s.

SOCRATES: That is to say, in evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Then doing injustice will have an excess of evil, and will
therefore be a greater evil than suffering injustice?

POLUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But have not you and the world already agreed that to do
injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And that is now discovered to be more evil?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And would you prefer a greater evil or a greater dishonour to
a less one? Answer, Polus, and fear not; for you will come to no harm if
you nobly resign yourself into the healing hand of the argument as to a
physician without shrinking, and either say 'Yes' or 'No' to me.

POLUS: I should say 'No.'

SOCRATES: Would any other man prefer a greater to a less evil?

POLUS: No, not according to this way of putting the case, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then I said truly, Polus, that neither you, nor I, nor any
man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the
greater evil of the two.

POLUS: That is the conclusion.

SOCRATES: You see, Polus, when you compare the two kinds of refutations,
how unlike they are. All men, with the exception of myself, are of
your way of thinking; but your single assent and witness are enough
for me,--I have no need of any other, I take your suffrage, and am
regardless of the rest. Enough of this, and now let us proceed to the
next question; which is, Whether the greatest of evils to a guilty
man is to suffer punishment, as you supposed, or whether to escape
punishment is not a greater evil, as I supposed. Consider:--You would
say that to suffer punishment is another name for being justly corrected
when you do wrong?

POLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And would you not allow that all just things are honourable in
so far as they are just? Please to reflect, and tell me your opinion.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, I think that they are.

SOCRATES: Consider again:--Where there is an agent, must there not also
be a patient?

POLUS: I should say so.

SOCRATES: And will not the patient suffer that which the agent does,
and will not the suffering have the quality of the action? I mean,
for example, that if a man strikes, there must be something which is
stricken?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes violently or quickly, that which is
struck will be struck violently or quickly?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the suffering to him who is stricken is of the same nature