Naught is left the same, speech and form are gone; only the mind remains Page 115unchanged, to bewail their unnatural sufferings.
'How weak was that hand, how powerless those magic herbs which could change the limbs but not the heart! Within lies the strength of men, hidden in deep security.Stronger are those dread poisons which can drag a man out of himself, which work their way within: they hurt not the body, but on the mind their rage inflicts a grievous wound.' 1Then I answered: 'I confess that I think it is justly said that vicious men keep only the outward bodily form of their humanity, and, in the attributes of their souls, are changed to beasts.But I would never have allowed them willingly the power to rage in the ruin of good men through their fierce and wicked intentions.'
'They have not that power,' said she,' as I will shew you at a convenient time.But if this very power, which you believe is allowed to them, were taken from them, the punishment of vicious men would be to a great extent lightened.For, though some may scarcely believe it, evil men must be more unhappy when they carry out their ill desires than when they cannot fulfil them.For if it is pitiable to have wished bad things, it is more pitiable to have had the power to perform them, without which power the performance of this pitiable will would never have effect.Thus, when you 115:1 -- Cf.St.Matthew x.28.Page 116see men with the will and the power to commit a crime, and you see them perform it, they must be the victims of a threefold misfortune, since each of those three things brings its own misery.
'Yes,' said I,' I agree; but I do wish from my heart that they may speedily be rid of one of these misfortunes, being deprived of this power of doing evil.'
'They will be rid of it,' she said,' more speedily even than you wish perhaps, and sooner than they think they will be rid thereof.
There is in the short course of life naught which is so long coming that an immortal mind can think it has long to wait for it.Many a time are their high hopes and great plans for evil-doing cut short by a sudden and unlooked-for end.This indeed it is that sets a limit to their misery.
For if wickedness makes a man miserable, the longer he is wicked, the more miserable must he be; and I should hold them most miserable of all, if not even death at last put an end to their evil-doing.If we have reached true conclusions concerning the unhappiness of depravity, the misery, which is said to be eternal, can have no limit.'
'That is a strange conclusion and hard to accept.But Isee that it is suited too well by what we have agreed upon earlier.'
'You are right,' she said; ' but when one finds it hard to agree with a conclusion, one ought in fairness to point out some fault in the argument which has preceded, or shew that Page 117the sequence of statements is not so joined together as to effectively lead to the conclusion; otherwise, if the premises are granted, it is not just to cavil at the inference.This too, which I am about to say, may not seem less strange, but it follows equally from what has been taken as fact.'
'What is that? ' I asked.
'That wicked men are happier when they pay the penalty for their wickedness than when they receive no penalty at the hands of justice.1 I am not going to urge what may occur to any one, namely, that depraved habits are corrected by penalties, and drawn towards the right by fear of punishment, and that an example is hereby given to others to avoid all that deserves blame.But I think that the wicked who are not punished are in another way the more unhappy, without regard to the corrective quality of punishment, nor its value as an example.'
'And what way is there other than these?'
'We have allowed, have we not,' she said, 'that the good are happy, but the bad are miserable.
'Yes.'
'Then if any good be added to the misery of any evil man, is he not happier than the man whose miserable state is purely and simply miserable without any good at all mingled therewith?'
'I suppose so.'
117:1 -- Plato, Gorgias , 472 and ff.Page 118'What if some further evil beyond those by which a man, who lacked all good things, were made miserable, were added to his miseries?
Should not he be reckoned far more unhappy than the man whose misfortune was lightened by a share in some good? '
'Of course it is so.'
'Therefore,' she said,' the wicked when punished have something good added to their lot, to wit, their punishment, which is good by reason of its quality of justice; and they also, when unpunished, have something of further evil, their very impunity, which you have allowed to be an evil, by reason of its injustice.'
'I cannot deny that,' said I.
'Then the wicked are far more unhappy when they are unjustly unpunished, than when they are justly punished.It is plain that it is just that the wicked should be punished, and unfair that they should escape punishment.'
'No one will gainsay you.'
'But no one will deny this either, that all which is just is good; and on the other part, all that is unjust is evil.'
Then I said: 'The arguments which we have accepted bring us to that conclusion.But tell me, do you leave no punishment of the soul to follow after the death of the body?'
