More striking examples are his moral conclusions. Plato affirms the
coincidence of science and virtue; for vice can never know itself and
virtue; but virtue knows both itself and vice. The eye attested that
justice was best, as long as it was profitable; Plato affirms that it
is profitable throughout; that the profit is intrinsic, though the
just conceal his justice from gods and men; that it is better to suffer
injustice, than to do it; that the sinner ought to covet punishment;
that the lie was more hurtful than homicide; and that ignorance, or
the involuntary lie, was more calamitous than involuntary homicide;
that the soul is unwillingly deprived of true opinions; and that no
man sins willingly; that the order of proceeding of nature was from
the mind to the body; and, though a sound body cannot restore an unsound
mind, yet a good soul can, by its virtue, render the body the best
possible. The intelligent have a right over the ignorant, namely, the
right of instructing them. The right punishment of one out of tune,
is to make him play in tune; the fine which the good, refusing to
govern, ought to pay, is, to be governed by a worse man; that his
guards shall not handle gold and silver, but shall be instructed that
there is gold and silver in their souls, which will make men willing
to give them everything which they need.
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