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[353e] “We do.” “Will the soul ever accomplish its own work well if deprived of its own virtue, or is this impossible?” “It is impossible.” “Of necessity, then, a bad soul will govern and manage things badly while the good soul will in all these things do well.1” “Of necessity.” “And did we not agree that the excellence or virtue of soul is justice and its defect injustice?” “Yes, we did.” “The just soul and the just man then will live well and the unjust ill?” “So it appears,” he said, “by your reasoning.”

1 For the equivocation Cf. Charmides 172 A, Gorgias 507 C, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 14, Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1098 b 21, Newman, Introduction Aristotle Politics p. 401, Gomperz, Greek Thinkers(English ed.), ii. p. 70. It does not seriously affect the validity of the argument, for it is used only as a rhetorical confirmation of the implication that κακῶς ἄρχειν, etc.=misery and the reverse of happiness.

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