Polus: True.
Socrates: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?
Polus: Clearly.
Socrates: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?
Polus: Yes.
Socrates: And that is now discovered to be more evil?
Polus: True.
Socrates: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a physician without shrinking, and either say “Yes” or “No” to me.
Polus: I should say “No.”
Socrates: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?
Polus: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.
Socrates: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two.
Polus: That is the conclusion.
Socrates: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations, how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough for me—I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:—You would say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected when you do wrong?
Polus: I should.
Socrates: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.
Polus: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.
Socrates: Consider again:—Where there is an agent, must there not also be a patient?
Polus: I should say so.
Socrates: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does, and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean, for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is stricken?
Polus: Yes.
Socrates: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is struck will be struck violently or quickly?
Polus: True.
Socrates: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature as the act of him who strikes?
Polus: Yes.