Theaetetus (177)

SOC. Two patterns, my friend, are set up in the world, the divine, which is most blessed, and the godless, which is most wretched. But these men do not see that this is the case, and their silliness and extreme foolishness blind them to the fact that through their unrighteous acts they are made like the one and unlike the other. They therefore pay the penalty for this by living a life that conforms to the pattern they resemble; and if we tell them that, unless they depart from their cleverness, the blessed place that is pure of all things evil will not receive them after death, and here on earth they will always live the life like themselves—evil men associating with evil—when they hear this, they will be so confident in their unscrupulous cleverness that they will think our words the talk of fools.

THEO. Very true, Socrates.

SOC. Yes, my friend, I know. However, there is one thing that has happened to them: whenever they have to carry on a personal argument about the doctrines to which they object, if they are willing to stand their ground for a while like men and do not run away like cowards, then, my friend, they at last become strangely dissatisfied with themselves and their arguments; their brilliant rhetoric withers away, so that they seem no better than children. But this is a digression. Let us turn away from these matters—if we do not, they will come on like an ever-rising flood and bury in silt our original argument—and let us, if you please, proceed.

THEO. To me, Socrates, such digressions are quite as agreeable as the argument; for they are easier for a man of my age to follow. However, if you prefer, let us return to our argument.

SOC. Very well. We were at about the point in our argument where we said that those who declare that only motion is reality, and that whatever seems to each man really is to him to whom it seems, are willing to maintain their position in regard to other matters and to maintain especially in regard to justice that whatever laws a state makes, because they seem to it just, are just to the state that made them, as long as they remain in force; but as regards the good, that nobody has the courage to go on and contend that whatever laws a state passes thinking them advantageous to it are really advantageous as long as they remain in force, unless what he means is merely the name advantageous [*]; and that would be making a joke of our argument. Am I right?

THEO. Certainly.

SOC. Yes; for he must not mean merely the name, but the thing named must be the object of his attention.

THEO. True.

SOC. But the state, in making laws, aims, of course, at advantage, whatever the name it gives it, and makes all its laws as advantageous as possible to itself, to the extent of its belief and ability; or has it in making laws anything else in view?