true
conclusions about the ill fortune of wickedness, that wretchedness is
plainly infinite which is doomed to be eternal.'

Then said I: 'A wonderful inference, and difficult to grant; but I see
that it agrees entirely with our previous conclusions.'

'Thou art right,' said she; 'but if anyone finds it hard to admit the
conclusion, he ought in fairness either to prove some falsity in the
premises, or to show that the combination of propositions does not
adequately enforce the necessity of the conclusion; otherwise, if the
premises be granted, nothing whatever can be said against the inference
of the conclusion. And here is another statement which seems not less
wonderful, but on the premises assumed is equally necessary.'

'What is that?'

'The wicked are happier in undergoing punishment than if no penalty of
justice chasten them. And I am not now meaning what might occur to
anyone--that bad character is amended by retribution, and is brought
into the right path by the terror of punishment, or that it serves as an
example to warn others to avoid transgression; but I believe that in
another way the wicked are more unfortunate when they go unpunished,
even though no account be taken of amendment, and no regard be paid to
example.'

'Why, what other way is there beside these?' said I.

Then said she: 'Have we not agreed that the good are happy, and the evil
wretched?'

'Yes,' said I.

'Now, if,' said she, 'to one in affliction there be given along with his
misery some good thing, is he not happier than one whose misery is
misery pure and simple without admixture of any good?'

'It would seem so.'

'But if to one thus wretched, one destitute of all good, some further
evil be added besides those which make him wretched, is he not to be
judged far more unhappy than he whose ill fortune is alleviated by some
share of good?'

'It could scarcely be otherwise.'

'Surely, then, the wicked, when they are punished, have a good thing
added to them--to wit, the punishment which by the law of justice is
good; and likewise, when they escape punishment, a new evil attaches to
them in that very freedom from punishment which thou hast rightly
acknowledged to be an evil in the case of the unrighteous.'

'I cannot deny it.'

'Then, the wicked are far more unhappy when indulged with an unjust
freedom from punishment than when punished by a just retribution. Now,
it is manifest that it is just for the wicked to be punished,