Justice requested

Reason requires those who are truly pious and philosophical to honor and love truth alone, refusing to follow the opinions of the ancients when they are bad. For sound reason requires not only that we refuse to follow those who have acted unjustly or taught what is wrong; the lover of truth must, by every means and even when threatened with death, choose to say and do what is right rather than preserve his own life. Everywhere you hear yourselves called pious and philosophers, guardians of justice and lovers of learning. Whether you truly are will now be shown. We have come not to flatter you in these writings or speak merely to please you, but to ask you to make your judgment according to strict and searching reason, without being controlled by prejudice, by a desire to please superstitious people, by irrational impulse, or by a long-established bad rumor, and so cast a vote against yourselves. For we have concluded that we can suffer no evil from anyone unless we are proved to be workers of wickedness or shown to be evil. You can kill us, but you cannot harm us.