(V. i. 104.)
But the argument is the same in both cases, and if it does not excuse self-murder, still less does it excuse the murder of others.
The truth is that Brutus, though he personates the philosopher, is less of one than he thinks. It is not his philosophy but his character that gives him strength to bear the grief of Portia’s death; as Cassius says:
I have as much of this in art as you,
But yet my nature could not bear it so.
(IV. iii. 194.)
At the end he casts his philosophy to the winds rather than go bound to Rome: he “bears too great a mind” (v. i. 113). And just as on these occasions he is independent or regardless of it, so here he tampers with it to get the verdict that is required. For even in his own eyes he has to play the part of the ideally wise and virtuous man; and though the obligations of descent and position, the consideration in which he is held, the urgings of a malcontent, and (as he believes not altogether without reason) the expectations formed of him by his fellow citizens, supply his real motives for the murder, he needs to give it the form of ideal virtue and wisdom before he can proceed to it.
Now, however, he persuades himself that he has the sanction of reason and conscience, and he acts on the persuasion. His hesitations are gone. He can face without wincing the horror of conspiracy. With an impassioned eloquence, which he nowhere else displays, he can lift the others to the level of his own views. No doubts or scruples becloud his enthusiasm now.
If not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse—