Indeed, if we have formed true conclusions about the ill fortune of wickedness, that wretchedness is plainly infinite which is doomed to be eternal.' Then said I: 'A wonderful inference, and difficult to grant; but I see that it agrees entirely with our previous conclusions.' 'Thou art right,' said she; 'but if anyone finds it hard to admit the conclusion, he ought in fairness either to prove some falsity in the premises, or to show that the combination of propositions does not adequately enforce the necessity of the conclusion; otherwise, if the premises be granted, nothing whatever can be said against the inference of the conclusion.

And here is another statement which seems not less wonderful, but on the premises assumed is equally necessary.' 'What is that ?' 'The wicked are happier in undergoing punishment than if no penalty of justice chasten them.

And I am not now meaning what might occur to anyone--that bad character is amended by retribution, and is brought into the right path by the terror of punishment, or that it serves as an example to warn others to avoid transgression; but I believe that in another way the wicked are more unfortunate when they go unpunished, even though no account be taken of amendment, and no regard be paid to example.' 'Why, what other way is there beside these ?' said I.
Then said she: 'Have we not agreed that the good are happy, and the evil wretched ?' 'Yes,' said I.
'Now, if,' said she, 'to one in affliction there be given along with his misery some good thing, is he not happier than one whose misery is misery pure and simple without admixture of any good ?' 'It would seem so.' 'But if to one thus wretched, one destitute of all good, some further evil be added besides those which make him wretched, is he not to be judged far more unhappy than he whose ill fortune is alleviated by some share of good ?' 'It could scarcely be otherwise.' 'Surely, then, the wicked, when they are punished, have a good thing added to them--to wit, the punishment which by the law of justice is good; and likewise, when they escape punishment, a new evil attaches to them in that very freedom from punishment which thou hast rightly acknowledged to be an evil in the case of the unrighteous.' 'I cannot deny it.' 'Then, the wicked are far more unhappy when indulged with an unjust freedom from punishment than when punished by a just retribution.

Now, it is manifest that it is just for the wicked to be punished, and for them to escape unpunished is unjust.' 'Why, who would venture to deny it ?' 'This, too, no one can possibly deny--that all which is just is good, and, conversely, all which is unjust is bad.' Then I answered: 'These inferences do indeed follow from what we lately concluded; but tell me,' said I, 'dost thou take no account of the punishment of the soul after the death of the body ?' 'Nay, truly,' said she, 'great are these penalties, some of them inflicted, I imagine, in the severity of retribution, others in the mercy of purification.

But it is not my present purpose to speak of these.