AT ALL COSTS WE MUST MAINTAIN THE CODE. In the end
it pays. The greatest genius must run the risk of drowning in the
endeavor to save the life of some unknown person who may be a worthless
scamp. He may die and the scamp live, a great loss to the world. But
only so can the code of honor be maintained which in the long run adds
so much positive joy to man and saves him from so much pain.
In most instances, though not in some of those cited, the reward of
justice and chivalry is sufficient for the individual himself. As
Socrates said to Theodoras, [Footnote: Plato, Theoetetus, 176.] "The
penalty of injustice cannot be escaped. They do not see, in their
infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other,
by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a
life answering to the pattern which they resemble." "On the other
hand,"-to supplement Plato with Emerson, [Footnote: Essays, First
Series: "Spiritual Laws." Cf. George Eliot, in Romola: "The
contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than
the hero the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed
and unloved. One knows it himself and is pledged by it to sweetness
of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better
proclamation of it than the relating of the incident." And, we may
add, a greater joy.]
But even in view of the cases where no apparent compensation comes
to the individual, the ideals of justice and chivalry, like the more
general concept of duty, are among the most valuable possessions of
man's fashioning.
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