SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than according to the opinion of all other men put together? CRITO: True. SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding, will he not suffer evil? CRITO: Certainly he will. SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting, in the disobedient person? CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil. SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and reverence him more than all the rest of the world: and if we desert him shall we not destroy and injure that principle in us which may be assumed to be improved by justice and deteriorated by injustice;--there is such a principle? CRITO: Certainly there is, Socrates. SOCRATES: Take a parallel instance:--if, acting under the advice of those who have no understanding, we destroy that which is improved by health and is deteriorated by disease, would life be worth having? And that which has been destroyed is--the body? CRITO: Yes. SOCRATES: Could we live, having an evil and corrupted body? CRITO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice? Do we suppose that principle, whatever it may be in man, which has to do with justice and injustice, to be inferior to the body? CRITO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: More honourable than the body? CRITO: Far more. SOCRATES: Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable.--'Well,' some one will say, 'but the many can kill us.' CRITO: Yes, Socrates; that will clearly be the answer. SOCRATES: And it is true; but still I find with surprise that the old argument is unshaken as ever. And I should like to know whether I may say the same of another proposition--that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued? CRITO: Yes, that also remains unshaken. SOCRATES: And a good life is equivalent to a just and honorable one--that holds also? CRITO: Yes, it does.