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    not yet determined whether he will endeavour to live virtuously or no . It is impossible , by any arguments , to prove that a life of obedience to duty is preferable , so far as respects the agent himself , to a life of circumspect and cautious selfishness . It will be answered , perhaps , that virtue is the road to happiness , and that

    ' honesty is the best policy / Of this celebrated maxim , may we not venture to say , once for all , without hesitation or reserve , that it is not true ? The whole experience of mankind runs counter to it . The life of a good man or woman is full of unpraised and unrequited sacrifices . In the present dialogue , which , though , scanty in conclusive arguments , is rich in profound reflections ^ SjJiere is one remark of which the truth is quite universalthat the world loves its like , and refuses its favour to its unlike .

    To be more honest than the many , is nearly as prejudicial , in a worldly sense , as to be a greater rogue . They , indeed , who have no conception of any higher honesty than is practised by the majority of the society in which they live , are right in considering such honesty as accordant with policy . But how is he indemnified , who scruples to do that which his neighbours do without scruple ? Where is the reward , in any worldly sense , for

    heroism ? * y Civilization , with its laissez-aller and its laissez-faire which it calls tolerance , has , in two thousand years , done thus much for the moral hero , that he now runs little risk of drinking hemlock like Socrates , or like Christ , of dying on the cross . The worst that can well happen to him is to be everywhere ill spoken of , and to fail in all his worldly concerns : and if he be unusually fortunate , .. he may , perhaps , be so well treated by the rest of mankind , as to be allowed to be honest in peace .

    The old monk in Rabelais had a far truer notion of worldly wisdom : — To perform your appointed task indifferently well ; never to speak ill of your superiors ; and to let the mad world go its own way , for it will go its own way . ' * All valid arguments in favour of virtue , presuppose that we already desire virtue , or desire some of its ends and objects . You

    may prove to us that virtue tends to the happiness of mankind , or of our country ; but that supposes that we already care for mankind or for our country . You may tell us that virtue will gain us the approbation of the wise and good ; but this supposes that the wise and good are already more to us than other people are . Those

    only will go along with Socrates in the preceding dialogue , who alread y feel that the accordance of their lives and inclinations with some scheme of duty is necessary to their comfort ; whose frelings of virtue are already so strong , that if they allow any other consideration to prevail over those feelings , they are really conscious that the health of their souls is gone , and that they are , as

    * Fungi officio talitet qualiter ; nunquara male loqui de superiority - sinerc in eanum munduin vadere qud vult ; nam vult vattere qud vult .

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    • Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Gorgia * . 841

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 841, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/23/