would be happier than the wicked. The world, represented by Polus, is
ready, when they are asked, to acknowledge that injustice is dishonourable,
and for their own sakes men are willing to punish the offender (compare
Republic). But they are not equally willing to acknowledge that injustice,
even if successful, is essentially evil, and has the nature of disease and
death. Especially when crimes are committed on the great scale--the crimes
of tyrants, ancient or modern--after a while, seeing that they cannot be
undone, and have become a part of history, mankind are disposed to forgive
them, not from any magnanimity or charity, but because their feelings are
blunted by time, and 'to forgive is convenient to them.' The tangle of
good and evil can no longer be unravelled; and although they know that the
end cannot justify the means, they feel also that good has often come out
of evil. But Socrates would have us pass the same judgment on the tyrant
now and always; though he is surrounded by his satellites, and has the
applauses of Europe and Asia ringing in his ears; though he is the
civilizer or liberator of half a continent, he is, and always will be, the
most miserable of men. The greatest consequences for good or for evil
cannot alter a hair's breadth the morality of actions which are right or
wrong in themselves. This is the standard which Socrates holds up to us.
Because politics, and perhaps human life generally, are of a mixed nature
we must not allow our principles to sink to the level of our practice.

And so of private individuals--to them, too, the world occasionally speaks
of the consequences of their actions:--if they are lovers of pleasure, they
will ruin their health; if they are false or dishonest, they will lose
their character. But Socrates would speak to them, not of what will be,
but of what is--of the present consequence of lowering and degrading the
soul. And all higher natures, or perhaps all men everywhere, if they were
not tempted by interest or passion, would agree with him--they would rather
be the victims than the perpetrators of an act of treachery or of tyranny.