Page:The Republic of Plato (3rd ed.) (Lindsay, 1923).djvu/55

I only for its uses, as other people do, but because it is their own production. They are disagreeable people to meet for that reason : they have no praise for anthing but riches.”

“You are right” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but tell me this : What do you consider the greatest good in the possession of ample means?”

“Something that perhaps few men will credit,” he said, “But you know, Socrates, when a men faces the thought that he must die, there come upon him fear and fore-boding that have not troubled him before. Once he laughed at the tales about those in Hades, of punishment to be suffered there by him who here has done injustice. but now his soul is tormented by the thought that these may be true, and whether from the bodily weakness of old age, or because he is now nearer that other world he himself see those things more clearly. He becomes full of fear and suspicion. He begin to reckon up and consider it he have done any injustice to any men. And finding in his life many such acts often, like a child, he awakes out of sleep in teror, and lives in expectation of evil. But with him that is conscious of no injustice in him, kindly and blessed hope, as Pindar calls it, is always present. For that is a beautiful saving of his, Socrates, that whoever has lived a righteous and holy life,

It is really a wonderfully fine description. Now here, hold, lies the chief advantage of the possession of wealth not perhaps for every one, but for the good man; for we can go to that other world without fear only if we are