Crito | Page 8

enter into the calculation.
CRITO: I think that you are right, Socrates; how then shall we
proceed?
SOCRATES: Let us consider the matter together, and do you either
refute me if you can, and I will be convinced; or else cease, my dear
friend, from repeating to me that I ought to escape against the wishes of
the Athenians: for I highly value your attempts to persuade me to do so,
but I may not be persuaded against my own better judgment. And now
please to consider my first position, and try how you can best answer
me.
CRITO: I will.
SOCRATES: Are we to say that we are never intentionally to do wrong,
or that in one way we ought and in another way we ought not to do
wrong, or is doing wrong always evil and dishonorable, as I was just
now saying, and as has been already acknowledged by us? Are all our
former admissions which were made within a few days to be thrown
away? And have we, at our age, been earnestly discoursing with one
another all our life long only to discover that we are no better than
children? Or, in spite of the opinion of the many, and in spite of
consequences whether better or worse, shall we insist on the truth of
what was then said, that injustice is always an evil and dishonour to
him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine;
for we must injure no one at all? (E.g. compare Rep.)

CRITO: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Again, Crito, may we do evil?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the
morality of the many--is that just or not?
CRITO: Not just.
SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?
CRITO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to
any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him. But I would
have you consider, Crito, whether you really mean what you are saying.
For this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any
considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those
who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can
only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me,
then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that
neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right.
And shall that be the premiss of our argument? Or do you decline and
dissent from this? For so I have ever thought, and continue to think; but,
if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If,
however, you remain of the same mind as formerly, I will proceed to
the next step.
CRITO: You may proceed, for I have not changed my mind.
SOCRATES: Then I will go on to the next point, which may be put in
the form of a question:--Ought a man to do what he admits to be right,
or ought he to betray the right?
CRITO: He ought to do what he thinks right.
SOCRATES: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the
prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I
not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the
principles which were acknowledged by us to be just--what do you say?
CRITO: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know.
SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:--Imagine that I am
about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which
you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me:
'Tell us, Socrates,' they say; 'what are you about? are you not going by
an act of yours to overturn us--the laws, and the whole state, as far as in

you lies? Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown,
in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and
trampled upon by individuals?' What will be our answer, Crito, to these
and the like words? Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a
good deal to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be
carried out. He will argue that this law should not be set aside; and
shall we reply, 'Yes; but the state has injured us and given an unjust
sentence.' Suppose I say that?
CRITO: Very good, Socrates.
SOCRATES: 'And was that our agreement with