There are rules in philosophy that are both false and weak.  The example that is proposed to us for preferring private utility before faith given, has not weight enough by the circumstances they put to it; robbers have seized you, and after having made you swear to pay them a certain sum of money, dismiss you.  ’Tis not well done to say, that an honest man can be quit of his oath without payment, being out of their hands.  ’Tis no such thing:  what fear has once made me willing to do, I am obliged to do it when I am no longer in fear; and though that fear only prevailed with my tongue without forcing my will, yet am I bound to keep my word.  For my part, when my tongue has sometimes inconsiderately said something that I did not think, I have made a conscience of disowning it:  otherwise, by degrees, we shall abolish all the right another derives from our promises and oaths: 

“Quasi vero forti viro vis possit adhiberi.”

          ["As though a man of true courage could be compelled.” 
          —­Cicero, De Offic., iii. 30.]

And ’tis only lawful, upon the account of private interest, to excuse breach of promise, when we have promised something that is unlawful and wicked in itself; for the right of virtue ought to take place of the right of any obligation of ours.

I have formerly placed Epaminondas in the first rank of excellent men, and do not repent it.  How high did he stretch the consideration of his own particular duty? he who never killed a man whom he had overcome; who, for the inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his country, made conscience of killing a tyrant or his accomplices without due form of justice:  and who concluded him to be a wicked man, how good a citizen soever otherwise, who amongst his enemies in battle spared not his friend and his guest.  This was a soul of a rich composition:  he married goodness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest and most delicate in the whole school of philosophy, to the roughest and most violent human actions.  Was it nature or art that had intenerated that great courage of his, so full, so obstinate against pain and death and poverty, to such an extreme degree of sweetness and compassion?  Dreadful in arms and blood, he overran and subdued a nation invincible by all others but by him alone; and yet in the heat of an encounter, could turn aside from his friend and guest.  Certainly he was fit to command in war who could so rein himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and heat of his fury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood and slaughter.  ’Tis a miracle to be able to mix any image of justice with such violent actions:  and it was only possible for such a steadfastness of mind as that of Epaminondas therein to mix sweetness and the facility of the gentlest manners and purest innocence.  And whereas one told the Mamertini that statutes were of no efficacy against armed men; and another told the tribune of the people that the time of justice