it." And again, I suppose
writing to Idomeneus, he exorts him not to make his life a slave to the
laws or to the options of men, unless it be to avoid the trouble they
prepare, by the scourge and chastisement, so near at hand. If those who
abolish laws, governments, and polices of men subvert and destroy
human life, and if Metrodorus and Epicurus do this, by dehorting and
withdrawing their friends from concerning themselves in public affairs,
by hating those who intermeddle in them, by reviling the first most wise
lawgivers, and by advising contempt of the laws provided there is no
fear and danger of the whip punishment. I do not see that Colotes has
brought so many false accusations against the other philosophers as he
has alleged and advanced true ones against the writings and doctrines of
Epicurus.

END OF TEN------------

PLATONIC QUESTIONS.

QUESTION I. WHY DID GOD COMMAND SOCRATES TO ACT THE MIDWIFE'S PART
TO OTHERS, BUT CHARGED HIMSELF NOT TO GENERATE; AS HE AFFIRMS IN
THEAETETUS? (See Plato, "Theaetetus," p. 149 B.)

For he would never have used the name of God in such a merry, jesting
manner, though Plato in that book makes Socrates several times to talk
with great boasting and arrogance, as he does now. "There are many, dear
friend, so affected towards me, that they are ready even to snap at me,
when I offer to cure them of the least madness. For they will not be
persuaded that I do it out of goodwill, because they are ignorant that
no god bears ill-will to man, and that therefore I wish ill to no man;
but I cannot allow myself either to stand in a lie or to stifle the
truth." (Ibid. p. 151 C.) Whether therefore did he style his own nature,
which was of a very strong and pregnant wit, by the name of God,--as
Menander says, "For our mind is God," and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius
is a Deity"? Or did some divine cause or some daemon or other impart
this way of philosophizing to Socrates, whereby constantly interrogating
others, he cleared them of pride, error, and ignorance, and of being
troublesome both to themselves and to others? For about that time there
happened to be in Greece several sophists; to these some young men
paid great sums of money, for which they purchased a strong opinion of
learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of
disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no
credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way