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stead of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me. But please to refresh my memory a little; did you say--'in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant'? POLUS: Yes, I did. SOCRATES: Then I say that neither of them will be happier than the other,--neither he who unjustly acquires a tyranny, nor he who suffers in the attempt, for of two miserables one cannot be the happier, but that he who escapes and becomes a tyrant is the more miserable of the two. Do you laugh, Polus? Well, this is a new kind of refutation,--when any one says anything, instead of refuting him to laugh at him. POLUS: But do you not think, Socrates, that you have been sufficiently refuted, when you say that which no human being will allow? Ask the company. SOCRATES: O Polus, I am not a public man, and only last year, when my tribe were serving as Prytanes, and it became my duty as their president to take the votes, there was a laugh at me, because I was unable to take them. And as I failed then, you must not ask me to count the suffrages of the company now; but if, as I was saying, you have no better argument than numbers, let me have a turn, and do you make trial of the sort of proof which, as I think, is required; for I shall produce one witness only of the truth of my words, and he is the person with whom I am arguing; his suffrage I know how to take; but with the many I have nothing to do, and do not even address myself to them. May I ask then whether you will answer in turn and have your words put to the proof? For I certainly think that I and you and every man do really believe, that to do is a greater evil than to suffer injustice: and not to be punished than to be punished. POLUS: And I should say neither I, nor any man: would you yourself, for example, suffer rather than do injustice? SOCRATES: Yes, and you, too; I or any man would. POLUS: Quite the reverse; neither you, nor I, nor any man. SOCRATES: But will you answer? POLUS: To be sure, I will; for I am curious to hear what you can have to say. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, and you will know, and let us suppose that I am beginning at the beginning: which of the two, Polus, in your opinion, is the worst?--to do injustice or to suffer? POLUS: I should say that suffering was worst. SOCRATES: And which is the greater disgrace?--Answer. POLUS: To do. SOCRATES: And the greater disgrace is the greater evil? POLUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: I unde
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