Gorgias

​SOCRATES: Well, then, do the many think this way, as you were saying just now, that to have an equal share is just, and to do injustice is more shameful than to suffer it? Is this so or not? And mind you don’t get caught here by being ashamed again. Do the many think, or not, that to have an equal share and not to have more is just, and to do injustice is more shameful than to suffer it? Do not grudge me answering this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me, I may already have this confirmed by you, seeing that a competent man to judge has agreed. CALLICLES: Well, the many indeed think so. SOCRATES: Then it is not only by law that to do injustice is more shameful than to suffer it, nor that to have an equal share is just, but also by nature. So you seem to be speaking falsely in what you said before, and not rightly accusing me when you said that law and nature are opposed, and that I, knowing this, play tricks in my arguments, if someone speaks according to nature, leading them to the law, and if someone speaks according to law, to nature. CALLICLES: This fellow will not stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates, are you not ashamed at your age to hunt after words, and if someone makes a slip in a word, to make a godsend of it? For do you think I mean by ‘being superior’ anything else than ‘being better’? Have I not been telling you for a long time that I say the better and the superior are the same? Or do you think I say that if a rabble of slaves and all sorts of men, worth nothing except perhaps in physical strength, is gathered together, and they say things, these very things are regulations? SOCRATES: Very well, most wise Callicles; is this what you mean? CALLICLES: Exactly. SOCRATES: But, my dear sir, I myself have long suspected you meant something of this sort by ‘superior’, and I keep questioning you because I am eager to know clearly what you mean. For surely you do not think two are better than one, nor your slaves better than you because they are stronger than you. But tell me again from the beginning: what on earth do you mean by ‘better’, since you do not mean ‘stronger’? And, my admirable friend, instruct me more gently, so that I may not run away from your school. CALLICLES: You are playing the ironist, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, by Zethus, Callicles, whom you used just now to play the ironist plenty at me! But come, tell me: who do you say are the better? CALLICLES: The superior ones, I say. SOCRATES: You see then that you yourself are speaking words, but you make nothing clear? Will you not say whether you mean by ‘better’ and ‘superior’ the wiser ones, or some others? CALLICLES: Why, yes, by Zeus, I mean these, and very much so.