THREE:Must we, then, conclude that Socrates was, after all, nothing but a sort of glorified Greek Paley, whose principal achievement was to present the popular ideas of his time on morals and politics under the form of a rather grovelling utilitarianism; and whose evidences of natural and revealed religion bore much the same relation to Greek mythology as the corresponding lucubrations of the worthy archdeacon bore to Christian theology? Even were this the whole truth, it should be remembered that there was an interval of twenty-three centuries between the two teachers, which ought to be taken due account of in estimating their relative importance. Socrates, with his closely-reasoned, vividly-illustrated ethical125 expositions, had gained a tactical advantage over the vague declamations of Gnomic poetry and the isolated aphorisms of the Seven Sages, comparable to that possessed by Xenophon and his Ten Thousand in dealing with the unwieldy masses of Persian infantry and the undisciplined mountaineers of Carduchia; while his idea of a uniformly beneficent Creator marked a still greater advance on the jealous divinities of Herodotus. On the other hand, as against Hume and Bentham, Paleys pseudo-scientific paraphernalia were like the muskets and cannon of an Asiatic army when confronted by the English conquerors of India. Yet had Socrates done no more than contributed to philosophy the idea just alluded to, his place in the evolution of thought, though honourable, would not have been what it is justly held to beunique."Later on he is called to the Corner House, where he is received by the Spanish lady, and then he has to handle a man in the last stage of collapse. The latter part of the plot is your own, and from an artistic point of view, a great improvement on mine. Murder and robbery make a fine combination. You had previously arranged the proceedings, the notes and their numbers--adopted or suggested doubtless by you as a precaution--the letter to Ren Lalage and all to be found on the body. If you can plant those numbered notes on Bruce, then he is ruined for all time.
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great