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Theaetetus
Theaet. Of course.
Stranger
Str. Then we shall be right if we say that wickedness is a discord and disease of the soul.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Yes, quite right.
Stranger
Str. But if things which partake of motion and aim at some particular mark pass beside the mark and miss it on every occasion when they try to hit it, shall we say that this happens to them through right proportion to one another or, on the contrary, through disproportion? The connection between disproportion and missing the mark is not obvious. The explanation that a missile (e.g. an arrow) which is not evenly balanced will not fly straight, fails to take account of the words πρὸς ἄλληλα. The idea seems rather to be that moving objects of various sizes, shapes, and rates of speed must interfere with each other.
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Theaetetus
Theaet. Evidently through disproportion.
Stranger
Str. But yet we know that every soul, if ignorant of anything, is ignorant against its will.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Very much so.
Stranger
Str. Now being ignorant is nothing else than the aberration of a soul that aims at truth, when the understanding passes beside the mark.
Theaetetus
Theaet. Very true.
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Stranger
Str. Then we must regard a foolish soul as deformed and ill-proportioned.
Theaetetus
Theaet. So it seems.
Stranger
Str. Then there are, it appears, these two kinds of evils in the soul, one, which people call wickedness, which is very clearly a disease.
Stranger
Str. And the other they call ignorance, but they are not willing to acknowledge that it is vice, when it arises only in the soul.
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