?

Let us note that throughout he is in search of a _definition_, but that
as soon as any attempt is made to define or classify any particular
type of action as just or unjust, _special circumstances_ are suggested
which overturn the classification. Let us note further that while the
immediate result is apparently only to confuse, the remoter but more
permanent result is to raise a suspicion of any hard and fast
definitions, and to suggest that there is something deeper in life than
language is adequate to express, a 'law in the members,' a living
principle for good, which transcends forms and maxims, and which alone
gives real value to acts. Note further the suggestion that this living
principle has a character analogous to the knowledge or skill of an
accomplished artificer; it has relation on the one hand to law, as a
principle binding on the individual, it has relation on the other hand
to _utility_, as expressing itself, not in words, but in acts
beneficial to those concerned. Hence the Socratic formula, Justice is
equivalent to the _Lawful_ on the one hand, to the _Useful_ on the
other.

{121}

Socrates had thus solved by anticipation the apparently never-ending
controversy about morality. Is it a matter imposed by God upon the
heart and conscience of each individual? Is it dictated by the general
sense of the community? Is it the product of Utility? The Socratic
answer would be that it is all three, and that all three mean
ultimately the same thing. What God prescribes is what man when he is
truly man desires; and what God prescribes and man desires is that
which is good and useful for man. It is not a matter for verbal
definition but for vital realisation; the true morality is that which
_works_; the ideally desirable, is ultimately the only possible, course
of action, for all violations of it are ultimately suicidal.

Note finally the suggestion that the man who _knows_ (in Socrates'
sense of knowledge) what is right, shows only more fully his
righteousness when he voluntarily sins; it is the 'unwilling sinner'
who is the wrongdoer. When we consider this strange doctrine in
relation to the instances given,--the general with his army, the father
with his son, the prudent friend with his friend in desperate
straits,--we see that what is meant is that 'sin' in the real sense is
not to be measured or defined by conformity or otherwise to some formal
standard, at least in the case of those who _know_,