Poverty, sickness, injustice
SocratesThen is he rid of the greatest evil? Look at it this way: in the condition of a person’s property, do you see any badness other than poverty?
PolusNo, only poverty.
SocratesAnd what about the condition of the body? Would you say its badness is weakness and disease and ugliness and the like?
PolusI would.
SocratesThen do you consider that there is some ill in the soul too?
PolusHow could there not be?
SocratesSo don’t you call this injustice and ignorance and cowardice and the like?
PolusAbsolutely.
SocratesThen for property and body and soul, three in all, you have named three ills: poverty, disease, injustice?
PolusYes.
SocratesWhich of these ills, then, is most shameful? Isn’t it injustice and, in a word, the ill of the soul?
PolusBy far.
SocratesThen if it is most shameful, is it also worst?
PolusWhat do you mean, Socrates?
SocratesLike this: going by what has been agreed earlier, what is most shameful is always most shameful because it causes either the greatest pain or harm or both.
PolusExactly.
SocratesAnd we have just now agreed that injustice and the soul’s ill as a whole are most shameful?
PolusYes, that has been agreed.
SocratesThen it is most shameful of these either because it is most distressing and exceeds them in distress, or in harm, or in both?
PolusNecessarily.