OLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And is not this universally true? If a man does something for
the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that
for the sake of which he does it.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And are not all things either good or evil, or intermediate
and indifferent?

POLUS: To be sure, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call
goods, and their opposites evils?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And the things which are neither good nor evil, and which
partake sometimes of the nature of good and at other times of evil, or
of neither, are such as sitting, walking, running, sailing; or, again,
wood, stones, and the like:--these are the things which you call neither
good nor evil?

POLUS: Exactly so.

SOCRATES: Are these indifferent things done for the sake of the good, or
the good for the sake of the indifferent?

POLUS: Clearly, the indifferent for the sake of the good.

SOCRATES: When we walk we walk for the sake of the good, and under the
idea that it is better to walk, and when we stand we stand equally for
the sake of the good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And when we kill a man we kill him or exile him or despoil him
of his goods, because, as we think, it will conduce to our good?

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Men who do any of these things do them for the sake of the
good?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And did we not admit that in doing something for the sake of
something else, we do not will those things which we do, but that other
thing for the sake of which we do them?

POLUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: Then we do not will simply to kill a man or to exile him or to
despoil him of his goods, but we will to do that which conduces to our
good, and if the act is not conducive to our good we do not will it; for
we will, as you say, that which is our good, but that which is neither
good nor evil, or simply evil, we do not will. Why are you silent,
Polus? Am I not right?

POLUS: You are right.

SOCRATES: Hence we may infer, that if any one, whether he be a tyrant
or a rhetorician, kills another or exiles another or deprives him of
his property, under the idea that the act is for his own interests when
really not for his own interests, he may be said to do what seems best
to him?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But does he do what he wills if he does what is evil? Why do
you not answer?

POLUS: Well, I suppose not.

SOCRATES: Then if great power is a