Socrates: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason?
Polus: I should.
Socrates: Laws and institutions also have no beauty in them except in so far as they are useful or pleasant or both?
Polus: I think not.
Socrates: And may not the same be said of the beauty of knowledge?
Polus: To be sure, Socrates; and I very much approve of your measuring beauty by the standard of pleasure and utility.
Socrates: And deformity or disgrace may be equally measured by the opposite standard of pain and evil?
Polus: Certainly.
Socrates: Then when of two beautiful things one exceeds in beauty, the measure of the excess is to be taken in one or both of these; that is to say, in pleasure or utility or both?
Polus: Very true.
Socrates: And of two deformed things, that which exceeds in deformity or disgrace, exceeds either in pain or evil—must it not be so?
Polus: Yes.
Socrates: But then again, what was the observation which you just now made, about doing and suffering wrong? Did you not say, that suffering wrong was more evil, and doing wrong more disgraceful?
Polus: I did.
Socrates: Then, if doing wrong is more disgraceful than suffering, the more disgraceful must be more painful and must exceed in pain or in evil or both: does not that also follow?
Polus: Of course.
Socrates: First, then, let us consider whether the doing of injustice exceeds the suffering in the consequent pain: Do the injurers suffer more than the injured?
Polus: No, Socrates; certainly not.
Socrates: Then they do not exceed in pain?
Polus: No.
Socrates: But if not in pain, then not in both?
Polus: Certainly not.
Socrates: Then they can only exceed in the other?
Polus: Yes.
Socrates: That is to say, in evil?