not be obliged to give a reason for them." "Why do you lay this to my
charge," said Socrates, "since I am continually showing to all the world
what are the things I believe to be just?" "How do you show it?" said
Hippias. "If I explain it not by my words," answered Socrates, "my
actions speak it sufficiently; and do you think that actions deserve not
rather to be believed than words?" "Much rather," said Hippias, "because
many may say one thing, and do another; nay, we see that, in fact, many
who preach up justice to others are very unjust themselves; but this
cannot be said of a man whose every action is good, and that never in his
life did an unjust thing." "Have you known, then," said Socrates, "that
I have accused any man out of malice, that I have sown dissension among
friends, that I have raised seditions in the Republic; in short, that I
have committed any other sort of injustice?" "Not in the least," said
he. "Well, then," added Socrates, "do you not take him to be just who
commits no manner of injustice?" "It is plain, now,'" said Hippias,
"that you intend to get loose, and that you will not speak your mind
freely, nor give us an exact definition of justice. For all this while
you have only shown what just men do not, but not what they do." "I
should have thought," said Socrates, "I had given at once a good
definition, and a clear instance of justice, when I called it an aversion
from doing injustice. But since you will not allow it to be so, see
whether this will satisfy you: I say, then, that justice 'is nothing but
the observance of the laws.'" "You mean," said Hippias, "that to observe
the laws is to be just?" "Yes," answered Socrates. "I cannot comprehend
your thought," said Hippias. "Do you not know," pursued Socrates, "what
the laws in a State are?" "The laws," answered Hippias, "are what the
citizens have ordained by an universal consent." "Then," inferred
Socrates, "he who lives conformably to those ordinances observes the
laws; and he who acts contrary to them is a transgressor of the laws."
"You say true." "Is it not likewise true," continued Socrates, "that he
who obeys these ordinances does justly, and that he obeys them not does
unjustly?" "Yes." "But," said Socrates, "he who acts justly is just,
and he who acts unjustly is unjust?" "Without doubt." "Therefore," said
Socrates, "whosoever observes the laws is just, and whosoever observes
them not is unjust." "But how can it be i