Gorgias (473)

Pol.

What a strange doctrine, Socrates, you are trying to maintain!

Soc.

Yes, and I will endeavor to make you too, my friend, maintain it with me: for I count you as a friend. Well now, these are the points on which we differ; just examine them yourself. I think I told you at an earlier stage that wrongdoing was worse than being wronged.

Pol.

Certainly you did.

Soc.

And you thought that being wronged was worse.

Pol.

Yes.

Soc.

And I said that wrongdoers were wretched, and I was refuted by you.

Pol.

Upon my word, yes.

Soc.

At least to your thinking, Polus.

Pol.

Yes, and true thinking too.

Soc.

Perhaps. But you said, on the other hand, that wrongdoers are happy, if they pay no penalty.

Pol.

Certainly.

Soc.

Whereas I say they are most wretched, and those who pay the penalty, less so. Do you wish to refute that as well?

Pol.

Why, that is still harder to refute, Socrates, than the other!

Soc.

Not merely so, Polus, but impossible; for the truth is never refuted.

Pol.

How do you mean? If a man be caught criminally plotting to make himself a despot, and he be straightway put on the rack and castrated and have his eyes burnt out, and after suffering himself, and seeing inflicted on his wife and children, a number of grievous torments of every kind, he be finally crucified or burnt in a coat of pitch, will he be happier than if he escape and make himself despot, and pass his life as the ruler in his city, doing whatever he likes, and envied and congratulated by the citizens and the foreigners besides?

Impossible, do you tell me, to refute that?

Soc.

You are trying to make my flesh creep this time, my spirited Polus, instead of refuting me; a moment ago you were for calling witnesses. However, please refresh my memory a little: criminally plotting to make himself a despot, you said?

Pol.

I did.

Soc.

Then neither of them will ever be happier than the other—neither he who has unjustly compassed the despotic power, nor he who pays the penalty; for of two wretched persons

neither can be happier; but still more wretched is he who goes scot-free and establishes himself as despot. What is that I see, Polus? You are laughing? Here we have yet another form of refutation—when a statement is made, to laugh it down, instead of disproving it!

Pol.

Do you not think yourself utterly refuted, Socrates, when you make such statements as nobody in the world would assent to? You have only to ask anyone of the company here.