Gorgias

​SOCRATES: Do you see then, Polus, that when one refutation is compared with the other, they do not look alike at all? For you have all other people agreeing with you except me, but for me, you are sufficient, being one alone, agreeing and testifying; and I, taking only your vote, let the others go. Let this then be so for us. Next, let us consider what we disputed about second: whether for a wrongdoer to pay the penalty is indeed the greatest of evils, as you thought, or whether not paying it is a greater evil, as I on the contrary thought. Let us look at it in this way: do you call paying the penalty and being justly disciplined the same thing for a wrongdoer? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: Can you then say that not all just things are beautiful, insofar as they are just? Consider and tell me. POLUS: No, they seem so to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Consider then this too: if someone acts, must there be something that is acted upon by this actor? POLUS: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: And does the passive experience what the active does, and is it of the same sort as what the active does? I mean something like this: if someone strikes, is it necessary that something is struck? POLUS: Necessary. SOCRATES: The one receiving the blow undergoes an effect corresponding to the action. If the one who strikes strikes hard or fast, is the one struck struck in that way? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the passion of the one struck is of the same sort as the action of the striker? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then also if someone burns, must something be burned? POLUS: How could it not be? SOCRATES: And if he burns severely or painfully, is the burned thing burned in the way that the burner burns? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then also if someone cuts, does the same rational rule apply? For something is cut. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if the cut is large or deep or painful, is the thing cut cut in the same way as the cutting agent cuts? POLUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: In short, see if you agree to what I was just saying about all things: that in whatever way the active agent acts, in that way the passive recipient experiences and is affected. POLUS: I do agree. SOCRATES: This being agreed, is paying the penalty a case of experiencing something or of doing something? POLUS: Necessarily, Socrates, of experiencing. SOCRATES: And is it not by some active agent? POLUS: How could it not be? By the one who disciplines. SOCRATES: And does the one who disciplines correctly discipline justly? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Does he do just things or not? POLUS: Just things. SOCRATES: Therefore, is the one who is disciplined and pays the penalty experiencing just things? POLUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: And just things, I believe, have been agreed to be beautiful? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Therefore, of these two, the one does beautiful and beneficial things, and the other—the one being disciplined—experiences them. POLUS: Yes.