ATHENIAN: I will endeavour to do as you wish: Concerning the soul, thus much would be generally said and allowed, that one element in her nature is passion, which may be described either as a state or a part of her, and is hard to be striven against and contended with, and by irrational force overturns many things.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And pleasure is not the same with passion, but has an opposite power, working her will by persuasion and by the force of deceit in all things.
CLEINIAS: Quite true.
ATHENIAN: A man may truly say that ignorance is a third cause of crimes. Ignorance, however, may be conveniently divided by the legislator into two sorts: there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing. This second kind of ignorance, when possessed of power and strength, will be held by the legislator to be the source of great and monstrous crimes, but when attended with weakness, will only result in the errors of children and old men; and these he will treat as errors, and will make laws accordingly for those who commit them, which will be the mildest and most merciful of all laws.
CLEINIAS: You are perfectly right.
ATHENIAN: We all of us remark of one man that he is superior to pleasure and passion, and of another that he is inferior to them; and this is true.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: But no one was ever yet heard to say that one of us is superior and another inferior to ignorance.
CLEINIAS: Very true.