gorgias   

another is not healed, but retains the evil-which of them is the

most miserable?

Pol. Clearly he who is not healed.

Soc. And was not punishment said by us to be a deliverance from

the greatest of evils, which is vice?

Pol. True.

Soc. And justice punishes us, and makes us more just, and is the

medicine of our vice?

Pol. True.

Soc. 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.

Pol. Clearly.

Soc. And he has the second place, who is delivered from vice?

Pol. True.

Soc. That is to say, he who receives admonition and rebuke and

punishment?

Pol. Yes.

Soc. Then he lives worst, who, having been unjust, has no

deliverance from injustice?

Pol. Certainly.

Soc. 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?

Pol. True.

Soc. 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