agreeable than those of the
tyrant drowned in luxurious enjoyment. Neither is he speaking, as in the
Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of pleasure, an opinion which
he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What then is his meaning? His
meaning we shall be able to illustrate best by parallel notions, which,
whether justifiable by logic or not, have always existed among mankind.
We must remind the reader that Socrates himself implies that he will be
understood or appreciated by very few.

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of
happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in
battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that
their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction.
Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have
their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe
that they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have
crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors
will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do
what is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences.
And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates'
friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or
as was said of another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of
an angel.' We are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard
of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of
such a sentiment in the better part of human nature.

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain
that in some sense or other truth and right are alone to be sought, and
that all other goods are only desirable as means towards these. He is
thought to have erred in 'considering the agent only, and making no
reference to the happiness of others, as affected by him.' But the
happiness of others or of mankind, if regarded as an end, is really
quite as ideal and almost as paradoxical to the common understanding
as Plato's conception of happiness. For the greatest happiness of the
greatest number may mean also the greatest pain of the individual which
will procure the greatest pleasure of the greatest number. Ideas of
utility, like those of duty and right, may be pushed to unpleasant
consequences. Nor can Plato in the Gorgias be deemed purely
self-regarding, con