Part 9

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the art of medicine;--has not the mind which voluntarily works harm to the body, more of the healing art?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then in the art of medicine the voluntary is better than the involuntary?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, and in lute-playing and in flute-playing, and in all arts and sciences, is not that mind the better which voluntarily does what is evil and dishonourable, and goes wrong, and is not the worse that which does so involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the characters of slaves? Should we not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and are they not better in their mistakes than those who commit them involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And should we not desire to have our own minds in the best state possible?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And will our minds be better if they do wrong and make mistakes voluntarily or involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that those who do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong involuntarily!

SOCRATES: And yet that appears to be the only inference.

HIPPIAS: I do not think so.

SOCRATES: But I imagined, Hippias, that you did. Please to answer once more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both? Must not justice, at all events, be one of these?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if justice is a power of the soul, then the soul which has the greater power is also the more just; for that which has the greater power, my good friend, has been proved by us to be the better.

HIPPIAS: Yes, that has been proved.

SOCRATES: And if justice is knowledge, then the wiser will be the juster soul, and the more ignorant the more unjust?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if justice be power as well as knowledge--then will not the soul which has both knowledge and power be the more just, and that which is the more ignorant be the more unjust? Must it not be so?

HIPPIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And is not the soul which has the greater power and wisdom also better, and better able to do both good and evil in every action?

HIPPIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The soul, then, which acts ill, acts voluntarily by power and art--and these either one or both of them are elements of justice?

HIPPIAS: That seems to be true.

SOCRATES: And to do injustice is to do ill, and not to do injustice is to do well?

HIPPIAS: Yes.