gorgias   

Soc. And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate and

indifferent?

Pol. To be sure, Socrates.

Soc. Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods,

and their opposites evils?

Pol. I should.

Soc. And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which

partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or

of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again,

wood, stones, and the like:-these are the things which you call

neither good nor evil?

Pol. Exactly so.

Soc. Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good,

or the good for the sake of the indifferent?

Pol. Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.

Soc. When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the

idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for

the sake of the good?

Pol. Yes.

Soc. And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil

him of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?

Pol. Certainly.

Soc. Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the

good?

Pol. Yes.

Soc. And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of

something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that

other thing for the sake of which we do them?

Pol. Most true.

Soc. Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or

to despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces

to our good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not