your meditation, that you may know
there is nothing concealed from those guardians either within the mind
or external to it; but that the daemon who presides over you
inquisitively participates of all that concerns you, sees all things,
understands all things, and in the place of conscience dwells in the
most profound recesses of the mind. For he of whom I speak is a
perfect guardian, a singular prefect, a domestic speculator, a proper
curator, an intimate inspector, an assiduous observer, an inseparable
arbiter, a reprobator of what is evil, an approver of what is good;
and if he is legitimately attended to, sedulously known, and
religiously worshipped, in the way in which he was reverenced by
Sokrates with justice and innocence, will be a predicter of things
uncertain, a premonitor in things dubious, a defender in things
dangerous, and an assistant in want. He will also be able, by dreams,
by tokens, and perhaps also manifestly, when the occasion demands it,
to avert from you evil, increase your good, raise your depressed,
support your falling, illuminate your obscure, govern your prosperous,
and correct your adverse circumstances. It is not therefore wonderful,
if Sokrates, who was a man exceedingly perfect, and also wise by the
testimony of Apollo, should know and worship this his god; and that
hence, this his keeper, and nearly, as I may say, his equal, his
associate and domestic, should repel from him everything which ought
to be repelled, foresee what ought to be noticed, and pre-admonish him
of what ought to be foreknown by him, in those cases in which, human
wisdom being no longer of any use, he was in want not of counsel but
of presage, in order that when he was vacillating through doubt, he
might be rendered firm through divination. For there are many things,
concerning the development of which even wise men betake themselves to
diviners and oracles." I have adopted Taylor's translation of this
eloquent passage, because he was well acquainted with the theological
systems of antiquity. The whole passage is a useful comment on this
chapter of Plutarch and many other passages in him, and may help to
rectify some erroneous notions which people maintain of the
philosophical systems of antiquity, people who, as Bishop Butler
expresses it, "take for granted that they are acquainted with
everything." The passage about conscience contains, as Taylor
observes, a dogma which is only to be found implicitly maintained in