NOTES
 (URWWW refers to the title of the work.)

(1) URWWW is premised on Justinian’s need to stop the massive number of suicides happening in the world, where men have lost their value for life . This is almost certainly a symbol serving the allegory, not of actual suicide, but of a general spiritual suicide. The reader might do well to consider this somehow prophetic of future suicide in connection with other works of fiction from later centuries. The most notable example comes from the book of short stories The King In Yellow (Chambers, 1895), which has received some attention recently when it was referenced by the HBO series True Detective, within the larger scope of the Yellow Sign mythos.

In the story ‘The Repairer of Reputations’ from this compilation, we are presented with a dystopian alternate New York City of the 1920s that features suicide laws and ‘lethal chambers’ for public use, the first of which is unveiled across from Washington Square.

In a sequel to this story, these chambers are later called ‘suicide chambers’. These works would later influence Sheckley’s depiction of assisted suicide in his 1958 novel Immortality, Inc., which served as an inspiration for the pilot episode of Futurama (1999) in which a human society in the year 3000 has ‘suicide booths’ on every corner.

Most recently, Australian inventor Phillip Nitschke unveiled a real suicide pod in Denmark, called the Sarco, a 3D-printed euthanasia device featuring a pod which becomes a detachable coffin. The pod works by dispensing 4 liters of nitrogen to drop the oxygen level in the pod to less than 5% within sixty seconds. Death is said to be rapid and painless. Access to the use of the Sarco will be regulated, and prospective euthanasia patients must first be qualified by an online questionnaire. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_device)

As of December 2020, assisted suicide is legal in Denmark, Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, parts of Australia, Spain, and Canada.

(2) The original language says: “Apollo gave the charge of the Universal Reformation to the Seven Wise Men of Greece, who are of great repute in Parnassus, and are conceived by all men to have found the receipt of washing blackmoors white, which antiquity labored after in vain.”

This is a reference to the Fables of Aesop (620 - 564 B.C.), namely the story ‘Washing the Ethiopian White’, sometimes alternatively translated as ‘Washing the Blackmoor White’. The fable concerns a black slave who, wishing to be like his white master, goes about trying to wash the blackness from his skin until he becomes ill (in some accounts he perishes). Therefore, the reference in URWWW is to the impossibility of changing the fundamental nature we are given.

The racist implications are clear, and later interpretations and commentaries focused on the broader idea that ‘we must play with the cards we’re dealt’. Bewick states: “What’s bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh.” By the 20th century, Aesop’s fable had been taken up in more politically correct companion fables such as ‘The Raven and The Swan’, opting for zootypes instead of human characters.

It is important to realize that the implications for the Rosicrucian tale are that the Seven Wise Men of Greece truly had the alchemical knowledge to transmute the nature of substances, and therefore had ‘washed the blackmoor white’. Thus URWWW is about a group of initiated men who believe themselves to be called on by God to change the fundamental nature of mankind, transmuting it beyond its gross impurities to a state of perfection.

(3) This dating speaks to Exodus 22:2: “This month is for you the head of the months, it is first for you of the months of the year.” Of course, this refers to the Jewish holy month, Nissan, and the 14th day of this month begins Passover. I’m not certain on the significance the ‘fourteenth day of the last month’ has in URWWW. I wished to point this out due to its connection to the lunar calendar, the sighting of the ‘new moon’ in Jerusalem, and the likely reference being made here to Exodus and its imagery of liberation.

The fact that the meeting in URWWW takes place on the corresponding day of Passover, but of the ‘last month’ as opposed to the first, could signify something like ‘passing over from the end of an age’. Given the ritual significance of Passover, it signifies a sacrifice to be made in faith and gratitude for such liberation. There is a clear connection being established between Passover and URWWW, which speaks to a sacrifice to be endured by mankind for the sake of purification. The concern of URWWW is how it ought to be done, as well as the secret society of initiates which will guide the drawing of its architecture.

(4) This phrase from Cleobulus is perhaps the most revealing in the document as it concerns later suspicions about Rosicrucians and their secrecy. It could be that they circulated this satire as an exoteric means of concealing their true, long-term intentions: not that they’d attempt any of these recommendations given to Apollo individually, but to eventually enact them all as part of a more comprehensive initiative.

(5) Here, Thales is being portrayed as attempting to manipulate the demand for peas and black cherries; it is said that Aristotle recounted a year where the actual Thales had used some means to know that a particularly good harvest of olives was coming that year. In advance, he rented all of the olive presses in Miletus ahead of time, earning him a discounted price on the rentals. When the especially productive olive harvest arrived, Thales was in a position to sublease the presses at a premium as demand for olives peaked. Hence, URWWW is making an explicit jab at the philosopher Thales, while at the same time issuing a more implicit critique of philosophers generally.

In URWWW, Thales was certain not to let the opportunity for profit pass him by. By increasing the ‘measure’ for these two crops, buyers would now collect a higher volume for a given price, increasing the demand. The joke implies that Thales would somehow opportunistically seize on this ‘future’, like he did with the olives, notwithstanding the council’s utter failure to do anything morally meaningful. Ultimately, the irony is meant to echo the sentiment expressed in the final sentences of the story - that all men are vicious.

 Pt. 3

Periander spoke:

“If four out of five sick patients perishes because a Doctor was unable to identify the disease, we’d excuse the Doctor for this. But we here at this council are judged by Apollo to be the true salt of this earth. That we should not have the wherewithal to diagnose the source of the evil that plagues our generation is a true shame upon us. It’s made worse because this malady is not some small, creeping germ deep in the veins of our belly, but instead a disease so superficial that it is obvious to all men! Still, it seems to me you are looking everywhere besides where the sickness truly is.

The vices of the powerful are what throw this world into confusion. Yet here you desire to reform the issues of small men and think this will be sufficient to rescue us? It cannot be the vices of small men that have so depraved our generation, because one need only look to see the multitude of laws and statutes providing every possible fitting punishment - these are the laws reigning over small men, and to them they are so obedient that a few judges and lawyers have made the millions tremble. Among the normal people there is such a natural peace of calm waters that the rich cannot risk to oppress them, except in the most subtle ways, else risk their own necks by stirring the waters! Look how everyone of them walks safely to and fro, even with gold in their pockets, down the highways.

The real scandal of our present hour is the sword that the powerful have wielded over the States. Such is the double-standard that fills the world with hatred! The power of these few attracts the attention of the common people, and seeing their ruthless ambition, which the latter aims to mimic, the public scene becomes a veritable war. Love that we’d otherwise give to our neighbors, which all animals grant unto their own species, disappears as we begin to turn on each other, just as whole nations turn on their neighbors. Our fellow people cease to appear like brothers, but instead appear as villainous creatures. It is by the trickle-down of strategy and sword-swinging from the highest offices of power that everyday people now behave with the instincts of beasts, seeking any and all means to oppress anyone identified as weaker.

It isn’t as though we lack the proper categories for labeling wrongdoing under the law. Rather, they have multiplied so unnaturally as to be uncountable! There is no sane man who doubts that theft is wicked, but such things are today so meticulously persecuted by laws on books that so much as stealing a single chicken egg becomes a capital fault! Yet, when the powerful use loopholes and bylaws and institutions to steal a man’s entire income or estate, this is not seen as a crime, but as a noble profession!

And what recourse have the masses? I ask you! To take a kingdom from a King is no small business, it upsets all the kingdom, and it cannot be done by one man alone. So they gather to effect the recovery of their land from the tyrant, and previously law-abiding men, in order to avoid the shame of being called thieves, change their names from thieves to ‘gallant men’, each becoming a hero. What truly aggravates this evil is that even Good Princes are forced to defend their estates from classes of ravenous ideologues who are inflamed by the examples of other revolutions! So the Ruler has his reprisal and the uprising is snuffed, but only for a time until lured again by the antagonism of instigators, the rabble return to their shameful revolutionary trade.

Such methods of inciting cycles of plunder and reprisal in kingdoms has become a reputable art form.

Today, instead of contemplating the miracles of Heaven and of Nature, man turns himself to the worship of cunning strategists and players of games. So he also takes up his hands to harm others, when those hands were created to work the earth. I say the remedy to our ills is the limitation of power. Princes who scapegoat the law and who use such tactics must be removed. The size of governments must be limited, and the powers of its offices checked. Instigators against just government must be culled. Kingdoms that grow too large cannot apply the degree of care that their leaders owe to their people or to themselves. Never was there a vast monarchy that was not eventually lost to the negligence of its leaders. The consolidation of power is our enemy.”

To this, Solon returned:

“We did not omit what you have called our attention to because we are ignorant, but because we are prudent. These problems you speak of began when the world of man was born! They cannot be eliminated by us sooner than a Doctor could restore the vision of someone born blind. As reformers, we might have prevented the abuses of which you speak if we’d caught them in the first hour, but this corruption is so deeply rooted that treating it in this late hour risks promoting even greater chaos.

What we are here to do is call attention to the corruptions of private men and to be silent as it concerns Princes, because those powerful men have no superiors on earth. They have but one superior who is the Almighty. It is God that has given Princes the prerogative to command, and likewise to us the glory to obey them. The ruled can only correct the faults of their Rulers through Godly living. The hearts of Princes are in the very hands of the Almighty, so that when God sees the People deserve ill, He raises up a Pharaoh for them. Likewise, when people are obedient to God, he softens the hearts of rulers.”

Solon finished, and his opinion was commended by all of the hearers.

But, Cato the Elder interjected:

“Wise Grecians, you do seem to have discovered all the wounds of our age, but I say that the disease is so established, so old and enduring, that the constitution of our race has simply given out. Good Doctors, your patient yet spits blood and putrid things, and the hair falls from his head! A Doctor is at a loss when the medicine he uses to treat one organ becomes damaging to another. Our afflictions are in every organ, and they’re equal in number to the stars in Heaven! This patient is beyond help.

Our only recourse is to prayer and the Divine help that we implore from the grace of God. In the past, when mankind had sunk into a similar disorder, it was God who sent the Flood to wipe them from the face of the world. Similarly, when a man sees that the walls of his house are collapsing, and the foundation is ready to break, he is wiser to pull down the house and begin again, than to waste his time patching it. So I pray to the Almighty, and I counsel you to do the same, that He might open up the skies again and bring another flood. Incidentally, on the new Ark that is to be made, I think it better that no women are allowed on it, and that afterward all men of the world reproduce asexually. I have learned with utter certainty that so long as there are women in the world, men will be wicked.”

The whole council rose into a clamor, with most tossing themselves to the ground and some holding their hands toward Heaven, praying humbly to God to not only preserve women, but also to refrain from sending a flood. Cato’s opinion was unanimously rejected.

Then Seneca spoke:

“Wise men, we do not need to deal so roughly to succeed in our Universal Reformation, despite your insistence otherwise. As the disorder of the world has grown to such a great height, we ought to approach it with a careful hand. There can be no worse humiliation to the Doctor than when his patient dies with his prescription still in his body. All men shall look and say that the medicine itself was the death-dealer. Going from one extreme to another is rash. A wise man recognizes that it is in the nature of mankind to resist sudden mutation. If it is true, then, that his nature has been failing for thousands of years, only a fool would believe it could be restored in a couple days.

In an effective Reformation, the qualities of the ones doing the reforming must be matched to the qualities of those who are being reformed. As philosophers, we might have succeeded if the only ones in need of reforming were printers, paper sellers and ink-spillers. For us to fix the faults of other domains would undoubtedly introduce other faults. The shoe cobbler does not correct the painter. It is just the conceit of the intelligentsia to pretend to know more than they know. Truthfully, we philosophers are out of line the moment we take our heads out of our books!

The only ones to do the Reforming are those who are intimately acquainted with the vices they are dealing with. Nothing could make a man refuse to hear instruction more than a teacher who doesn’t know what he is talking about. Which of you on this council is acquainted with the particular corruptions of judges, attorneys, pharmacists, tailors, cobblers, butchers, or any of a thousand other vocations? And yet here we are to correct the errors of them all?!

The Reformation can only proceed properly when navigation is given over to sailors, when war is given over to soldiers, the sheep to the shepherds, and the steer to the herdsman. It can only be from out of bitterness if you think there aren’t at least three or four honest men in these professions, and to them I say it must be given to correct their own trade. This is the only way.”

Pittachus and Chilo praised this speech, saying that it was impossible to find a better solution. The others hated Seneca’s opinion, and they rebuked him for dishonoring Apollo, who had thought their group sufficient for the business at hand. They said it was very unwise to begin the Reformation by admitting to their weakness, for it is the very spirit of business that depends on the reputations of businessmen! They could not believe that this cherished sage of the Latins would have been so dismissive of the jurisdiction given to their council by the gods.

At this moment a depression came over the council. Despite their disagreement with Seneca, they knew the honor of his opinion meant there was small hope for their Reformation to go through. So far, they had relied very little on Mazzoni because he was a novice among them. Mazzoni was aware of this, but not letting it discourage him, he stood and finally spoke up:

“I understand Apollo did not admit me to this revered congregation on account of my merit, but only out of his graciousness. Until now I’ve thought it more appropriate for me to listen, rather than speak, but now I’d like to speak about a business with which I am so versed that I dare say I am the only expert present here. You all seem to me like Doctors who waste time in consulting and disputing, yet you’ve never even seen the sick party! Your goal is to cure the present age, and while you have all been laying out your reasons for the sickness, none of you has been so wise to go and see the sick party!

I advise that we send for the present Age to come before us so that we can examine him. If we are able to question the Age and perhaps see his diseased parts naked, the cure will be easy.”

The whole group was so taken by Mazzoni’s motion that they immediately asked for the present Age to be called before them. So the Age was called to the palace at Delphi. The council took a moment to appreciate him. He was a man of many years, but he possessed such a strong complexion that they thought he might live many ages longer. He was, however, short of breath and his voice was weak. This made the philosophers curious because his reddish face was a sign of natural vigor, and so they couldn’t understand why the Age was so feeble.

They said to him: “A hundred years ago, your face was so yellow that you appeared to have jaundice, yet back then you spoke strongly and seemed better than you are now. Please, tell us what grieves you.”

The Age answered:

“Soon after I was born, this sickness fell upon me. My face is fresh and red because people have colored it with pigments. In a way, my sickness is like the ebbing and flowing of the sea. It always contains the same water, though it rises and falls. When my looks are outwardly good, my disease is greater inside, as it is now. When my face looks ill, I am the best within. As for what torments me, you only need to remove my jacket to see that people have used it to cover a rotten carcass. Take off my jacket and view me as I was made by nature.”

So the philosophers stripped off the Age’s jacket and found a wretch covered everywhere with four inches thick of scale. The men called for razors to be brought in, and they took to shaving off the plaque with great care, but it had so far eaten into the giant’s bones that not a single piece of good flesh remained.

A wave of despair swept over the council of men, and they put the patient’s clothes back on and dismissed him. Shortly, they concluded that the disease was incurable. So they shut themselves up in the palace for a time, abandoning the case of the public welfare and resolving instead to secure the safety of their reputations. Mazzoni was writing down what the rest of the reformers were dictating to him, a Manifesto perhaps, where they determined to tell the world about the great care Apollo showed for his virtuous men of esteem; also, his care for the well-being of mankind.

In the Manifesto, they set the market price of sardines, cabbages, and pumpkins, as well as some other commodities. They had just underwritten this document when Thales reminded them that certain peddlers, who sold peas and black cherries, were selling in such small volumes that it would be shameful not to adjust the market favorably here (5). The assembly thanked Thales and added to the Manifesto that the volume for sale of those goods should be increased. Then they threw open the palace doors and read the Reformation out to the throngs of people who’d gathered in the marketplace. The announcement was so applauded that the whole city rang with the clamor of joy.

For the masses have always been satisfied by trifles, while men of judgment know that as long as there be men, there will be vices - that men live on earth indeed not well, but as little ill as possible, and the height of human wisdom lies with having the discretion to be content leaving the world as we found it.

 Pt. 2

Thus, Solon spoke:

“Gentlemen, it is my opinion that what so confuses our present age is the poison of envy and the spite that comes from it. This spite is what reigns over men. Our only hope against it is to infuse mankind with the charity and affection that God commands. But, how do we remove all of the occasions to inspire man’s envy? How do we replace it with the instinctive reciprocity that animals exhibit to one another of the same species? I say that all of these occasions for envy arise from the disparity of means! Can you truly deny it? If we were to introduce the concept of personal property to the animals - this ‘whats mine, whats yours’ mentality - they would at once tear each other to shreds.

But having nothing of their own, look at the harmony in which the animals live! It is by the absence of personal property that we are blessed to preserve the peace. Indeed, God willed that mankind love on this earth in peace, not that the greedy should divide it up, making what is common to all of us become ‘whats mine, whats yours’. If it is true that greed is the source of inequality, then it is also true that all men are descended from the same parents, and so we are brethren: one and all. Therefore, each human brother ought to have a brother’s share.

But the disproportion of wealth is unimaginable. Some possess more than they can ever hope to manage while others have not enough to even begin managing. Adding salt to the wound, it is so often the case that the virtuous man winds up a beggar while the wicked and the ignorant become rich. Disparity, my friends, is the root. From it comes the fact that the rich injure the poor, and the poor envy the rich.

There is no better way to reform this age than the redivide the wealth of the world, allotting an equal share to everyone. To prevent the problem from arising again we should outlaw buying and selling. Let the many meet their individual needs according to the mother of all public peace: trade and barter, through which parity among goods is established invisibly.”

Solon’s opinion was the subject of a long debate, and it was swiftly laid aside when Seneca intervened shortly.

Seneca spoke:

“If there should ever come such a new division of the world as you have described, an even greater disorder would follow. Too much would fall into the possession of fools, and far too little into the hands of intelligent and capable men; you’d soon find that plague, famine, and war are not God’s most severe scourges. No, the greatest affliction God could put on mankind would be to enrich the vulgar masses, for all other plagues would follow from this in due course.”

Then Chilon spoke:

“Which of you wise philosophers cannot see that all of these mischiefs come from the lust of silver and gold? What wickedness will men not commit just to have a great deal of it? We must conclude that there is no better way to rid ourselves of this oppressive rot that to forever banish metals from the world. These are the occasion for all evil.”

There was a feeling within the council that Chilon’s opinion was correct but superficial. They concluded that man treasures silver and gold because, being a way to measure, they come to be the balance of all things. Man needs a metal to establish prices according to which he purchases what he thinks to be necessary. If there were no silver or gold, man would just find something to replace them, and deeming that new thing valuable, he would begin to covet it. One councilman reminded the rest of the case in the Indies, where they used cockle-shells for money. There they value shells more than gold or silver.

Then Cleobulus spoke:

“My masters, iron is responsible for our present condition, and you have only to banish it from the world. Surely gold and silver serve a necessary purpose, but iron, though it is meant for plows and spades, is fashioned by men into swords and daggers.”

The assembly judged this opinion to be very true, but concluded that in order to expel iron from the world would require taking up that very iron against men, for in order to resist them men had only to reach for their swords and armor. They felt, in the end, that it was wrong to multiply mischiefs, to cure one wound while simply creating another. After all, men still need their plows and spades.

Then Pittachus spoke:

“Most knowledgeable gentlemen, this world has grown deplorable because, rather than achieving things according to virtue, men take the shortcuts of vice. What’s more, this corrupted generation rewards them for it! It hands them the prizes that truly belong to the virtuous. This inversion of the natural way of things has become so established that people no longer can gain positions of status by meriting them. Instead, like thieves they sneak into the houses of honor by putting ladders up to its highest windows.

The way to reform this age is to make the most severe laws, by which we’ll compel men to be virtuous and ensure that whosoever intends to occupy dignified offices can only get there the hard way. We must block all of the crooked byways that ambitious hypocrites use to succeed, for they appear to be multiplying like locusts, spreading their contagion all over the world. When rascals are praised and mounted on the thrones of success, the danger is to virtue itself! No reasonable person can look at the mighty today and say for sure just how they got there.”

This opinion of Pittachus was highly praised by the assembly, and it would surely have been approved if Periander had not interjected.

Then Periander spoke:

“What Pittachus says is true, but the question we ought to be asking ourselves is why Princes, having such interest in the affairs of State, do not give these dignified offices to the ablest and most deserving men! Surely, it should be to their advantage to surround themselves with the most capable people. Instead we find them promoting filthy creatures from out of the mire, men having no worth or honor. But here I say: these can only be the opinions of men who have never themselves been Princes!

It is not for interests of the State that Princes neglect their subjects and deny ascendancy to their own children. Far be it from a Prince to destroy himself on account of blind fondness to his own servants, oh no. Princes do not act by chance, and their choices are not guided by passion or generosity, but instead by cold cunning and political skill. Of course we philosophers shall say that the best way to govern a kingdom is to give the highest offices to men of high merit! But the fact that almost no Princes take this advice is not on account of carelessness.

Princes prefer crude men without merit over highly principled men because men of principle are dangerous. No doubt, a Prince needs capable men to surround him, but they also require men who are faithful. It is so often the case that valorous men are taken by their own lofty principles sooner than they are taken by loyalty to the Prince. Most men overrate their worth, but the virtuosos place such a high honor on their own greatness that they believe they add to the Prince’s reputation, as opposed to being credited themselves by their lord’s graciousness. In course, valorous and principled men will prove their faith to their morals, when what it called for is faith in a man. Thus, a Prince seeks fidelity over accomplishment. When he stands in need of loyalty, there can be no more useful a servant than one whose loyalty can be purchased with gold. A man of principle is more difficult to buy.”

Then spoke Bias:

“The reason for the world’s depravity is because mankind has shamefully abandoned the laws God laid down when He bestowed each race with its respective part of the world. To ensure peace on earth, He put the French in France, Spaniards in Spain, Germans in Germany and demons into Hell. Yet greed has caused the men from some nations to enter into others. If God does nothing in vain, then it must have been purposeful that He put the Pyrenean mountains between Spain and Italy, the Alps between Italy and Germany, the Channel between France and England, and the Mediterranean between Africa and Europe.

The difficulties faced in passing the rivers and passages are the very signs that we ought to be content in the places we have been given. The Divine Wisdom knew that there would be war and incurable disease if man exceeded his given boundaries, and so He also confounded men in all their languages so that they’d even cease to speak the same tongue.

It is their boldness that caused the Romans to ruin the affairs of other men and so at the same time disrupt their own. Why could they not have been satisfied with the dominion over Italy that they’d been given? Our remedy, then, is to force every nation to return to their own countries. To prevent this problem in the future, we must tear down the bridges, smear the ways over the mountains, and make all the land more inaccessible to navigation, by the use of technology, than even Nature herself had made them. Further, we should institute the severest penalties, and no boats should pass from one nation to another across any river or sea.”

The council regarded Bias’s opinion with unusual attention, but they found it was not good. They said that the greatest problems between nations were not truly national, but the result of Princes that had so perfected the arts of dividing and conquering. They said that each nation possesses a certain manner, in terms of its resources and competencies, which gathered all up together were able to afford mankind a perfection not available to any one nation by itself. So travel must be necessary to gather all the wisdom of mankind, just as Ulysses had done by wandering. Moreover, they found the landscape so naturally given to certain ways of travelling, that by such routes spice flowers from Indonesia could flow into Italy in such large measure that an Italian might mistake them as having come from her own garden.

Thus, Cleobulus rose again:

“Gentlemen, by the diversity and extravagancy of our opinions, I sense that our Reformation business is impossible. If I may speak freely, I am frustrated. You all stand up to speak from the pulpit as though it were a bar stool, striving to impress us with your genius, rather than benefit the whole assembly by saying something sound. I’ve surveyed all of your opinions, and they are chimeras! What sophistical claptrap! Our chief concern should be that the solution is practical, and that it may do its work secretly (4) and be packaged in such a way as to be received cheerfully by those we shall reform. Otherwise, we risk deforming the world.

Take the case of a Doctor. We’d be justified to rebuke any Doctor that prescribes a medicine to his patient this is impossible to use, or which might afflict him more than the disease itself! The solutions you have all given so far are just the kind that would convince man he was beyond the hope of all care! Men must be cheerful, and they must have hope. The great Tacitus tell us that anyone who would cut down an old oak tree is ill-advised if they start at the top branches. Likewise, we cannot cut our grim overgrowth from the top; our method must be to lay the axe at the very root!

Therefore, the key to to the Reformation of the age consists in these few words: REWARD THE GOOD AND PUNISH THE BAD!”

Then Cleobulus returned to his seat, not aware that he had greatly offended Thales.

Thales returned:

“Look how you have so smugly dismissed the opinions of these esteemed gentlemen for nonsense, Cleobulus. I’d have thought you’d been about to deliver us some miraculous antidote from a faraway place! Instead, you’ve espoused both the easiest and most impossible solution that anyone could ever dream! Did you truly believe that any of us was unaware that our business depends upon rewarding the good and punishing the wicked!?

Dare I ask you to identify which among us, or anyone, is perfectly good? Who shall cast the first stone, Cleobulus? Who among us is exactly evil? I’d also like to know how you are able to discern what no man alive ever has: the way to tell true goodness from counterfeit. We live in an age when the wickedest are those who seem the best, and where actually good men are thought to be scandalous! It isn’t just Princes that do honor to cheaters and liars by listening to them. Look around you: nobody appears to have the sensibility but for the sweet music of liars!

It is clear that the Truth of a man’s virtues can only be known or rewarded by God, who sees all things, and by whom all vice is also discovered. There is no law that men could ever pass which wouldn’t offend someone, and who, in objecting to it, would not come to be labeled a devil in spite of their otherwise goodly lives.”

Thales’s rebuttal immensely satisfied the council, who at this point began to look at Periander. Thinking that this must mean they were waiting for his input, he rose up.