: he, who held such Discourses on Virtue, and moral Beauty: such a Man is not to be preserved by a base Action; but is preserved by dying, not by running away. For even a good Actor is preserved by leaving off when he ought; not by going on to act beyond his Time. "What then will become of your Children?" "If I had gone away into Thessaly, you would have taken care of them; and will there be no one to take care of them, when I am departed to Hades?" You see how he ridicules, and plays with Death. But, if it had been you or I, we should presently have proved, by philosophical Arguments, that those, who act unjustly, are to be repaid in their own Way; and should have added, "If I escape, I shall be of Use to many; if I die, to none." Nay, if it had been necessary, we should have crept through a Mouse-hole to get away. But how should we have been of Use to any? For where must they have dwelt? If we were useful alive, should we not be of still more Use to Mankind, by dying when we ought, and as we ought? And now the Remembrance of the Death of Socrates is not less, but even more useful to the World, than that of the Things which he did and said when alive. §. 19.