Soc. But by far the greatest number, I fancy, err in the third way, about the qualities of, the soul, thinking that they excel in virtue when they do not.

Pro. Yes, most decidedly.

Soc. And of all the virtues, is not wisdom the one to which people in general lay claim, thereby filling themselves with strife and false conceit of wisdom?

Pro. Yes, to be sure.

Soc. And we should surely be right in calling all that an evil condition.

Pro. Very much so.

Soc. Then this must further be divided into two parts, if we are to gain insight into childish envy with its absurd mixture of pleasure and pain. How shall we divide it, do you say? All who have this false and foolish conceit of themselves fall, like the rest of mankind, into two classes: some necessarily have strength and power, others, as I believe, the reverse.

Pro. Yes, necessarily.

Soc. Make the division, then, on that principle; those of them who have this false conceit and are weak and unable to revenge themselves when they are laughed at you may truly call ridiculous, but those who are strong and able to revenge themselves you will define most correctly to yourself by calling them powerful, terrible, and hateful, for ignorance in the powerful is hateful and infamous—since whether real or feigned it injures their neighbors—but ignorance in the weak appears to us as naturally ridiculous.

Pro. Quite right. But the mixture of pleasure and pain in all this is not yet clear to me.

Soc. First, then, take up the nature of envy.

Pro. Go on.