The Gorgias by Plato. - HTML preview

92

Platos Gorgias

SOCRATES: Then they do not exceed in pain?

POLUS: True.

POLUS: No.

SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear SOCRATES: But if not in pain, then not in both?

not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician POLUS: Certainly not.

without shrinking, and either say Yes or No to me.

SOCRATES: Then they can only exceed in the other?

POLUS: I should say No.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?

SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?

POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, POLUS: True.

Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?

nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two.

POLUS: Clearly.

POLUS: That is the conclusion.

SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?

SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the POLUS: Yes.

exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me,I have no SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?

need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless 93

Platos Gorgias

of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a that which is struck will he struck violently or quickly?

guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I sup-POLUS: True.

posed. Consider:You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of wrong?

the same nature as the act of him who strikes?

POLUS: I should.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things SOCRATES: And if a man burns, there is something which are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, is burned?

and tell me your opinion.

POLUS: Certainly.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.

SOCRATES: And if he burns in excess or so as to cause SOCRATES: Consider again:Where there is an agent, pain, the thing burned will be burned in the same way?

must there not also be a patient?

POLUS: Truly.

POLUS: I should say so.

SOCRATES: And if he cuts, the same argument holds

SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the there will be something cut?

agent does, and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there POLUS: Yes.

must be something which is stricken?

SOCRATES: And if the cutting be great or deep or such as POLUS: Yes.

will cause pain, the cut will be of the same nature?