republic (books 1 - 5)   

or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his
right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.

True.

Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I
am by no means to make the return?

Certainly not.

When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was jus-
tice, he did not mean to include that case?

Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to
do good to a friend, and never evil.

You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to
the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not
the repayment of a debt--that is what you would imagine him
to say?

Yes.

And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?

To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them;
and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due
or proper to him--that is to say, evil.

Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to
have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant
to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to
him, and this he termed a debt.

That must have been his meaning, he said.

By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper
thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you
think that he would make to us?

He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat
and drink to human bodies.

And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to
what?

Seasoning to food.

And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?

If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the
preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to
friends and evil to enemies.

That is his meaning, then?

I think so.

And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his
enemies in time of sickness?

The physician.

Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?