generally regarded as unattainable, and that mankind will by no means agree
in thinking that the criminal is happier when punished than when
unpunished, any more than they would agree to the stoical paradox that a
man may be happy on the rack, Plato has already admitted that the world is
against him. Neither does he mean to say that Archelaus is tormented by
the stings of conscience; or that the sensations of the impaled criminal
are more agreeable than those of the tyrant drowned in luxurious enjoyment.
Neither is he speaking, as in the Protagoras, of virtue as a calculation of
pleasure, an opinion which he afterwards repudiates in the Phaedo. What
then is his meaning? His meaning we shall be able to illustrate best by
parallel notions, which, whether justifiable by logic or not, have always
existed among mankind. We must remind the reader that Socrates himself
implies that he will be understood or appreciated by very few.

He is speaking not of the consciousness of happiness, but of the idea of
happiness. When a martyr dies in a good cause, when a soldier falls in
battle, we do not suppose that death or wounds are without pain, or that
their physical suffering is always compensated by a mental satisfaction.
Still we regard them as happy, and we would a thousand times rather have
their death than a shameful life. Nor is this only because we believe that
they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of
glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will be
proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what is
right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we
regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates' friends in the
opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of
another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.' We are
not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or public
opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment in the
better part of human nature.