Part 61

Socr. He, therefore, who is punished is freed from a vice of the soul.

Pol. Yes.

Socr. Is he not freed, then, from the greatest evil? Consider the matter thus: in the condition of a man’s property do you perceive any other evil than poverty?

Pol. No other than poverty.

Socr. Well, in the constitution of the body? would you say that weakness, disease, deformity, and the like, are evils?

Pol. I should.

Socr. Do you not think, too, that there is a certain depravity in the soul?

Pol. How otherwise?

Socr. Do you not then call this injustice, ignorance, cowardice, and the like?

Pol. Certainly.

Socr. Have you not said, then, that of these three, property, body, and soul, there are three corresponding evils, poverty, disease, injustice?

Pol. Yes.

Socr. Then which of these evils is the most base? Is it not injustice, and, in a word, the depravity of the soul?

Pol. By far.

Socr. But, if it is most base, then is it not also the worst?

Pol. How mean you, Socrates?

73. Socr. Thus. In every case, that which is most base is so because, from what has been before admitted, it occasions the greatest pain, or harm, or both.

Pol. By all means.

Socr. But injustice and the whole depravity of the soul, have been just now admitted by us to be most base.

Pol. They have been so admitted.

Socr. Is it not, therefore, the most troublesome and most base of these depravities, because it exceeds either in troublesomeness or hurtfulness, or both?

Pol. Necessarily so.

Socr. Is then the being unjust, intemperate, cowardly, and ignorant, more painful than to be poor and diseased?

Pol. It does not appear so to me, Socrates, from what has been said.

Socr. The depravity of the soul, then, is the most base of all, because it exceeds the others by some extraordinarily great harm and wonderful evil, since, according to your argument, it is not exceeded in painfulness.

Pol. So it appears.

Socr. But, surely, that which exceeds in the greatest harmfulness must be the greatest evil of all?

Pol. Yes.