Plato, Lesser Hippias, section 375e

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Epinomis, or Nocturnal Council

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[375e]

Hippias
Yes.

Socrates
Then injustice is a power of the soul, the more powerful soul is the more just, is it not? For we found, my friend, that such a soul was better.

Hippias
Yes, we did.

Socrates
And what if it be knowledge? Is not the wiser soul more just, and the more ignorant more unjust?

Hippias
Yes.

Socrates
And what if it be both? Is not the soul which has both, power and knowledge, more just, and the more ignorant more unjust? Is that not inevitably the case?

Hippias
It appears to be.

Socrates
This more powerful and wiser soul, then, was found to be better and to have more power to do both good and disgraceful acts in every kind of action was it not?

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.

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