"Vitasque in vulnere ponunt."

["And leave their own lives in the wound."
--Virgil, Geo., iv. 238.]

Cantharides have somewhere about them, by a contrariety of nature, a
counterpoison against their poison. In like manner, at the same time
that men take delight in vice, there springs in the conscience a
displeasure that afflicts us sleeping and waking with various tormenting
imaginations:

"Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia saepe loquentes,
Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe ferantur,
Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse."

["Surely where many, often talking in their sleep, or raving in
disease, are said to have betrayed themselves, and to have given
publicity to offences long concealed."--Lucretius, v. 1157.]

Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself flayed by the Scythians and
afterwards boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart muttered these words
"I am the cause of all these mischiefs that have befallen thee."
Epicurus said that no hiding-hole could conceal the wicked, since they
could never assure themselves of being hid whilst their conscience
discovered them to themselves.

"Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absohitur."

["Tis the first punishment of sin that no man absolves himself." or:
"This is the highest revenge, that by its judgment no offender is
absolved."--Juvenal, xiii. 2.]

As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a good one gives us greater
confidence and assurance; and I can truly say that I have gone through
several hazards with a more steady pace in consideration of the secret
knowledge I had of my own will and the innocence of my intentions:

"Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo."

["As a man's conscience is, so within hope or fear prevails, suiting
to his design."--Ovid, Fast., i. 485.]

Of this are a thousand examples; but it will be enough to instance three
of one and the same person. Scipio, being one day accused before the
people of Rome of some crimes of a very high nature, instead of excusing
himself or flattering his judges: "It will become you well," said he,
"to sit in judgment upon a head, by whose means you have the power to
judge all the world." Another time, all the answer he gave to several
impeachments brought again