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+*********The Project Gutenberg Etext of Crito, by Plato*********
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+Crito
+
+by Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+March, 1999  [Etext #1657]
+
+
+*********The Project Gutenberg Etext of Crito, by Plato*********
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+This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher <asschers@aia.net.au>
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+
+
+
+CRITO
+
+by Plato
+
+
+
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+The Crito seems intended to exhibit the character of Socrates in one light
+only, not as the philosopher, fulfilling a divine mission and trusting in
+the will of heaven, but simply as the good citizen, who having been
+unjustly condemned is willing to give up his life in obedience to the laws
+of the state...
+
+The days of Socrates are drawing to a close; the fatal ship has been seen
+off Sunium, as he is informed by his aged friend and contemporary Crito,
+who visits him before the dawn has broken; he himself has been warned in a
+dream that on the third day he must depart.  Time is precious, and Crito
+has come early in order to gain his consent to a plan of escape.  This can
+be easily accomplished by his friends, who will incur no danger in making
+the attempt to save him, but will be disgraced for ever if they allow him
+to perish.  He should think of his duty to his children, and not play into
+the hands of his enemies.  Money is already provided by Crito as well as by
+Simmias and others, and he will have no difficulty in finding friends in
+Thessaly and other places.
+
+Socrates is afraid that Crito is but pressing upon him the opinions of the
+many:  whereas, all his life long he has followed the dictates of reason
+only and the opinion of the one wise or skilled man.  There was a time when
+Crito himself had allowed the propriety of this.  And although some one
+will say 'the many can kill us,' that makes no difference; but a good life,
+in other words, a just and honourable life, is alone to be valued.  All
+considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be
+dismissed:  the only question is whether he would be right in attempting to
+escape.  Crito, who is a disinterested person not having the fear of death
+before his eyes, shall answer this for him.  Before he was condemned they
+had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man should either
+do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the right.  Are these
+principles to be altered because the circumstances of Socrates are altered?
+Crito admits that they remain the same.  Then is his escape consistent with
+the maintenance of them?  To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.
+
+Socrates proceeds:--Suppose the Laws of Athens to come and remonstrate with
+him:  they will ask 'Why does he seek to overturn them?' and if he replies,
+'they have injured him,' will not the Laws answer, 'Yes, but was that the
+agreement?  Has he any objection to make to them which would justify him in
+overturning them?  Was he not brought into the world and educated by their
+help, and are they not his parents?  He might have left Athens and gone
+where he pleased, but he has lived there for seventy years more constantly
+than any other citizen.'  Thus he has clearly shown that he acknowledged
+the agreement, which he cannot now break without dishonour to himself and
+danger to his friends.  Even in the course of the trial he might have
+proposed exile as the penalty, but then he declared that he preferred death
+to exile.  And whither will he direct his footsteps?  In any well-ordered
+state the Laws will consider him as an enemy.  Possibly in a land of
+misrule like Thessaly he may be welcomed at first, and the unseemly
+narrative of his escape will be regarded by the inhabitants as an amusing
+tale.  But if he offends them he will have to learn another sort of lesson.
+Will he continue to give lectures in virtue?  That would hardly be decent.
+And how will his children be the gainers if he takes them into Thessaly,
+and deprives them of Athenian citizenship?  Or if he leaves them behind,
+does he expect that they will be better taken care of by his friends
+because he is in Thessaly?  Will not true friends care for them equally
+whether he is alive or dead?
+
+Finally, they exhort him to think of justice first, and of life and
+children afterwards.  He may now depart in peace and innocence, a sufferer
+and not a doer of evil.  But if he breaks agreements, and returns evil for
+evil, they will be angry with him while he lives; and their brethren the
+Laws of the world below will receive him as an enemy.  Such is the mystic
+voice which is always murmuring in his ears.
+
+That Socrates was not a good citizen was a charge made against him during
+his lifetime, which has been often repeated in later ages.  The crimes of
+Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, who had been his pupils, were still
+recent in the memory of the now restored democracy.  The fact that he had
+been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate
+popular good-will.  Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
+undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
+the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
+
+Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
+proposal of escape is uncertain:  Plato could easily have invented far more
+than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
+fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
+hand of the artist.  Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of
+his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a
+thesis about which casuists might disagree.  Shelley (Prose Works) is of
+opinion that Socrates 'did well to die,' but not for the 'sophistical'
+reasons which Plato has put into his mouth.  And there would be no
+difficulty in arguing that Socrates should have lived and preferred to a
+glorious death the good which he might still be able to perform.  'A
+rhetorician would have had much to say upon that point.'  It may be
+observed however that Plato never intended to answer the question of
+casuistry, but only to exhibit the ideal of patient virtue which refuses to
+do the least evil in order to avoid the greatest, and to show his master
+maintaining in death the opinions which he had professed in his life.  Not
+'the world,' but the 'one wise man,' is still the paradox of Socrates in
+his last hours.  He must be guided by reason, although her conclusions may
+be fatal to him.  The remarkable sentiment that the wicked can do neither
+good nor evil is true, if taken in the sense, which he means, of moral
+evil; in his own words, 'they cannot make a man wise or foolish.'
+
+This little dialogue is a perfect piece of dialectic, in which granting the
+'common principle,' there is no escaping from the conclusion.  It is
+anticipated at the beginning by the dream of Socrates and the parody of
+Homer.  The personification of the Laws, and of their brethren the Laws in
+the world below, is one of the noblest and boldest figures of speech which
+occur in Plato.
+
+
+CRITO
+
+by
+
+Plato
+
+Translated by Benjamin Jowett
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:  Socrates, Crito.
+
+SCENE:  The Prison of Socrates.
+
+
+SOCRATES:  Why have you come at this hour, Crito? it must be quite early.
+
+CRITO:  Yes, certainly.
+
+SOCRATES:  What is the exact time?
+
+CRITO:  The dawn is breaking.
+
+SOCRATES:  I wonder that the keeper of the prison would let you in.
+
+CRITO:  He knows me because I often come, Socrates; moreover.  I have done
+him a kindness.
+
+SOCRATES:  And are you only just arrived?
+
+CRITO:  No, I came some time ago.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then why did you sit and say nothing, instead of at once
+awakening me?
+
+CRITO:  I should not have liked myself, Socrates, to be in such great
+trouble and unrest as you are--indeed I should not:  I have been watching
+with amazement your peaceful slumbers; and for that reason I did not awake
+you, because I wished to minimize the pain.  I have always thought you to
+be of a happy disposition; but never did I see anything like the easy,
+tranquil manner in which you bear this calamity.
+
+SOCRATES:  Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be
+repining at the approach of death.
+
+CRITO:  And yet other old men find themselves in similar misfortunes, and
+age does not prevent them from repining.
+
+SOCRATES:  That is true.  But you have not told me why you come at this
+early hour.
+
+CRITO:  I come to bring you a message which is sad and painful; not, as I
+believe, to yourself, but to all of us who are your friends, and saddest of
+all to me.
+
+SOCRATES:  What?  Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I
+am to die?
+
+CRITO:  No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be
+here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they have
+left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day of
+your life.
+
+SOCRATES:  Very well, Crito; if such is the will of God, I am willing; but
+my belief is that there will be a delay of a day.
+
+CRITO:  Why do you think so?
+
+SOCRATES:  I will tell you.  I am to die on the day after the arrival of
+the ship?
+
+CRITO:  Yes; that is what the authorities say.
+
+SOCRATES:  But I do not think that the ship will be here until to-morrow;
+this I infer from a vision which I had last night, or rather only just now,
+when you fortunately allowed me to sleep.
+
+CRITO:  And what was the nature of the vision?
+
+SOCRATES:  There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely,
+clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said:  O Socrates,
+
+'The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go.'  (Homer, Il.)
+
+CRITO:  What a singular dream, Socrates!
+
+SOCRATES:  There can be no doubt about the meaning, Crito, I think.
+
+CRITO:  Yes; the meaning is only too clear.  But, oh! my beloved Socrates,
+let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape.  For if you die
+I shall not only lose a friend who can never be replaced, but there is
+another evil:  people who do not know you and me will believe that I might
+have saved you if I had been willing to give money, but that I did not
+care.  Now, can there be a worse disgrace than this--that I should be
+thought to value money more than the life of a friend?  For the many will
+not be persuaded that I wanted you to escape, and that you refused.
+
+SOCRATES:  But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the
+many?  Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering,
+will think of these things truly as they occurred.
+
+CRITO:  But you see, Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be
+regarded, for what is now happening shows that they can do the greatest
+evil to any one who has lost their good opinion.
+
+SOCRATES:  I only wish it were so, Crito; and that the many could do the
+greatest evil; for then they would also be able to do the greatest good--
+and what a fine thing this would be!  But in reality they can do neither;
+for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; and whatever they do is
+the result of chance.
+
+CRITO:  Well, I will not dispute with you; but please to tell me, Socrates,
+whether you are not acting out of regard to me and your other friends:  are
+you not afraid that if you escape from prison we may get into trouble with
+the informers for having stolen you away, and lose either the whole or a
+great part of our property; or that even a worse evil may happen to us?
+Now, if you fear on our account, be at ease; for in order to save you, we
+ought surely to run this, or even a greater risk; be persuaded, then, and
+do as I say.
+
+SOCRATES:  Yes, Crito, that is one fear which you mention, but by no means
+the only one.
+
+CRITO:  Fear not--there are persons who are willing to get you out of
+prison at no great cost; and as for the informers they are far from being
+exorbitant in their demands--a little money will satisfy them.  My means,
+which are certainly ample, are at your service, and if you have a scruple
+about spending all mine, here are strangers who will give you the use of
+theirs; and one of them, Simmias the Theban, has brought a large sum of
+money for this very purpose; and Cebes and many others are prepared to
+spend their money in helping you to escape.  I say, therefore, do not
+hesitate on our account, and do not say, as you did in the court (compare
+Apol.), that you will have a difficulty in knowing what to do with yourself
+anywhere else.  For men will love you in other places to which you may go,
+and not in Athens only; there are friends of mine in Thessaly, if you like
+to go to them, who will value and protect you, and no Thessalian will give
+you any trouble.  Nor can I think that you are at all justified, Socrates,
+in betraying your own life when you might be saved; in acting thus you are
+playing into the hands of your enemies, who are hurrying on your
+destruction.  And further I should say that you are deserting your own
+children; for you might bring them up and educate them; instead of which
+you go away and leave them, and they will have to take their chance; and if
+they do not meet with the usual fate of orphans, there will be small thanks
+to you.  No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to
+persevere to the end in their nurture and education.  But you appear to be
+choosing the easier part, not the better and manlier, which would have been
+more becoming in one who professes to care for virtue in all his actions,
+like yourself.  And indeed, I am ashamed not only of you, but of us who are
+your friends, when I reflect that the whole business will be attributed
+entirely to our want of courage.  The trial need never have come on, or
+might have been managed differently; and this last act, or crowning folly,
+will seem to have occurred through our negligence and cowardice, who might
+have saved you, if we had been good for anything; and you might have saved
+yourself, for there was no difficulty at all.  See now, Socrates, how sad
+and discreditable are the consequences, both to us and you.  Make up your
+mind then, or rather have your mind already made up, for the time of
+deliberation is over, and there is only one thing to be done, which must be
+done this very night, and if we delay at all will be no longer practicable
+or possible; I beseech you therefore, Socrates, be persuaded by me, and do
+as I say.
+
+SOCRATES:  Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if
+wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger; and therefore we ought
+to consider whether I shall or shall not do as you say.  For I am and
+always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason,
+whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the
+best; and now that this chance has befallen me, I cannot repudiate my own
+words:  the principles which I have hitherto honoured and revered I still
+honour, and unless we can at once find other and better principles, I am
+certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude
+could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening
+us like children with hobgoblin terrors (compare Apol.).  What will be the
+fairest way of considering the question?  Shall I return to your old
+argument about the opinions of men?--we were saying that some of them are
+to be regarded, and others not.  Now were we right in maintaining this
+before I was condemned?  And has the argument which was once good now
+proved to be talk for the sake of talking--mere childish nonsense?  That is
+what I want to consider with your help, Crito:--whether, under my present
+circumstances, the argument appears to be in any way different or not; and
+is to be allowed by me or disallowed.  That argument, which, as I believe,
+is maintained by many persons of authority, was to the effect, as I was
+saying, that the opinions of some men are to be regarded, and of other men
+not to be regarded.  Now you, Crito, are not going to die to-morrow--at
+least, there is no human probability of this, and therefore you are
+disinterested and not liable to be deceived by the circumstances in which
+you are placed.  Tell me then, whether I am right in saying that some
+opinions, and the opinions of some men only, are to be valued, and that
+other opinions, and the opinions of other men, are not to be valued.  I ask
+you whether I was right in maintaining this?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES:  The good are to be regarded, and not the bad?
+
+CRITO:  Yes.
+
+SOCRATES:  And the opinions of the wise are good, and the opinions of the
+unwise are evil?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly.
+
+SOCRATES:  And what was said about another matter?  Is the pupil who
+devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to the
+praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only--his
+physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
+
+CRITO:  Of one man only.
+
+SOCRATES:  And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that
+one only, and not of the many?
+
+CRITO:  Clearly so.
+
+SOCRATES:  And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way
+which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than
+according to the opinion of all other men put together?
+
+CRITO:  True.
+
+SOCRATES:  And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of
+the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding,
+will he not suffer evil?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly he will.
+
+SOCRATES:  And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting,
+in the disobedient person?
+
+CRITO:  Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil.
+
+SOCRATES:  Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we
+need not separately enumerate?  In questions of just and unjust, fair and
+foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation,
+ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion
+of the one man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence
+him more than all the rest of the world:  and if we desert him shall we not
+destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved
+by justice and deteriorated by injustice;--there is such a principle?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly there is, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES:  Take a parallel instance:--if, acting under the advice of those
+who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improved by health and
+is deteriorated by disease, would life be worth having?  And that which has
+been destroyed is--the body?
+
+CRITO:  Yes.
+
+SOCRATES:  Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES:  And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be
+destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?  Do we
+suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with
+justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES:  More honourable than the body?
+
+CRITO:  Far more.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us:
+but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will
+say, and what the truth will say.  And therefore you begin in error when
+you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and
+unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable.--'Well,' some one will
+say, 'but the many can kill us.'
+
+CRITO:  Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer.
+
+SOCRATES:  And it is true; but still I find with surprise that the old
+argument is unshaken as ever.  And I should like to know whether I may say
+the same of another proposition--that not life, but a good life, is to be
+chiefly valued?
+
+CRITO:  Yes, that also remains unshaken.
+
+SOCRATES:  And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one--that
+holds also?
+
+CRITO:  Yes, it does.
+
+SOCRATES:  From these premisses I proceed to argue the question whether I
+ought or ought not to try and escape without the consent of the Athenians:
+and if I am clearly right in escaping, then I will make the attempt; but if
+not, I will abstain.  The other considerations which you mention, of money
+and loss of character and the duty of educating one's children, are, I
+fear, only the doctrines of the multitude, who would be as ready to restore
+people to life, if they were able, as they are to put them to death--and
+with as little reason.  But now, since the argument has thus far prevailed,
+the only question which remains to be considered is, whether we shall do
+rightly either in escaping or in suffering others to aid in our escape and
+paying them in money and thanks, or whether in reality we shall not do
+rightly; and if the latter, then death or any other calamity which may
+ensue on my remaining here must not be allowed to enter into the
+calculation.
+
+CRITO:  I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we proceed?
+
+SOCRATES:  Let us consider the matter together, and do you either refute me
+if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear friend, from
+repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of the Athenians:
+for I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so, but I may not be
+persuaded against my own better judgment.  And now please to consider my
+first position, and try how you can best answer me.
+
+CRITO:  I will.
+
+SOCRATES:  Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong, or
+that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do wrong, or is
+doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just now saying, and as
+has been already acknowledged by us?  Are all our former admissions which
+were made within a few days to be thrown away?  And have we, at our age,
+been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to
+discover that we are no better than children?  Or, in spite of the opinion
+of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we
+insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil
+and dishonour to him who acts unjustly?  Shall we say so or not?
+
+CRITO:  Yes.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then we must do no wrong?
+
+CRITO:  Certainly not.
+
+SOCRATES:  Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we
+must injure no one at all?  (E.g. compare Rep.)
+
+CRITO:  Clearly not.
+
+SOCRATES:  Again, Crito, may we do evil?
+
+CRITO:  Surely not, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES:  And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality
+of the many--is that just or not?
+
+CRITO:  Not just.
+
+SOCRATES:  For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
+
+CRITO:  Very true.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any
+one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.  But I would have you
+consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying.  For this
+opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable
+number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed
+upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another
+when they see how widely they differ.  Tell me, then, whether you agree
+with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation
+nor warding off evil by evil is ever right.  And shall that be the premiss
+of our argument?  Or do you decline and dissent from this?  For so I have
+ever thought, and continue to think; but, if you are of another opinion,
+let me hear what you have to say.  If, however, you remain of the same mind
+as formerly, I will proceed to the next step.
+
+CRITO:  You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in the
+form of a question:--Ought a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought
+he to betray the right?
+
+CRITO:  He ought to do what he thinks right.
+
+SOCRATES:  But if this is true, what is the application?  In leaving the
+prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I
+not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong?  Do I not desert the
+principles which were acknowledged by us to be just--what do you say?
+
+CRITO:  I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then consider the matter in this way:--Imagine that I am about
+to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like),
+and the laws and the government come and interrogate me:  'Tell us,
+Socrates,' they say; 'what are you about? are you not going by an act of
+yours to overturn us--the laws, and the whole state, as far as in you lies?
+Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the
+decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by
+individuals?'  What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words?
+Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on
+behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out.  He will
+argue that this law should not be set aside; and shall we reply, 'Yes; but
+the state has injured us and given an unjust sentence.'  Suppose I say
+that?
+
+CRITO:  Very good, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES:  'And was that our agreement with you?' the law would answer; 'or
+were you to abide by the sentence of the state?'  And if I were to express
+my astonishment at their words, the law would probably add:  'Answer,
+Socrates, instead of opening your eyes--you are in the habit of asking and
+answering questions.  Tell us,--What complaint have you to make against us
+which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the state?  In the
+first place did we not bring you into existence?  Your father married your
+mother by our aid and begat you.  Say whether you have any objection to
+urge against those of us who regulate marriage?'  None, I should reply.
+'Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and education
+of children, in which you also were trained?  Were not the laws, which have
+the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in
+music and gymnastic?'  Right, I should reply.  'Well then, since you were
+brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the
+first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before
+you?  And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you
+think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you.  Would
+you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your father
+or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck or reviled by
+him, or received some other evil at his hands?--you would not say this?
+And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any
+right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies?
+Will you, O professor of true virtue, pretend that you are justified in
+this?  Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is
+more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any
+ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of
+understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when
+angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not
+persuaded, to be obeyed?  And when we are punished by her, whether with
+imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if
+she lead us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right;
+neither may any one yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in
+battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his
+city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is
+just:  and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may
+he do violence to his country.'  What answer shall we make to this, Crito?
+Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
+
+CRITO:  I think that they do.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then the laws will say:  'Consider, Socrates, if we are speaking
+truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury.  For,
+having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given
+you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we
+further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if
+he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the
+city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his
+goods with him.  None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him.
+Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a
+colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property.
+But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and
+administer the state, and still remains, has entered into an implied
+contract that he will do as we command him.  And he who disobeys us is, as
+we maintain, thrice wrong:  first, because in disobeying us he is
+disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his
+education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will
+duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our
+commands are unjust; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the
+alternative of obeying or convincing us;--that is what we offer, and he
+does neither.
+
+'These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you,
+Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all
+other Athenians.'  Suppose now I ask, why I rather than anybody else? they
+will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the
+agreement.  'There is clear proof,' they will say, 'Socrates, that we and
+the city were not displeasing to you.  Of all Athenians you have been the
+most constant resident in the city, which, as you never leave, you may be
+supposed to love (compare Phaedr.).  For you never went out of the city
+either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to
+any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you
+travel as other men do.  Nor had you any curiosity to know other states or
+their laws:  your affections did not go beyond us and our state; we were
+your especial favourites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and
+here in this city you begat your children, which is a proof of your
+satisfaction.  Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had
+liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let
+you go now would have let you go then.  But you pretended that you
+preferred death to exile (compare Apol.), and that you were not unwilling
+to die.  And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no
+respect to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what
+only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon
+the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen.  And first of all
+answer this very question:  Are we right in saying that you agreed to be
+governed according to us in deed, and not in word only?  Is that true or
+not?'  How shall we answer, Crito?  Must we not assent?
+
+CRITO:  We cannot help it, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES:  Then will they not say:  'You, Socrates, are breaking the
+covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any
+haste or under any compulsion or deception, but after you have had seventy
+years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the
+city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to
+be unfair.  You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon
+or Crete, both which states are often praised by you for their good
+government, or to some other Hellenic or foreign state.  Whereas you, above
+all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the state, or, in other words,
+of us her laws (and who would care about a state which has no laws?), that
+you never stirred out of her; the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not
+more stationary in her than you were.  And now you run away and forsake
+your agreements.  Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not
+make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
+
+'For just consider, if you transgress and err in this sort of way, what
+good will you do either to yourself or to your friends?  That your friends
+will be driven into exile and deprived of citizenship, or will lose their
+property, is tolerably certain; and you yourself, if you fly to one of the
+neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are
+well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their
+government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an
+evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the
+minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you.  For he
+who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the
+young and foolish portion of mankind.  Will you then flee from well-ordered
+cities and virtuous men? and is existence worth having on these terms?  Or
+will you go to them without shame, and talk to them, Socrates?  And what
+will you say to them?  What you say here about virtue and justice and
+institutions and laws being the best things among men?  Would that be
+decent of you?  Surely not.  But if you go away from well-governed states
+to Crito's friends in Thessaly, where there is great disorder and licence,
+they will be charmed to hear the tale of your escape from prison, set off
+with ludicrous particulars of the manner in which you were wrapped in a
+goatskin or some other disguise, and metamorphosed as the manner is of
+runaways; but will there be no one to remind you that in your old age you
+were not ashamed to violate the most sacred laws from a miserable desire of
+a little more life?  Perhaps not, if you keep them in a good temper; but if
+they are out of temper you will hear many degrading things; you will live,
+but how?--as the flatterer of all men, and the servant of all men; and
+doing what?--eating and drinking in Thessaly, having gone abroad in order
+that you may get a dinner.  And where will be your fine sentiments about
+justice and virtue?  Say that you wish to live for the sake of your
+children--you want to bring them up and educate them--will you take them
+into Thessaly and deprive them of Athenian citizenship?  Is this the
+benefit which you will confer upon them?  Or are you under the impression
+that they will be better cared for and educated here if you are still
+alive, although absent from them; for your friends will take care of them?
+Do you fancy that if you are an inhabitant of Thessaly they will take care
+of them, and if you are an inhabitant of the other world that they will not
+take care of them?  Nay; but if they who call themselves friends are good
+for anything, they will--to be sure they will.
+
+'Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up.  Think not of life
+and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that
+you may be justified before the princes of the world below.  For neither
+will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this
+life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids.  Now you depart in
+innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws,
+but of men.  But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for
+injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us,
+and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say,
+yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you
+while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive
+you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy
+us.  Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.'
+
+This, dear Crito, is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears,
+like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say,
+is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other.  And I know
+that anything more which you may say will be vain.  Yet speak, if you have
+anything to say.
+
+CRITO:  I have nothing to say, Socrates.
+
+SOCRATES:  Leave me then, Crito, to fulfil the will of God, and to follow
+whither he leads.
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Crito, by Plato
+