When Philosophy, preserving the dignity of countenance and the gravity of speech, had sung these things gently and in like manner, then I, not yet wholly forgetful of the grief implanted within me, broke off her intention as she was preparing to say something still further. And: 'O thou,' said I, 'forerunner of the true light, the things which thy discourse has thus far poured forth have stood plain, both unconquered by the divine contemplation of itself and by thy reasonings; and these things, though lately forgotten by me through the pain of the injury, thou hast yet spoken as things not utterly unknown to me before. But this very thing is the greatest cause of our grief, that, though there exists a good ruler of things, evils can exist at all, or pass by unpunished; which alone you assuredly consider how worthy of wonder it is. But to this another greater thing is joined. For while wickedness reigns and flourishes, virtue not only lacks rewards, but is even trodden underfoot beneath the feet of the wicked, and pays in the place of crimes the punishments.'
'That these things should happen in the kingdom of a God who knows all, who is able to do all, but who wills only good things — no one can sufficiently either wonder at or complain of.' Then she: 'And it would be,' she said, 'a matter of infinite stupefaction, and more horrible than all monsters, if, as you suppose, in the most well-ordered house of so great a father of the family, the cheap vessels were cherished while the precious ones grew filthy. But it is not so. For if those things which were lately concluded are preserved unshaken, you shall know, by the very Author of that kingdom of which we now speak, that the good are always powerful, but the evil always abject and feeble, and that vices are never without punishment nor virtues without reward; that happy things are wrought for the good, unfortunate ever for the evil, and many things of this kind, which, the complaints being lulled to sleep, may strengthen you with firm solidity.'
'And since you have seen the form of true beatitude, by my showing it to you a little while ago, and have recognized where also it is situated, I will, after running through all the things which I judge it necessary to set forth beforehand, show you the way which may carry you back home. I will also fasten upon your mind wings by which it can lift itself on high, so that, the disturbance being driven off, you may return safe to your homeland under my guidance, on my path, and by my conveyances also. For I have swift wings which may climb the lofty heights of the pole.'
'When the swift mind has put these on for itself, loathing the lands, it looks down upon them, surmounts the globe of the immense air, and sees the clouds behind it; and where the fire of ether grows warm with nimble motion, it transcends the summit of the flame, until it rises into the star-bearing abodes and joins its ways to Phoebus, or accompanies the journey of the cold old man, a soldier of the gleaming star; or wherever the gleaming night is painted, it runs back along the circle of a star; and when it has had enough of these, it leaves the outermost pole behind, and treads the back of the swift ether, partaker of the venerable light. Here the Lord holds the sceptre of kings and tempers the reins of the world, and, abiding, rules the swift chariot — the gleaming Arbiter of things. If the way should carry you back here, restored, the homeland which you now, forgetful, seek again: "This," you will say, "I remember, is my homeland; hence my origin, here will I stay my step." But if it should please you to revisit the night of earth which you have left, you will behold as exiled tyrants those whom wretched peoples fear as grim.' Then I:
'Aha!' said I, 'how great things you promise! Nor do I doubt that you can accomplish them; only do not delay him whom you have roused.' 'First, then,' she said, 'you will be allowed to recognize that power is always present to the good, but that the wicked are deserted of all their forces; of which two things, the one is indeed demonstrated from the other. For since good and evil are contraries, if it has been established that good is powerful, the feebleness of evil is plain; but if the frailty of evil grows clear, the firmness of good is known. But that the credit of our opinion may be more abundant, I will proceed by either path, confirming the propositions now from this side, now from that. There are two things by which the whole effect of human acts is constituted: namely, will and power; and if either of these is lacking, there is nothing that can be carried out. For with the will failing, no one even attempts what he does not will; but if power is absent, the will is in vain.'
'Whence it comes about that, if you should see anyone willing to attain what he by no means attains, you cannot doubt that to this man there was lacking the strength to obtain what he willed.' 'It is plain,' said I, 'nor can it in any way be denied.' 'But him whom you see to have accomplished what he willed, will you doubt that he was also able?' 'By no means.' 'But in that which each one is able, he is to be reckoned strong, and in that which he is not able, in this feeble.' 'I confess it,' said I. 'Do you remember, then,' she said, 'that it was gathered by the foregoing reasonings that the whole intention of the human will, which is driven by diverse pursuits, hastens toward beatitude?' 'I remember,' said I, 'that this too was demonstrated.' 'Do you recall that beatitude is the good itself, and that in this way, when beatitude is sought, the good is desired by all?' 'I do not so much recall it,' said I, 'as that I hold it fixed in my memory.'
'All men, therefore, good alike and evil, with undistinguished intention strive to arrive at the good?' 'So,' said I, 'it follows.' 'But it is certain that men become good by the attainment of the good.' 'It is certain.' 'Do the good, therefore, attain what they seek?' 'So it seems.' 'But the evil, if they should attain the good which they seek, could not be evil.' 'It is so.' 'Since, therefore, both seek the good, but these indeed attain it, while those by no means do, is there any doubt that the good are powerful, but that those who are evil are feeble?' 'Whoever doubts it,' said I, 'can consider neither the nature of things nor the consequence of reasonings.'
'Again,' she said, 'if there should be two for whom the same thing is set forth according to nature, and one of them should do and accomplish that very thing by his natural function, but the other could by no means administer that natural function, yet in another way than is suited to nature should not indeed fulfil his purpose, but imitate one fulfilling it — which of these do you judge to be the stronger?' 'Although I conjecture,' said I, 'what you mean, I yet desire to hear it more plainly.' 'Will you deny,' she said, 'that the motion of walking is according to nature for men?' 'By no means,' said I. 'And do you doubt that the function of the feet is natural for this thing?' 'Not even this,' said I. 'If, then, one who is able to walk with his feet should walk, and another, to whom this natural function of the feet is lacking, should try to walk supporting himself on his hands, which of these can rightly be esteemed the stronger?' 'Weave together the rest,' said I; 'for no one would doubt that one who is capable of the natural function is stronger than one who cannot do the same.'
'But the supreme good, which is set forth equally for the evil and the good, the good indeed seek by the natural function of the virtues, while the evil strive to attain that same thing through varied desire, which is not the natural function of attaining the good. Or do you judge otherwise?' 'By no means,' said I, 'for what is consequent is also plain. For from those things which I have conceded, it follows necessarily that the good are powerful, but the evil feeble.' 'Rightly,' she said, 'do you run ahead, and that, as physicians are wont to hope, is a sign of a nature now erect and resisting. But since I perceive you to be most ready to understand, I will heap up frequent reasonings. For consider how great is the infirmity that lies open in vicious men, who cannot even arrive at that to which their natural intention leads and almost compels them. And what if they were deserted of this so great and almost unconquerable aid of nature going before them?'
'Consider indeed how great an impotence holds wicked men. For they do not seek light or trifling rewards, which they cannot attain and obtain, but they fail at the very sum and summit of things, nor does the effect befall these wretches in that which alone they labour at day and night; in which matter the strength of the good is conspicuous. For just as you would judge him most powerful in walking who, going on foot, had been able to arrive at that place up to which nothing further lay open to his advance, so him who has apprehended the end of things to be sought, beyond which there is nothing, you must necessarily judge most powerful. From which it follows — what stands as an objection to this — that the same men seem both wicked and deserted of all their strength. For why, having forsaken virtue, do they follow vices? Through ignorance of goods? But what is more enervated than the blindness of ignorance? Or do they know what is to be followed? But lust drives them headlong off course.'
So too the intemperate are weak, who cannot struggle against their vice. But do they abandon the good knowingly and willingly, and turn aside to vices? In that case they cease not only to be powerful but to exist at all. For those who forsake the common end of all things that exist likewise cease to be. This may perhaps seem strange to someone—that we should say that the wicked, who are the greater part of mankind, do not exist; yet so the matter stands. For I do not deny that the wicked are wicked; but I deny that they exist purely and simply. For just as you might call a corpse a dead man, yet could not simply call it a man, so I would grant that the vicious are indeed wicked, but I could not confess that they exist absolutely. For that exists which keeps its order and preserves its nature; but whatever falls away from this abandons that very existence which lies in its own nature.
'But the wicked can do things,' you will say. Nor would I myself deny it; but this power of theirs proceeds not from strength but from weakness. For they can do evils, which they would by no means be able to do, had they been able to remain in the doing of good. And this very capability shows still more clearly that they can do nothing. For if, as we concluded a little before, evil is nothing, then since they can do only evils, it is plain that the wicked can do nothing. That is clear. And so that you may understand what the force of this power is, we defined a little before that nothing is more powerful than the supreme good. So it is, I said. But the same, she said, cannot do evil. By no means. Is there then anyone, she said, who would think that men can do all things? No one, unless he were mad. And yet these same can do evils. Would, I said, that they could not!
Since therefore he who is powerful only in good things can do all things, while those who are powerful also in evils cannot do all things, it is manifest that those same who can do evils are less able. To this is added that we have shown all power to be reckoned among things to be desired, and all things to be desired to be referred to the good as to a certain summit of their own nature. But the capacity for committing crime cannot be referred to the good; therefore it is not to be desired. And yet all power is to be desired; it is plain therefore that the capacity for evil is not power. From all of which the power of the good and the unquestionable weakness of the wicked appear clearly, and it is plain that that saying of Plato is true: that only the wise can do what they desire, while the wicked can indeed do what they please, but cannot accomplish what they truly desire.
For they do whatever they please, while through the things in which they delight they think they will obtain that good which they desire; but they by no means obtain it, since shameful deeds do not arrive at blessedness. Those kings whom you see sitting aloft on the height of their thrones, glittering in shining purple, hedged about with grim weapons, threatening with savage face, panting with the fury of their hearts—if anyone should strip the coverings of empty pomp from these proud ones, he will then see that within, the lords bear close chains. For here lust agitates their hearts with greedy poisons; here wrath, raising stormy floods, lashes the mind; or sorrow wearies its captives, or slippery hope torments them. So when you see one head bearing so many tyrants, he does not do what he wishes, pressed by unjust masters. Do you see then in how great a mire shameful deeds are tossed, with what light virtue shines forth? In which it is plain that rewards are never lacking to the good, nor their punishments to crimes.
For of the things that are done, that for the sake of which each thing is done may not unfairly be seen to be the reward of that very thing, just as the reward of running in the stadium, for the sake of which one runs, is the crown that lies ready. But we have shown that blessedness is that very same good for the sake of which all things are done. Therefore the good itself is set forth as a common reward for human actions. And this cannot be separated from the good; for he will no longer rightly be called good who lacks the good; wherefore upright conduct does not abandon its own rewards. However much, then, the wicked may rage, yet the crown of the wise man shall not fall, shall not wither. For the wickedness of another does not pluck away the proper honor of upright souls. But if he rejoiced in something received from without, either some other person, or even the very one who had bestowed it, could take it away; but since each man's own uprightness confers this upon him, then only will he lack his reward when he has ceased to be upright.
Finally, since every reward is sought for the reason that it is believed to be good, who would judge that one who possesses the good is without reward? But of what reward? Of the fairest and greatest of all. For remember that corollary which I gave a little before as principal, and conclude thus: since the good itself is blessedness, it is plain that all good men, by the very fact that they are good, are made blessed. But those who are blessed, it is agreed, are gods. The reward of the good, then, which no day shall take away, no power diminish, no man's wickedness darken, is to become gods. Since these things are so, the wise man could not doubt also of the inseparable punishment of the wicked. For since good and evil, and likewise punishment and reward, stand opposed in contrary fronts, the same things that we see come to pass in the reward of good must of necessity be answered in the contrary part in the punishment of evil. As therefore uprightness itself becomes the reward of the upright, so wickedness itself is the punishment of the wicked.
Now indeed whoever is afflicted with punishment does not doubt that he is afflicted with evil. If therefore they were willing to estimate themselves, can those seem to themselves free from punishment whom the utmost wickedness of all evils has not only afflicted but even violently infected? But consider, from the opposite side of the good, what punishment accompanies the wicked. For you learned a little before that everything which exists is one, and that this one is the good; from which it follows that everything which exists also seems to be good. In this way, then, whatever falls away from the good ceases to exist; whence it comes about that the wicked cease to be what they had been, but the very remaining shape of the human body still displays that they were men. Wherefore, turned to wickedness, they have lost human nature also. But since uprightness alone can advance each beyond men, it is necessary that those whom wickedness has cast down from the human condition it should thrust below the merit of a man.
It happens therefore that one whom you see transformed by vices you cannot reckon a man. Does a violent plunderer of others' wealth burn with avarice? You would call him like a wolf. Is one fierce and restless, exercising his tongue in quarrels? You would compare him to a dog. Does a hidden schemer rejoice to have stolen by frauds? Let him be equated with little foxes. Does one rage, intemperate in wrath? Let him be believed to bear the soul of a lion. Does a timid and fugitive man dread things not to be feared? He is held like a deer. Is one sluggish and stupid, growing numb? He lives an ass. Does a fickle and inconstant man keep changing his pursuits? He differs nothing from the birds. Is one plunged in foul and unclean lusts? He is held fast by the pleasure of a filthy sow. So it comes about that he who, forsaking uprightness, has ceased to be a man, since he cannot pass over into the divine condition, is turned into a beast.
The sails of the Neritian leader and his ships wandering over the deep, the East wind drove to the isle where dwelt the beautiful goddess, sprung from the seed of the Sun, who mixes for her new guests cups touched by enchantment. As her herb-mighty hand turned them into various shapes, one a boar's face covers; another, a Marmaric lion, grows with tooth and claws. This one, lately added to the wolves, when he tries to weep, howls. That one, mild like an Indian tigress, prowls about. But although the divine power of the Arcadian winged god, pitying, freed the chief, beset with various ills, from the plague of his hostess, yet already the rowers had drawn the evil cups with their mouths; already as swine they had exchanged the gifts of Ceres for acorns as their fodder, and nothing remained whole in those ruined in voice and body. The mind alone stood firm above, lamenting the monstrous things it suffers. O hand too feeble, and herbs of no power! Though they avail to change the limbs, they avail not to change hearts! Within is hidden the vigor of men, stored in a secret citadel.
These poisons more potently drag a man away from himself—dreadful poisons that enter deep within, and, doing no harm to the body, rage with a wound of the mind. Then I said: I confess, and I see it is not unjustly said, that the vicious, although they keep the form of a human body, are nevertheless changed into beasts in the quality of their souls; but I would not have wished it permitted to those whose savage and criminal mind rages for the ruin of good men. Nor is it permitted, she said, as will be shown in a fitting place. But yet, if that very thing which is believed to be permitted to them were taken away, in great part the punishment of criminal men would be relieved. For—though it may perhaps seem incredible to anyone—it is necessary that the wicked be more unhappy when they have accomplished what they desired than if they could not fulfill what they desire. For if it is wretched to have willed evil things, it is more wretched to have been able to do them, without which the effect of the wretched will would languish.
And so, since each has his own misery, those whom you see wishing crime, being able to commit it, and accomplishing it, must of necessity be pressed by a threefold misfortune. I agree, I said; but I earnestly long that they should quickly be free of this misfortune, being deprived of the capacity for committing crime. They shall be free of it, she said, sooner perhaps than either you would wish, or than they themselves reckon they shall be free of it. For nothing in the so brief bounds of life is so late that an immortal soul especially should think it long to await; their great hope and lofty machine of crimes is often destroyed by a sudden and unexpected end, which indeed sets a limit to their misery.
For if wickedness makes men wretched, the more long-lasting a wicked man is, the more wretched he must necessarily be; and I would judge them most unhappy if at least the final death did not put an end to their wickedness. For if we have concluded truly concerning the misfortune of depravity, it is plain that a misery which it is agreed to be eternal is infinite. Then I said: A wonderful inference indeed, and hard to grant; but I recognize that it agrees all too well with the things that were granted before. You judge rightly, she said. But he who thinks it hard to accede to a conclusion, it is fair that he should either show that something false has preceded, or demonstrate that the arrangement of the propositions is not effective to produce a necessary conclusion; otherwise, the premises being granted, there is nothing at all that he can dispute concerning the inference. For this too which I shall say may seem no less wonderful, but from the things that have been assumed it is equally necessary. What, pray? I said.
The wicked, she said, are happier when they pay their penalties than if no punishment of justice restrained them. Nor do I now attempt that which would come into anyone's mind—that depraved characters are corrected by retribution and led to the right by the terror of punishment, and that it serves as an example to others to flee what is to be blamed; but in some other way I judge the unpunished wicked to be more unhappy, even though no account be taken of correction, no regard had to example. And what, I said, will be the other way besides these? And she: Have we not granted that the good are happy, but the wicked wretched? So it is, I said. If therefore, she said, some good be added to anyone's misery, is he not happier than one whose misery is pure and solitary, without admixture of any good? So it seems, I said.
What if to that same wretched man who lacks all goods, besides the things by which he is wretched, some other evil were attached—is he not to be reckoned far more unhappy than one whose misfortune is relieved by the participation of some good? Why not? I said. But it is manifest that it is just for the wicked to be punished, and unjust that they should escape unpunished. Who would deny it? But neither, she said, will anyone deny that everything which is just is good, and on the contrary, that which is unjust is evil. It is clear, I replied. The wicked, then, when they are punished, have indeed some good attached, namely the punishment itself, which by reason of justice is good; and the same men, when they lack punishment, have in them some further evil, the very impunity which you confessed to be an evil by the desert of its iniquity. I cannot deny it. Far more unhappy, therefore, are the wicked endowed with unjust impunity than punished with just retribution. Then I said:
These things indeed follow from those that were concluded a little before. But I ask you, I said, do you leave no punishments of souls after the body has been laid down by death? Yes, and great ones indeed, she said, of which some I think are exercised with penal harshness, others with purgatorial clemency. But it is not now my purpose to discourse of these. This, however, we have so far accomplished, that you might recognize the power of the wicked, which seemed to you most unworthy, to be no power at all; and that you might see those whom you complained of as unpunished never to be free from the punishments of their own wickedness; and that you might learn that the license which you prayed might quickly be ended is not long, and would be the more unhappy the more long-lasting it were, and most unhappy of all if it were eternal; and after this, that the wicked dismissed with unjust impunity are more wretched than those punished with just retribution. To which sentence it follows as a consequence that they are then at last pressed by heavier punishments when they are believed to be unpunished. Then I said:
When I consider your reasonings, I said, I think nothing is said more truly. But if I return to the judgments of men, who is there to whom these things would seem not only not to be believed but even to be heard? So it is, she said. For they cannot lift their eyes, accustomed to darkness, to the light of clear truth, and they are like those birds whose sight the night illumines and the day blinds. For while they look not at the order of things but at their own affections, they think the license or impunity of crimes to be happiness. But consider what the eternal law decrees. If you have conformed your soul to the better things, there is no need of a judge bestowing a reward; you have added yourself to the more excellent. If you have bent your zeal to the worse, do not seek an avenger from without. You have thrust yourself into the worse, just as if by turns you should look at the filthy earth and the heaven, while all else outside is at rest, by the very faculty of perceiving you should seem now to be among the mire, now among the stars.
But the common crowd does not regard these things. What then? Shall we accede to those whom we have shown to be like beasts? What if someone, having utterly lost his sight, should also forget that he had ever possessed vision, and should think that nothing was lacking to him for human perfection—would we who see think those same people who are blind to be sighted? For they will not even acquiesce in that which rests on equally strong supports of reasoning: that those who do injury are more unhappy than those who suffer it. I would wish, I said, to hear these very reasonings. Do you deny, she said, that every wicked man is worthy of punishment? By no means. And it is in many ways plain that those who are wicked are unhappy. So it is, I said. Those, then, who are worthy of punishment, you do not doubt to be wretched? It is agreed, I said. If therefore, she said, you were sitting as a judge, to which would you think punishment should be inflicted—to him who had done, or to him who had suffered the injury?
I do not doubt, I said, that I would make satisfaction to the one who suffered by the grief of the one who did it. The doer of the injury, then, would seem to you more wretched than the receiver. It follows, I said. From this, then, with other reasons resting on this same root—that baseness by its own nature makes men wretched—it appears that an injury inflicted on anyone is the misery not of the receiver but of the inflicter. And yet, she said, nowadays the orators do the contrary. For on behalf of those who have suffered something grievous and bitter they try to excite the compassion of the judges, whereas a juster compassion would be owed rather to those who commit the wrong; these ought to be led to judgment not by angry but rather by favorable and pitying accusers, like the sick to a physician, that they might cut away the diseases of guilt by punishment. By which arrangement the work of the defenders would either grow wholly cold, or, if it preferred to be of profit to men, would be turned into the manner of an accusation.
The wicked themselves, too, if through some little crack it were permitted them to behold the virtue they had abandoned, and if they saw that they would lay aside the filth of their vices through the torments of punishments, by the compensation of acquiring uprightness, they would not reckon these torments to be torments, and would reject the work of defenders, and would commit themselves wholly to accusers and judges. Whence it comes about that among the wise no place at all is left for hatred. For who but the most foolish would hate the good? And to hate the wicked lacks reason. For if, just as bodily languor, so viciousness is a kind of disease of souls, then, since we judge those sick in body to be by no means worthy of hatred but rather of compassion, much more are those to be pitied, not pursued, whose minds wickedness, more savage than any languor, oppresses. Why does it please you to stir up such great commotions, and to provoke fate with your own hand? If you seek death, she herself draws near of her own accord and does not delay her swift horses.
Those whom the serpent, lion, tiger, bear, and boar seek with tooth—these same men seek one another with the sword. Do they because their characters differ and clash move unjust battle-lines and savage wars, and wish to perish by mutual weapons? The reason for their savagery is not just enough. Do you wish to render a fitting requital to their deserts? Love the good as is right, and pity the evil. Here I said: I see what felicity or misery is established in the very deserts of the upright and the wicked. But in this very popular fortune I weigh that there is not nothing of good or evil. For none of the wise would prefer to be an exile, poor and dishonored, rather than, mighty in wealth, reverend in honor, strong in power, to flourish remaining in his own city.
For thus the office of wisdom is treated more clearly and more attestedly, when the blessedness of the rulers is in some way transfused to the peoples that touch them; especially since prison, execution, and the other torments of legal punishments are owed rather to pernicious citizens, on account of whom indeed they were instituted. Why therefore are these things changed in a reversed turn, and the punishments of crimes press the good, while the wicked snatch the rewards of virtues? I greatly wonder, and I desire to know from you what the reason of this unjust confusion may seem to be. For I should wonder less if I believed all things to be mixed up by fortuitous chances. As it is, God the ruler heightens my amazement. For since he often assigns pleasant things to the good and harsh things to the bad, and on the contrary gives hard things to the good and grants the wicked their wishes—unless a cause be discovered, what is there that should seem to differ from fortuitous chances? Nor is it any wonder, she said, if anything should be believed random and confused when the reason of its order is unknown.