"But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things, why in either case should we mind about concealment?"[67] Besides, the greatest prizes, not only in material goods, but even in the line of reputation, seemed to fall to the individualist if he could only act on a sufficiently large scale. He could then be both prosperous and "respectable." If he could steal the government, or, in modern phrase, bribe a legislature to elect him to Congress, pass special legislation, or grant a franchise, he could not merely escape punishment, but be honored by his fellows. "I am speaking of injustice on a large scale, in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent, and my meaning will be most clearly seen in that highest form of injustice, the perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers of these who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable--I mean tyranny which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not retail but wholesale; comprehending in one things sacred as well as profane, private and public, for any one of which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly, he would be punished and incur great dishonor; for they who are guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then instead of these dishonorable names, he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest."[68] § 4. INDIVIDUALISM AND ETHICAL THEORY