Gorgias
or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But then again, what was the observation which you just now
made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering
wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?
POLUS: I did.
SOCRATES: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the
more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in
evil or both: does not that also follow?
POLUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice
exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer
more than the injured?
POLUS: No, Socrates; certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain?
POLUS: No.
SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both?
POLUS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will
therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do
injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to
a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm
if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as
to a physician without shrinking, and either say “Yes” or “No” to me.
POLUS: I should say “No.”
SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?
POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any
man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the
greater evil of the two.
POLUS: That is the conclusion.
SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of
refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of
myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness
are enough for me,—I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage,
and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed
to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a
guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to
escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:—You
would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly
corrected when you do wrong?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable
in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your
opinion.
POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.
SOCRATES: Consider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also
be a patient?
POLUS: I should say so.
SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does,
and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for
example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is
stricken?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which
is struck will be struck violently or quickly?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same
nature as the act of him who strikes?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which is burned?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause pain, the thing
burned will be burned in the same way?
POLUS: Truly.
SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds—there will be
something cut?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as will cause
pain, the cut will be of the same nature?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Then you would agree generally to the universal proposition
which I was just now asserting: that the affection of the patient
answers to the affection of the agent?
POLUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: Then, as this is admitted, let me ask whether being punished
is suffering or acting?
POLUS: Suffering, Socrates; there can be no doubt of that.
SOCRATES: And suffering implies an agent?
POLUS: Certainly, Socrates; and he is the punisher.
SOCRATES: And he who punishes rightly, punishes justly?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And therefore he acts justly?
POLUS: Justly.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished and suffers retribution, suffers
justly?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: And that which is just has been admitted to be honourable?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the punisher does what is honourable, and the punished
suffers what is honourable?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And if what is honourable, then what is good, for the
honourable is either pleasant or useful?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished suffers what is good?
POLUS: That is true.
SOCRATES: Then he is benefited?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Do I understand you to mean what I mean by the term
“benefited”? I mean, that if he be justly punished his soul is
improved.
POLUS: Surely.
SOCRATES: Then he who is punished is delivered from the evil of his
soul?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is he not then delivered from the greatest evil? Look at
the matter in this way:—In respect of a man’s estate, do you see any
greater evil than poverty?
POLUS: There is no greater evil.
SOCRATES: Again, in a man’s bodily frame, you would say that the evil
is weakness and disease and deformity?
POLUS: I should.
SOCRATES: And do you not imagine that the soul likewise has some evil
of her own?
POLUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And this you would call injustice and ignorance and
cowardice, and the like?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: So then, in mind, body, and estate, which are three, you have
pointed out three corresponding evils—injustice, disease, poverty?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And which of the evils is the most disgraceful?—Is not the
most disgraceful of them injustice, and in general the evil of the
soul?
POLUS: By far the most.
SOCRATES: And if the most disgraceful, then also the worst?
POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean to say, that is most disgraceful has been already
admitted to be most painful or hurtful, or both.
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And now injustice and all evil in the soul has been admitted
by us to be most disgraceful?
POLUS: It has been admitted.
SOCRATES: And most disgraceful either because most painful and causing
excessive pain, or most hurtful, or both?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And therefore to be unjust and intemperate, and cowardly and
ignorant, is more painful than to be poor and sick?
POLUS: Nay, Socrates; the painfulness does not appear to me to follow
from your premises.
SOCRATES: Then, if, as you would argue, not more painful, the evil of
the soul is of all evils the most disgraceful; and the excess of
disgrace must be caused by some preternatural greatness, or
extraordinary hurtfulness of the evil.
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And that which exceeds most in hurtfulness will be the
greatest of evils?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then injustice and intemperance, and in general the depravity
of the soul, are the greatest of evils?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Now, what art is there which delivers us from poverty? Does
not the art of making money?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what art frees us from disease? Does not the art of
medicine?
POLUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And what from vice and injustice? If you are not able to
answer at once, ask yourself whither we go with the sick, and to whom
we take them.
POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And to whom do we go with the unjust and intemperate?
POLUS: To the judges, you mean.
SOCRATES: —Who are to punish them?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And do not those who rightly punish others, punish them in
accordance with a certain rule of justice?
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Then the art of money-making frees a man from poverty;
medicine from disease; and justice from intemperance and injustice?
POLUS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Which, then, is the best of these three?
POLUS: Will you enumerate them?
SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, and justice.
POLUS: Justice, Socrates, far excels the two others.
SOCRATES: And justice, if the best, gives the greatest pleasure or
advantage or both?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But is the being healed a pleasant thing, and are those who
are being healed pleased?
POLUS: I think not.
SOCRATES: A useful thing, then?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, because the patient is delivered from a great evil; and
this is the advantage of enduring the pain—that you get well?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who
is healed, or who never was out of health?
POLUS: Clearly he who was never out of health.
SOCRATES: Yes; for happiness surely does not consist in being delivered
from evils, but in never having had them.
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And suppose the case of two persons who have some evil in
their bodies, and that one of them is healed and delivered from evil,
and another is not healed, but retains the evil—which of them is the
most miserable?
POLUS: Clearly he who is not healed.
SOCRATES: And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from
the greatest of evils, which is vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the
medicine of our vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: He, then, has the first place in the scale of happiness who
has never had vice in his soul; for this has been shown to be the
greatest of evils.
POLUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and
punishment?
POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no
deliverance from injustice?
POLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: That is, he lives worst who commits the greatest crimes, and
who, being the most unjust of men, succeeds in escaping rebuke or
correction or punishment; and this, as you say, has been accomplished
by Archelaus and other tyrants and rhetoricians and potentates?
(Compare Republic.)
POLUS: True.
SOCRATES: May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to
the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and
yet contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins
against his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child,
he is afraid of the pain of being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel
case?
POLUS: Yes, truly.
SOCRATES: He would seem as if he did not know the nature of health and
bodily vigour; and if we are right, Polus, in our previous conclusions,
they are in a like case who strive to evade justice, which they see to
be painful, but are blind to the advantage which ensues from it, not
knowing how far more miserable a companion a diseased soul is than a
diseased body; a soul, I say, which is corrupt and unrighteous and
unholy. And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to
avoid being released from the greatest of evils; they provide
themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their
powers of persuasion. But if we, Polus, are right, do you see what
follows, or shall we draw out the consequences in form?
POLUS: If you please.
SOCRATES: Is it not a fact that injustice, and the doing of injustice,
is the greatest of evils?
POLUS: That is quite clear.
SOCRATES: And further, that to suffer punishment is the way to be
released from this evil?
POLUS: True.