prey of absolute rule. What are lies, murder, treason, the selling of his native city to him! To people of this turn of mind the meaning of justice was extremely difficult to understand, nay, it was looked upon as something incredible; "the just" tantamount among the Grecks to “the saint" among Christians. But when Socrates was so bold as to say, "The most virtuous man is the happiest," they did not trust their ears; they fancied that they heard a madman speak. For to complete the picture of the happiest, every nobleman had in his mind the consummate arbitrariness and mischievousness of the tyrant, who sacrifices everything and everybody to his own presumptuousness and lust. Among people who secretly and gently raved about such happiness, the veneration of the State could, indeed, not be rooted too deeply,—but I think that people whose passion for power does not rage as blindly as did that of the nobleborn Greeks, are no longer in need of that idolatry of “State," whereby, in times of yore, that passion was kept in check.
200
Endurance of poverty.—There is one great advantage in noble extraction in that it makes poverty more endurable.
201
Future of the nobility.—The demeanour of high-born people indicates that in their bodies the consciousness
