clearly what it is that I ought to study, and in what way I may accomplish it. And if you find me now assenting to you, but in time to come not doing the things to which I have assented, then consider me as utterly stupid, and thenceforth give me no more advice, as being a man altogether worthless. But repeat it to me again from the beginning, how say you and Pindar is the case with natural justice? is it that the superior should take by force from the inferior, and that the better should rule over the worse, and that the more excellent should have more than the depraved? Do you say that the just is any thing else than this? or do I remember rightly? _Cal._ These things I said then, and I say now. _Socr._ But do you call the same person better and superior? For I was not able at the time to understand you, what you meant: whether do you call the stronger superior, and must the weaker submit to the stronger; as you seemed to me to intimate when you said, that great cities attack little ones by natural justice, because they are superior and stronger; as if the superior, the stronger, and the better, were the same; or is it possible to be better, and at the same time inferior and weaker, and to be superior, but more depraved? or is there the same definition of the better and the superior? Define this clearly for me, are the superior, the better, and the stronger, the same, or different? _Cal._ Then I tell you clearly, that they are the same. 96. _Socr._ Are not, then, the many by nature superior to one? since they establish laws for the one, as you just now said? _Cal._ How can it be otherwise? _Socr._ The laws, then, of the many are those of such as are superior? _Cal._ Certainly. _Socr._ Therefore, of the better? For, according to your account, the superior are far better. _Cal._ Yes. _Socr._ Are not, then, their laws by nature beautiful, since they are superior? _Cal._ I admit it. _Socr._ Now do not the many think thus, as you just now said, that it is just to possess the equal, and that it is more base to injure than to be injured? Is this so, or not? And take care that you are not detected here in being shamefaced. Do the many think or not that to possess the equal, but not more, is just? and that it is more base to injure than to be injured? Do not refuse me an answer to this, Callicles, in order that, if you agree with me, I may be confirmed in my opinion by you, seeing that a man competent to decide has agreed with me. 97. _Cal._ The many, then, do think thus. _Socr._ Not therefore by law only, but by nature also, it is more base to injure than to be injured, and just to possess the equal. So that you appear not to have spoken the truth before, nor to accuse me rightly, in saying that law and nature are contrary to each other, and that I, knowing this, deal unfairly in the discussion, if any one speaks according to nature, by leading him to law, and if any one speaks according to law, by leading him to nature.