r their conduct, may it be
said, with like reason, that it is an injustice to be ungrateful towards
our friends, and that it is just to be ungrateful towards our enemies."
"On mature consideration," answered Lamprocles, "I think it is criminal
to do injustice to either of them." "If, then," pursued Socrates,
"ingratitude be an injustice, it follows that the greater the favours are
which we have received, the greater is the injustice in not acknowledging
them." Lamprocles granted this consequence, and Socrates continued--"Can
there be any stricter obligations than those that children are laid under
to their parents? For it is they who gave them a being, and who have put
them in a condition to behold all the wonders of Nature, and to partake
of the many good things exhibited before them by the bounty of
Providence, and which are so delightful, that there is not anything that
all men more dread than to leave them; insomuch that all governments have
ordained death to be the punishment of the most enormous crimes, because
there is nothing can more effectually put a stop to the rage of the
wicked than the apprehension of death. In the affair of marriage, it is
not merely the gratification of the appetite which Nature has so strongly
implanted in both sexes for their preservation that we regard; no, that
passion can be satisfied in a less expensive manner, even in our streets,
and other places; but when we design to enter into that state, we make
choice of a woman of such a form and shape, by whom we may expect to have
fine children, and of such a temper and disposition as to assure us of
future happiness. When that is finished, it is then the chief care of
the husband to maintain his wife, and to provide for his children things
useful for life in the greatest abundance he can. On the part of the
wife, many are her anxieties and troubles for the preservation of her
offspring during the time of her pregnancy; she gives it then part of her
nourishment and life; and after having suffered the sharpest pangs at the
moment of its birth, she then gives it suck, and continues her care and
love to it. All this she does to the poor helpless infant, so void of
reason, that it knows not even her that is so good to it, nor can ask her
for its own necessities. Full of tenderness for the welfare and
happiness of her babe, her whole time, day and night, is spent in
pleasing it, without the least prospect of any recompense for all her
fa