nds be better if they do wrong and make
mistakes voluntarily or involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that
those who do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong
involuntarily!

SOCRATES: And yet that appears to be the only inference.

HIPPIAS: I do not think so.

SOCRATES: But I imagined, Hippias, that you did. Please to answer once
more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both? Must not justice,
at all events, be one of these?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if justice is a power of the soul, then the soul which has
the greater power is also the more just; for that which has the greater
power, my good friend, has been proved by us to be the better.

HIPPIAS: Yes, that has been proved.

SOCRATES: And if justice is knowledge, then the wiser will be the juster
soul, and the more ignorant the more unjust?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if justice be power as well as knowledge--then will not
the soul which has both knowledge and power be the more just, and that
which is the more ignorant be the more unjust? Must it not be so?

HIPPIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And is not the soul which has the greater power and wisdom
also better, and better able to do both good and evil in every action?

HIPPIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: The soul, then, which acts ill, acts voluntarily by power and
art--and these either one or both of them are elements of justice?

HIPPIAS: That seems to be true.

SOCRATES: And to do injustice is to do ill, and not to do injustice is
to do well?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And will not the better and abler soul when it does wrong, do
wrong voluntarily, and the bad soul involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And the good man is he who has the good soul, and the bad man
is he who has the bad?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then the good man will voluntarily do wrong, and the bad man
involuntarily, if the good man is he who has the good soul?

HIPPIAS: Which he certainly has.

SOCRATES: Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily does wrong and disgraceful
things, if there be such a man, will be the good man?

HIPPIAS: There I cannot agree with you.

SOCRATES: Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias; and yet that seems to be
the conclusion which, as far as we can see at present, must follow from
our argument. As I was saying before, I am all abroad, and being in
perplexity am always changing my opinion. Now, that I or any ordinary
man should wa