The Republic

Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
 The Republic, by Plato

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction and Analysis.
Book I.

Book II.

Book III.

Book IV.

Book V.

Book VI.

Book VII.

Book VIII.

Book IX.

Book X.

The Republic.
1. Of Wealth, Justice, Moderation, and Their Opposites
2. The Individual, the State, and Education
3. The Arts in Education
4. Wealth, Poverty, and Virtue
5. On Matrimony and Philosophy
6. The Philosophy of Government
7. On Shadows and Realities in Education
8. Four Forms of Government
9. On Wrong or Right Government, and the Pleasures of Each
10. The Recompense of Life
 The Republic, by Plato
INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the
Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to
modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or
Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more
clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the
Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the
same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an
equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are
new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there
a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic
power. Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life
and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the
centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy
reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient
thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the
moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although
neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the
substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of
science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius
whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker,
the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and
psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-
ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of
definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the
distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between
means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind
into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and
desires into necessary and unnecessary — these and other great forms of
thought are all of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first
invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which
writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words
and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep.; Polit.;
Cratyl), although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own
writings (e.g. Rep.). But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae — logic
is still veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to
‘contemplate all truth and all existence’ is very unlike the doctrine of the
syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi).
Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still
larger design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as
a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth
to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and
the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early
navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject
was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is
supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would
have stood in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the
poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim.),
intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the
noble commencement of the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself,
and from the third book of the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated
this high argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned;
perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious
history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or because advancing years
forbade the completion of it; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that
had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have found Plato
himself sympathising with the struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws),
singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the
reflection of Herodotus where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian
empire —‘How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the
Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!’ or, more
probably, attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the
favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to Critias).
Again, Plato may be regarded as the ‘captain’ (‘arhchegoz’) or leader of a
goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of
Cicero’s De Republica, of St. Augustine’s City of God, of the Utopia of Sir
Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed
upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school
were indebted to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the
recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself.
The two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and
probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In
English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced, not only in the works of
the Cambridge Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or
Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher than experience,
of which the mind bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own
generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground.
Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world
Plato has had the greatest influence. The Republic of Plato is also the first
treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau,
Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan,
he has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with
the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real influence on
theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his
words when ‘repeated at second-hand’ (Symp.) have in all ages ravished the
hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is
the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the
latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of
knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been
anticipated in a dream by him.
The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of
which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man — then
discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus —
then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates —
reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become
invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal State which is
constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which
an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an
improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic,
a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the
State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which ‘no man
calls anything his own,’ and in which there is neither ‘marrying nor giving in
marriage,’ and ‘kings are philosophers’ and ‘philosophers are kings;’ and there
is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of
science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of life. Such a
State is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates. To the
perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honour,
this again declining into democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an
imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts.
When ‘the wheel has come full circle’ we do not begin again with a new period
of human life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we
end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy
which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the Republic is now
resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry is discovered to be an
imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as well as the dramatic
poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along
with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revelation of a
future life.
The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in the
Classical Museum.), is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural
divisions are five in number; —(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to
the paragraph beginning, ‘I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and
Adeimantus,’ which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of
the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the
earlier Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a
restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an
answer is demanded to the question — What is justice, stripped of
appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second
and the whole of the third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with
the construction of the first State and the first education. The third division (3)
consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than
justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on
principles of communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of
the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth
and ninth books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who
correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and
the principle of tyranny are further analysed in the individual man. The tenth
book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to
poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life,
which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another.
Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books
I— IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance
with Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V—
X) the Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of
which all other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are
really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The
Republic, like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect
whole; the higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the
Hellenic temple, which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this
imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the
imperfect reconcilement in the writer’s own mind of the struggling elements of
thought which are now first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the
composition of the work at different times — are questions, like the similar
question about the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which
cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of
publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to
a work which was known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in
supposing that he may have laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from
one work to another; and such interruptions would be more likely to occur in
the case of a long than of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the
chronological order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this
uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is a
disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works, such as
the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the other hand,
the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out of the discordant
elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole,
perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency which is
obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers
have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the
want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which are
visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature
and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more
inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn
and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the
growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have
been wanting in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues,
according to our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no
proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands. And
the supposition that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a
continuous effort is in some degree confirmed by the numerous references
from one part of the work to another.
The second title, ‘Concerning Justice,’ is not the one by which the Republic
is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other
second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later
date. Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice,
which is the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal
argument of the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two
faces of the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the
visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. The one
is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the
individual, is a fair mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is
the reality of which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the
kingdom of God is within, and yet developes into a Church or external
kingdom; ‘the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,’ is reduced
to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice
and the State are the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture.
And when the constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice
is not dismissed, but reappears under the same or different names throughout
the work, both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the
principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are based on
justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and
justice is based on the idea of good, which is the harmony of the world, and is
reflected both in the institutions of states and in motions of the heavenly
bodies (cp. Tim.). The Timaeus, which takes up the political rather than the
ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly occupied with hypotheses
concerning the outward world, yet contains many indications that the same
law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature, and over man.
 Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and
modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of
nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in
literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not
comprehended in the original design. For the plan grows under the author’s
hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out
the argument to the end before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some
one idea under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on
the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the
ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines himself to
have found the true argument ‘in the representation of human life in a State
perfected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good.’ There may
be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to
express the design of the writer. The truth is, that we may as well speak of
many designs as of one; nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a
great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and
which does not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of
unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose,
is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To
Plato himself, the enquiry ‘what was the intention of the writer,’ or ‘what was
the principal argument of the Republic’ would have been hardly intelligible,
and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the
Phaedrus).
Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to
Plato’s own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State?
Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or ‘the day of the Lord,’ or
the suffering Servant or people of God, or the ‘Sun of righteousness with
healing in his wings’ only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so
through the Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine
perfection, which is the idea of good — like the sun in the visible world; —
about human perfection, which is justice — about education beginning in
youth and continuing in later years — about poets and sophists and tyrants
who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind — about ‘the world’
which is the embodiment of them — about a kingdom which exists nowhere
upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life.
No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more than the clouds of
heaven when the sun pierces through them. Every shade of light and dark, of
truth, and of fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of
philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it easily passes from
ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech. It is not prose but
poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought not to be judged by the rules of
logic or the probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into
an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We
have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived
is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first
into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do
with their truth; and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly
said to bear the greatest ‘marks of design’— justice more than the external
frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science
of dialectic or the organisation of ideas has no real content; but is only a type
of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge is to be pursued by the
spectator of all time and all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh
books that Plato reaches the ‘summit of speculation,’ and these, although they
fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be regarded
as the most important, as they are also the most original, portions of the work.
It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been
raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was
held (the year 411 B.C. which is proposed by him will do as well as any other);
for a writer of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously
careless of chronology (cp. Rep., Symp., etc.), only aims at general probability.
Whether all the persons mentioned in the Republic could ever have met at any
one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading
the work forty years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more
than to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly
trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer ‘which is still
worth asking,’ because the investigation shows that we cannot argue
historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless therefore to waste time
in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid
chronological difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C.F.
Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers but the uncles of
Plato (cp. Apol.), or the fancy of Stallbaum that Plato intentionally left
anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his Dialogues were
written.
The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus, Polemarchus,
Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus appears in the
introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and
Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main
discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the
company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and
brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides — these are mute
auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the
Dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of
Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in
offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with
life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is
drawing nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the memory of
the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry
of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at
having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation,
his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting traits
of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their
whole mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that
riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty
or falsehood. The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of
conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads
him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted.
Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life
might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age is
pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic,
not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the
exaggeration of Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by
Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As
Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic.), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place
in the discussion which follows, and which he could neither have understood
nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in
the Laches).
His ‘son and heir’ Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of
youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not
‘let him off’ on the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited
in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage of morality which has
rules of life rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph.
Clouds) as his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say;
the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of
Socrates. He has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon
and Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he
belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing,
and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he
is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow
the analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth.) we learn
that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his
fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan
origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens.
The ‘Chalcedonian giant,’ Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard
in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato’s
conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and
blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an oration,
and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in
argument, and unable to foresee that the next ‘move’ (to use a Platonic
expression) will ‘shut him up.’ He has reached the stage of framing general
notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polemarchus. But he
is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and vainly tries to cover his
confusion with banter and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed
to him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other Sophist is
uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might
easily grow up — they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in
Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato’s description of him,
and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the contest adds greatly to
the humour of the scene. The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless
in the hands of the great master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the
springs of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of
Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to
the thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their throats, or
put ‘bodily into their souls’ his own words, elicits a cry of horror from
Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of
the argument. Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when
he has been once thoroughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the
discussion with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even
testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks. When
attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates ‘as one who has
never been his enemy and is now his friend.’ From Cicero and Quintilian and
from Aristotle’s Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so
ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages. The
play on his name which was made by his contemporary Herodicus (Aris.
Rhet.), ‘thou wast ever bold in battle,’ seems to show that the description of
him is not devoid of verisimilitude.
When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents,
Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp.
Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of
Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Simmias and
Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the similarity
vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous
youth who can ‘just never have enough of fechting’ (cp. the character of him in
Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of
love; the ‘juvenis qui gaudet canibus,’ and who improves the breed of animals;
the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life. He is
full of quickness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes
of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side
of human life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon
who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to
the world, to whom a state of simplicity is ‘a city of pigs,’ who is always
prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who is
ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous,
whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of theatricals, or in the
fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several
times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked
by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been
distinguished at the battle of Megara (anno 456?) . . . The character of
Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder objections are
commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally
opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more
of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer
judgment of a grown-up man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon
insists that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their
consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind in
general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar vein of
reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in
making his citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but
the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good
government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology,
Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and
carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the
end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of
common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let
Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children. It is
Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in
the lighter and more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example,
throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of
philosophy and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with
Adeimantus. Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a
difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some
false hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with
the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious
State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the
end.
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of
morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who is
followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by proverbs and
saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly come
the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the sophistical arguments
but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of
things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly
distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other
Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated.
The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the
first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the
Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists,
ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the
sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they
are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world. He also
becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of
the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato
himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had
passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be
always repeating the notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the
idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the
Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and
of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem.; Phaedo); and a deep thinker like him, in his
thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the
nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the
Memorabilia (Mem.) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every
inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the
common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere
form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances. The
method of enquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help
of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. The
nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he describes
himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can
see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more
fluently than another.
Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the
immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the
Republic (cp. Apol.); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or
revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have
banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is
retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign,
which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real
element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in
any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration
(Greek): ‘Let us apply the test of common instances.’ ‘You,’ says Adeimantus,
ironically, in the sixth book, ‘are so unaccustomed to speak in images.’ And
this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by
the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in
the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in
the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the
divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an
allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true
pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in
the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog, or the
marriage of the portionless maiden, or the drones and wasps in the eighth and
ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or are used to
recall previous discussions.
Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as
‘not of this world.’ And with this representation of him the ideal state and the
other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they cannot
be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great
teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the
world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of
mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And
even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement of the multitude at times
passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of
philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their
misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for they have never seen him as he
truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems
possessing no native force of truth — words which admit of many applications.
Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of
their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled
with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are
cutting off a Hydra’s head. This moderation towards those who are in error is
one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the
different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and amid
the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character
of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would
have ceased to be Socrates.
Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic,
and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of
the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be read.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK I.
The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene — a festival in honour of the
goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the promise of an
equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is supposed to be recited
by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small party, consisting of Critias,
Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we learn from the first words of the
Timaeus.
When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained,
the attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the
reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of the
numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion; nor are
we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or talked, as
in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the conversation
has arisen is described as follows:— Socrates and his companion Glaucon are
about to leave the festival when they are detained by a message from
Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus, the brother
of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain, promising
them not only the torch-race, but the pleasure of conversation with the young,
which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return to the house of
Cephalus, Polemarchus’ father, now in extreme old age, who is found sitting
upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. ‘You should come to me
oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at my time of life, having
lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.’ Socrates asks him what
he thinks of age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and
discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a
time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies
Socrates, but the world will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age
because you are rich. ‘And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but
not so much as they imagine — as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian,
“Neither you, if you had been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian,
would ever have been famous,” I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a
good poor man can be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.’ Socrates remarks
that Cephalus appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to
his having inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he
considers to be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you
are old the belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done
justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and
never to have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates,
who is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of
the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than this? Or
must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of
my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he
was in his right mind? ‘There must be exceptions.’ ‘And yet,’ says
Polemarchus, ‘the definition which has been given has the authority of
Simonides.’ Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths,
as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir,
Polemarchus . . .
The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has
touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of justice,
first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues respecting
external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the world below in
the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just man is a natural
frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which follows, and may
perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature of justice, there is no
difficulty in discerning ‘who is a just man.’ The first explanation has been
supported by a saying of Simonides; and now Socrates has a mind to show that
the resolution of justice into two unconnected precepts, which have no
common principle, fails to satisfy the demands of dialectic.
. . . He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he
mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? ‘No, not in that case, not if
the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were to do
what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.’ Every act does
something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What is
this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is answered
that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in what way good
or harm? ‘In making alliances with the one, and going to war with the other.’
Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? The answer is that justice is
of use in contracts, and contracts are money partnerships. Yes; but how in
such partnerships is the just man of more use than any other man? ‘When you
want to have money safely kept and not used.’ Then justice will be useful when
money is useless. And there is another difficulty: justice, like the art of war or
any other art, must be of opposites, good at attack as well as at defence, at
stealing as well as at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero
notwithstanding, like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was ‘excellent above
all men in theft and perjury’— to such a pass have you and Homer and
Simonides brought us; though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the
good of friends and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another
question: Are friends to be interpreted as real or seeming; enemies as real or
seeming? And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the
evil? The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good
friends, and evil to our seeming and real evil enemies — good to the good, evil
to the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will only
make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the art of
horsemanship can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final
conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for evil;
this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, Perdiccas, or
Ismenias the Theban (about B.C. 398-381) . . .
Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be
inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set aside, and
through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to the Christian
precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are applied by the Persian
mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning spirit is stirred within
him:—‘If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by evil, what is the difference
between Thee and me?’ In this both Plato and Kheyam rise above the level of
many Christian (?) theologians. The first definition of justice easily passes into
the second; for the simple words ‘to speak the truth and pay your debts’ is
substituted the more abstract ‘to do good to your friends and harm to your
enemies.’ Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain
men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in
passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of
established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain
them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality.
The ‘interrogation’ of moral ideas; the appeal to the authority of Homer; the
conclusion that the maxim, ‘Do good to your friends and harm to your
enemies,’ being erroneous, could not have been the word of any great man, are
all of them very characteristic of the Platonic Socrates.
. . . Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but
has hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause
and rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar.
‘Socrates,’ he says, ‘what folly is this? — Why do you agree to be vanquished by
one another in a pretended argument?’ He then prohibits all the ordinary
definitions of justice; to which Socrates replies that he cannot tell how many
twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 x 6, or 3 x 4, or 6 x 2, or 4 x 3. At first
Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue; but at length, with a promise of payment
on the part of the company and of praise from Socrates, he is induced to open
the game. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘my answer is that might is right, justice the
interest of the stronger: now praise me.’ Let me understand you first. Do you
mean that because Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds
the eating of beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who
are not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in
pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he
explains his meaning to be that the rulers make laws for their own interests.
But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a mistake — then
the interest of the stronger is not his interest. Thrasymachus is saved from this
speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon, who introduces the word
‘thinks;’— not the actual interest of the ruler, but what he thinks or what
seems to be his interest, is justice. The contradiction is escaped by the
unmeaning evasion: for though his real and apparent interests may differ,
what the ruler thinks to be his interest will always remain what he thinks to be
his interest.
Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new interpretation
accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not disposed to quarrel
about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his adversary has changed his
mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact withdraw his admission that
the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms that the ruler as a ruler is
infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept the new position, which he equally
turns against Thrasymachus by the help of the analogy of the arts. Every art or
science has an interest, but this interest is to be distinguished from the
accidental interest of the artist, and is only concerned with the good of the
things or persons which come under the art. And justice has an interest which
is the interest not of the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway.
Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he makes
a bold diversion. ‘Tell me, Socrates,’ he says, ‘have you a nurse?’ What a
question! Why do you ask? ‘Because, if you have, she neglects you and lets you
go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the shepherd from
the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never think of their own
interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas the truth is that they
fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike. And experience proves that
in every relation of life the just man is the loser and the unjust the gainer,
especially where injustice is on the grand scale, which is quite another thing
from the petty rogueries of swindlers and burglars and robbers of temples. The
language of men proves this — our ‘gracious’ and ‘blessed’ tyrant and the like
— all which tends to show (1) that justice is the interest of the stronger; and
(2) that injustice is more profitable and also stronger than justice.’
Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having
deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others will not
let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will not
desert them at such a crisis of their fate. ‘And what can I do more for you?’ he
says; ‘would you have me put the words bodily into your souls?’ God forbid!
replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in the use of terms, and not
to employ ‘physician’ in an exact sense, and then again ‘shepherd’ or ‘ruler’ in
an inexact — if the words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look
only to the good of their people or flocks and not to their own: whereas you
insist that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. ‘No doubt about it,’
replies Thrasymachus. Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their
interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of
another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and
therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would any man be a ruler
unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment; — the
reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by
a man worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely
of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would
be as much ‘nolo episcopari’ as there is at present of the opposite . . .
The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and
apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There is
a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not like
being in office, and that therefore they demand pay.
. . . Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more
important — that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as you and
I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we try to
compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for us; we had
better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the truth to one
another.
Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than
perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to admit
the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice. Socrates
praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only wish is to
understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is weaving a
net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is elicited from
him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the unjust only, but not
over the just, while the unjust would gain an advantage over either. Socrates,
in order to test this statement, employs once more the favourite analogy of the
arts. The musician, doctor, skilled artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more
than the skilled, but only more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up
to a rule, standard, law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes
random efforts at excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the
unskilled on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the
unskilled.
There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day
was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in his
life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was stronger than
justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds to the
consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus, he hopes to
clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious hands of Socrates is
soon restored to good-humour: Is there not honour among thieves? Is not the
strength of injustice only a remnant of justice? Is not absolute injustice
absolute weakness also? A house that is divided against itself cannot stand;
two men who quarrel detract from one another’s strength, and he who is at
war with himself is the enemy of himself and the gods. Not wickedness
therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states, — a remnant of good is
needed in order to make union in action possible — there is no kingdom of evil
in this world.
Another question has not been answered: Is the just or the unjust the
happier? To this we reply, that every art has an end and an excellence or virtue
by which the end is accomplished. And is not the end of the soul happiness,
and justice the excellence of the soul by which happiness is attained? Justice
and happiness being thus shown to be inseparable, the question whether the
just or the unjust is the happier has disappeared.
Thrasymachus replies: ‘Let this be your entertainment, Socrates, at the
festival of Bendis.’ Yes; and a very good entertainment with which your
kindness has supplied me, now that you have left off scolding. And yet not a
good entertainment — but that was my own fault, for I tasted of too many
things. First of all the nature of justice was the subject of our enquiry, and
then whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly; and then the
comparative advantages of just and unjust: and the sum of all is that I know
not what justice is; how then shall I know whether the just is happy or not? . . .
Thus the sophistical fabric has been demolished, chiefly by appealing to
the analogy of the arts. ‘Justice is like the arts (1) in having no external
interest, and (2) in not aiming at excess, and (3) justice is to happiness what
the implement of the workman is to his work.’ At this the modern reader is apt
to stumble, because he forgets that Plato is writing in an age when the arts and
the virtues, like the moral and intellectual faculties, were still undistinguished.
Among early enquirers into the nature of human action the arts helped to fill
up the void of speculation; and at first the comparison of the arts and the
virtues was not perceived by them to be fallacious. They only saw the points of
agreement in them and not the points of difference. Virtue, like art, must take
means to an end; good manners are both an art and a virtue; character is
naturally described under the image of a statue; and there are many other
figures of speech which are readily transferred from art to morals. The next
generation cleared up these perplexities; or at least supplied after ages with a
further analysis of them. The contemporaries of Plato were in a state of
transition, and had not yet fully realized the common-sense distinction of
Aristotle, that ‘virtue is concerned with action, art with production’ (Nic. Eth.),
or that ‘virtue implies intention and constancy of purpose,’ whereas ‘art
requires knowledge only’. And yet in the absurdities which follow from some
uses of the analogy, there seems to be an intimation conveyed that virtue is
more than art. This is implied in the reductio ad absurdum that ‘justice is a
thief,’ and in the dissatisfaction which Socrates expresses at the final result.
The expression ‘an art of pay’ which is described as ‘common to all the
arts’ is not in accordance with the ordinary use of language. Nor is it employed
elsewhere either by Plato or by any other Greek writer. It is suggested by the
argument, and seems to extend the conception of art to doing as well as
making. Another flaw or inaccuracy of language may be noted in the words
‘men who are injured are made more unjust.’ For those who are injured are
not necessarily made worse, but only harmed or ill-treated.
The second of the three arguments, ‘that the just does not aim at excess,’
has a real meaning, though wrapped up in an enigmatical form. That the good
is of the nature of the finite is a peculiarly Hellenic sentiment, which may be
compared with the language of those modern writers who speak of virtue as
fitness, and of freedom as obedience to law. The mathematical or logical
notion of limit easily passes into an ethical one, and even finds a mythological
expression in the conception of envy (Greek). Ideas of measure, equality,
order, unity, proportion, still linger in the writings of moralists; and the true
spirit of the fine arts is better conveyed by such terms than by superlatives.
‘When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill
in covetousness.’ (King John.)
The harmony of the soul and body, and of the parts of the soul with one
another, a harmony ‘fairer than that of musical notes,’ is the true Hellenic
mode of conceiving the perfection of human nature.
In what may be called the epilogue of the discussion with Thrasymachus,
Plato argues that evil is not a principle of strength, but of discord and
dissolution, just touching the question which has been often treated in modern
times by theologians and philosophers, of the negative nature of evil. In the
last argument we trace the germ of the Aristotelian doctrine of an end and a
virtue directed towards the end, which again is suggested by the arts. The final
reconcilement of justice and happiness and the identity of the individual and
the State are also intimated. Socrates reassumes the character of a ‘know-
nothing;’ at the same time he appears to be not wholly satisfied with the
manner in which the argument has been conducted. Nothing is concluded; but
the tendency of the dialectical process, here as always, is to enlarge our
conception of ideas, and to widen their application to human life.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK II.
Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on continuing the
argument. He is not satisfied with the indirect manner in which, at the end of
the last book, Socrates had disposed of the question ‘Whether the just or the
unjust is the happier.’ He begins by dividing goods into three classes:— first,
goods desirable in themselves; secondly, goods desirable in themselves and for
their results; thirdly, goods desirable for their results only. He then asks
Socrates in which of the three classes he would place justice. In the second
class, replies Socrates, among goods desirable for themselves and also for their
results. ‘Then the world in general are of another mind, for they say that
justice belongs to the troublesome class of goods which are desirable for their
results only. Socrates answers that this is the doctrine of Thrasymachus which
he rejects. Glaucon thinks that Thrasymachus was too ready to listen to the
voice of the charmer, and proposes to consider the nature of justice and
injustice in themselves and apart from the results and rewards of them which
the world is always dinning in his ears. He will first of all speak of the nature
and origin of justice; secondly, of the manner in which men view justice as a
necessity and not a good; and thirdly, he will prove the reasonableness of this
view.
‘To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is
discovered by experience to be greater than the good, the sufferers, who
cannot also be doers, make a compact that they will have neither, and this
compact or mean is called justice, but is really the impossibility of doing
injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us
suppose that the just and unjust have two rings, like that of Gyges in the well-
known story, which make them invisible, and then no difference will appear in
them, for every one will do evil if he can. And he who abstains will be regarded
by the world as a fool for his pains. Men may praise him in public out of fear
for themselves, but they will laugh at him in their hearts (Cp. Gorgias.)
‘And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust
man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting
them; having gifts of money, speech, strength — the greatest villain bearing
the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and
simplicity — being, not seeming — without name or reward — clothed in his
justice only — the best of men who is thought to be the worst, and let him die
as he has lived. I might add (but I would rather put the rest into the mouth of
the panegyrists of injustice — they will tell you) that the just man will be
scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and will at last be crucified
(literally impaled)— and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming to
being. How different is the case of the unjust who clings to appearance as the
true reality! His high character makes him a ruler; he can marry where he
likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies; having got
rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods better, and will therefore be more
loved by them than the just.’
I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already
unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had been
omitted:—‘Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards; parents and
guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other advantages are
promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy marriages and high
offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod of fat sheep and heavy
fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with fruit, which the gods provide
in this life for the just. And the Orphic poets add a similar picture of another.
The heroes of Musaeus and Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with
garlands on their heads, enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal
drunkenness. Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and
fourth generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry
water in a sieve: and in this life they attribute to them the infamy which
Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to be unjust.
‘Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:—
“Virtue,” as Hesiod says, “is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and
profitable.” You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the righteous
afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at rich men’s
doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their fathers in an easy
fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with charms and invocations to
get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help and at a small charge; — they
appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry
away the minds of whole cities, and promise to “get souls out of purgatory;”
and if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows what will happen to us.
‘When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his
conclusion? “Will he,” in the language of Pindar, “make justice his high tower,
or fortify himself with crooked deceit?” Justice, he reflects, without the
appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the promise of a
glorious life. Appearance is master of truth and lord of happiness. To
appearance then I will turn — I will put on the show of virtue and trail behind
me the fox of Archilochus. I hear some one saying that “wickedness is not
easily concealed,” to which I reply that “nothing great is easy.” Union and
force and rhetoric will do much; and if men say that they cannot prevail over
the gods, still how do we know that there are gods? Only from the poets, who
acknowledge that they may be appeased by sacrifices. Then why not sin and
pay for indulgences out of your sin? For if the righteous are only unpunished,
still they have no further reward, while the wicked may be unpunished and
have the pleasure of sinning too. But what of the world below? Nay, says the
argument, there are atoning powers who will set that matter right, as the
poets, who are the sons of the gods, tell us; and this is confirmed by the
authority of the State.
‘How can we resist such arguments in favour of injustice? Add good
manners, and, as the wise tell us, we shall make the best of both worlds. Who
that is not a miserable caitiff will refrain from smiling at the praises of justice?
Even if a man knows the better part he will not be angry with others; for he
knows also that more than human virtue is needed to save a man, and that he
only praises justice who is incapable of injustice.
‘The origin of the evil is that all men from the beginning, heroes, poets,
instructors of youth, have always asserted “the temporal dispensation,” the
honours and profits of justice. Had we been taught in early youth the power of
justice and injustice inherent in the soul, and unseen by any human or divine
eye, we should not have needed others to be our guardians, but every one
would have been the guardian of himself. This is what I want you to show,
Socrates; — other men use arguments which rather tend to strengthen the
position of Thrasymachus that “might is right;” but from you I expect better
things. And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation; let the just be
thought unjust and the unjust just, and do you still prove to us the superiority
of justice’ . . .
The thesis, which for the sake of argument has been maintained by
Glaucon, is the converse of that of Thrasymachus — not right is the interest of
the stronger, but right is the necessity of the weaker. Starting from the same
premises he carries the analysis of society a step further back; — might is still
right, but the might is the weakness of the many combined against the
strength of the few.
There have been theories in modern as well as in ancient times which have
a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the
foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill;
or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural state of
man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of
plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature
oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of
institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis
according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The
obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by
rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct
among civilized men. The divine right of kings, or more generally of
governments, is one of the forms under which this natural feeling is expressed.
Nor again is there any evil which has not some accompaniment of good or
pleasure; nor any good which is free from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or
generous thought which may not be attended by a shadow or the ghost of a
shadow of self-interest or of self-love. We know that all human actions are
imperfect; but we do not therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to
the better motive or principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like
that opinion of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself.
And theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which is
based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by custom
and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they describe the
origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in the social and
religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the average character of
individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a theory of evil, but has
always a counteracting element of good. And as men become better such
theories appear more and more untruthful to them, because they are more
conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little experience may make a man
a cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a truer and kindlier view of the
mixed nature of himself and his fellow men.
The two brothers ask Socrates to prove to them that the just is happy when
they have taken from him all that in which happiness is ordinarily supposed to
consist. Not that there is (1) any absurdity in the attempt to frame a notion of
justice apart from circumstances. For the ideal must always be a paradox
when compared with the ordinary conditions of human life. Neither the
Stoical ideal nor the Christian ideal is true as a fact, but they may serve as a
basis of education, and may exercise an ennobling influence. An ideal is none
the worse because ‘some one has made the discovery’ that no such ideal was
ever realized. And in a few exceptional individuals who are raised above the
ordinary level of humanity, the ideal of happiness may be realized in death
and misery. This may be the state which the reason deliberately approves, and
which the utilitarian as well as every other moralist may be bound in certain
cases to prefer.
Nor again, (2) must we forget that Plato, though he agrees generally with
the view implied in the argument of the two brothers, is not expressing his
own final conclusion, but rather seeking to dramatize one of the aspects of
ethical truth. He is developing his idea gradually in a series of positions or
situations. He is exhibiting Socrates for the first time undergoing the Socratic
interrogation. Lastly, (3) the word ‘happiness’ involves some degree of
confusion because associated in the language of modern philosophy with
conscious pleasure or satisfaction, which was not equally present to his mind.
Glaucon has been drawing a picture of the misery of the just and the
happiness of the unjust, to which the misery of the tyrant in Book IX is the
answer and parallel. And still the unjust must appear just; that is ‘the homage
which vice pays to virtue.’ But now Adeimantus, taking up the hint which had
been already given by Glaucon, proceeds to show that in the opinion of
mankind justice is regarded only for the sake of rewards and reputation, and
points out the advantage which is given to such arguments as those of
Thrasymachus and Glaucon by the conventional morality of mankind. He
seems to feel the difficulty of ‘justifying the ways of God to man.’ Both the
brothers touch upon the question, whether the morality of actions is
determined by their consequences; and both of them go beyond the position of
Socrates, that justice belongs to the class of goods not desirable for themselves
only, but desirable for themselves and for their results, to which he recalls
them. In their attempt to view justice as an internal principle, and in their
condemnation of the poets, they anticipate him. The common life of Greece is
not enough for them; they must penetrate deeper into the nature of things.
It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and
Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue. May we not more
truly say that the old-fashioned notion of justice is enlarged by Socrates, and
becomes equivalent to universal order or well-being, first in the State, and
secondly in the individual? He has found a new answer to his old question
(Protag.), ‘whether the virtues are one or many,’ viz. that one is the ordering
principle of the three others. In seeking to establish the purely internal nature
of justice, he is met by the fact that man is a social being, and he tries to
harmonise the two opposite theses as well as he can. There is no more
inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country; there is no use
in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some
other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent. Plato does not give the
final solution of philosophical questions for us; nor can he be judged of by our
standard.
The remainder of the Republic is developed out of the question of the sons
of Ariston. Three points are deserving of remark in what immediately follows:
— First, that the answer of Socrates is altogether indirect. He does not say that
happiness consists in the contemplation of the idea of justice, and still less will
he be tempted to affirm the Stoical paradox that the just man can be happy on
the rack. But first he dwells on the difficulty of the problem and insists on
restoring man to his natural condition, before he will answer the question at
all. He too will frame an ideal, but his ideal comprehends not only abstract
justice, but the whole relations of man. Under the fanciful illustration of the
large letters he implies that he will only look for justice in society, and that
from the State he will proceed to the individual. His answer in substance
amounts to this — that under favourable conditions, i.e. in the perfect State,
justice and happiness will coincide, and that when justice has been once
found, happiness may be left to take care of itself. That he falls into some
degree of inconsistency, when in the tenth book he claims to have got rid of
the rewards and honours of justice, may be admitted; for he has left those
which exist in the perfect State. And the philosopher ‘who retires under the
shelter of a wall’ can hardly have been esteemed happy by him, at least not in
this world. Still he maintains the true attitude of moral action. Let a man do
his duty first, without asking whether he will be happy or not, and happiness
will be the inseparable accident which attends him. ‘Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’
Secondly, it may be remarked that Plato preserves the genuine character
of Greek thought in beginning with the State and in going on to the individual.
First ethics, then politics — this is the order of ideas to us; the reverse is the
order of history. Only after many struggles of thought does the individual
assert his right as a moral being. In early ages he is not ONE, but one of many,
the citizen of a State which is prior to him; and he has no notion of good or evil
apart from the law of his country or the creed of his church. And to this type
he is constantly tending to revert, whenever the influence of custom, or of
party spirit, or the recollection of the past becomes too strong for him.
Thirdly, we may observe the confusion or identification of the individual
and the State, of ethics and politics, which pervades early Greek speculation,
and even in modern times retains a certain degree of influence. The subtle
difference between the collective and individual action of mankind seems to
have escaped early thinkers, and we too are sometimes in danger of forgetting
the conditions of united human action, whenever we either elevate politics
into ethics, or lower ethics to the standard of politics. The good man and the
good citizen only coincide in the perfect State; and this perfection cannot be
attained by legislation acting upon them from without, but, if at all, by
education fashioning them from within.
. . . Socrates praises the sons of Ariston, ‘inspired offspring of the
renowned hero,’ as the elegiac poet terms them; but he does not understand
how they can argue so eloquently on behalf of injustice while their character
shows that they are uninfluenced by their own arguments. He knows not how
to answer them, although he is afraid of deserting justice in the hour of need.
He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to
read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look
for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to the individual.
Accordingly he begins to construct the State.
 Society arises out of the wants of man. His first want is food; his second a
house; his third a coat. The sense of these needs and the possibility of
satisfying them by exchange, draw individuals together on the same spot; and
this is the beginning of a State, which we take the liberty to invent, although
necessity is the real inventor. There must be first a husbandman, secondly a
builder, thirdly a weaver, to which may be added a cobbler. Four or five
citizens at least are required to make a city. Now men have different natures,
and one man will do one thing better than many; and business waits for no
man. Hence there must be a division of labour into different employments;
into wholesale and retail trade; into workers, and makers of workmen’s tools;
into shepherds and husbandmen. A city which includes all this will have far
exceeded the limit of four or five, and yet not be very large. But then again
imports will be required, and imports necessitate exports, and this implies
variety of produce in order to attract the taste of purchasers; also merchants
and ships. In the city too we must have a market and money and retail trades;
otherwise buyers and sellers will never meet, and the valuable time of the
producers will be wasted in vain efforts at exchange. If we add hired servants
the State will be complete. And we may guess that somewhere in the
intercourse of the citizens with one another justice and injustice will appear.
Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in
houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and
produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and
they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and
take care not to have too many children. ‘But,’ said Glaucon, interposing, ‘are
they not to have a relish?’ Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese,
vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ‘’Tis a city of pigs,
Socrates.’ Why, I replied, what do you want more? ‘Only the comforts of life —
sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.’ I see; you want not only a State, but a
luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find
justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to work — every conceivable
instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers,
painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists;
swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the
disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths
we shall need a part of our neighbour’s land, and they will want a part of ours.
And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other
political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the
citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the
division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a
day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be
some warlike natures who have this aptitude — dogs keen of scent, swift of
foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of
courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But
these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of
gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an
impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then
can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are
gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges
by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or
beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers
or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be
learned without education?
But what shall their education be? Is any better than the old-fashioned
sort which is comprehended under the name of music and gymnastic? Music
includes literature, and literature is of two kinds, true and false. ‘What do you
mean?’ he said. I mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics,
and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of
truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children
ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up; we must
therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping
others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances
of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies; stories about Uranus
and Saturn, which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be
spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery,
after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal.
Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or
our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife
among the gods? Shall they listen to the narrative of Hephaestus binding his
mother, and of Zeus sending him flying for helping her when she was beaten?
Such tales may possibly have a mystical interpretation, but the young are
incapable of understanding allegory. If any one asks what tales are to be
allowed, we will answer that we are legislators and not book-makers; we only
lay down the principles according to which books are to be written; to write
them is the duty of others.
And our first principle is, that God must be represented as he is; not as the
author of all things, but of good only. We will not suffer the poets to say that
he is the steward of good and evil, or that he has two casks full of destinies; —
or that Athene and Zeus incited Pandarus to break the treaty; or that God
caused the sufferings of Niobe, or of Pelops, or the Trojan war; or that he
makes men sin when he wishes to destroy them. Either these were not the
actions of the gods, or God was just, and men were the better for being
punished. But that the deed was evil, and God the author, is a wicked, suicidal
fiction which we will allow no one, old or young, to utter. This is our first and
great principle — God is the author of good only.
And the second principle is like unto it:— With God is no variableness or
change of form. Reason teaches us this; for if we suppose a change in God, he
must be changed either by another or by himself. By another? — but the best
works of nature and art and the noblest qualities of mind are least liable to be
changed by any external force. By himself? — but he cannot change for the
better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and
best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of
Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about
at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which
mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. But some
one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take a form in
relation to us. Why should he? For gods as well as men hate the lie in the soul,
or principle of falsehood; and as for any other form of lying which is used for a
purpose and is regarded as innocent in certain exceptional cases — what need
have the gods of this? For they are not ignorant of antiquity like the poets, nor
are they afraid of their enemies, nor is any madman a friend of theirs. God
then is true, he is absolutely true; he changes not, he deceives not, by day or
night, by word or sign. This is our second great principle — God is true. Away
with the lying dream of Agamemnon in Homer, and the accusation of Thetis
against Apollo in Aeschylus . . .
 In order to give clearness to his conception of the State, Plato proceeds to
trace the first principles of mutual need and of division of labour in an
imaginary community of four or five citizens. Gradually this community
increases; the division of labour extends to countries; imports necessitate
exports; a medium of exchange is required, and retailers sit in the market-
place to save the time of the producers. These are the steps by which Plato
constructs the first or primitive State, introducing the elements of political
economy by the way. As he is going to frame a second or civilized State, the
simple naturally comes before the complex. He indulges, like Rousseau, in a
picture of primitive life — an idea which has indeed often had a powerful
influence on the imagination of mankind, but he does not seriously mean to
say that one is better than the other (Politicus); nor can any inference be
drawn from the description of the first state taken apart from the second, such
as Aristotle appears to draw in the Politics. We should not interpret a Platonic
dialogue any more than a poem or a parable in too literal or matter-of-fact a
style. On the other hand, when we compare the lively fancy of Plato with the
dried-up abstractions of modern treatises on philosophy, we are compelled to
say with Protagoras, that the ‘mythus is more interesting’ (Protag.)
Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in
a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings of
Plato: especially Laws, Population; Free Trade; Adulteration; Wills and
Bequests; Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato’s), Value and Demand;
Republic, Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of Retail
Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of the Republic.
But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system, and never seems
to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive powers of the State
and of the world. He would make retail traders only of the inferior sort of
citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks, quaintly enough (Laws), that ‘if only
the best men and the best women everywhere were compelled to keep taverns
for a time or to carry on retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant
and agreeable all these things are.’
The disappointment of Glaucon at the ‘city of pigs,’ the ludicrous
description of the ministers of luxury in the more refined State, and the
afterthought of the necessity of doctors, the illustration of the nature of the
guardian taken from the dog, the desirableness of offering some almost
unprocurable victim when impure mysteries are to be celebrated, the
behaviour of Zeus to his father and of Hephaestus to his mother, are touches
of humour which have also a serious meaning. In speaking of education Plato
rather startles us by affirming that a child must be trained in falsehood first
and in truth afterwards. Yet this is not very different from saying that children
must be taught through the medium of imagination as well as reason; that
their minds can only develope gradually, and that there is much which they
must learn without understanding. This is also the substance of Plato’s view,
though he must be acknowledged to have drawn the line somewhat differently
from modern ethical writers, respecting truth and falsehood. To us, economies
or accommodations would not be allowable unless they were required by the
human faculties or necessary for the communication of knowledge to the
simple and ignorant. We should insist that the word was inseparable from the
intention, and that we must not be ‘falsely true,’ i.e. speak or act falsely in
support of what was right or true. But Plato would limit the use of fictions only
by requiring that they should have a good moral effect, and that such a
dangerous weapon as falsehood should be employed by the rulers alone and
for great objects.
A Greek in the age of Plato attached no importance to the question
whether his religion was an historical fact. He was just beginning to be
conscious that the past had a history; but he could see nothing beyond Homer
and Hesiod. Whether their narratives were true or false did not seriously affect
the political or social life of Hellas. Men only began to suspect that they were
fictions when they recognised them to be immoral. And so in all religions: the
consideration of their morality comes first, afterwards the truth of the
documents in which they are recorded, or of the events natural or
supernatural which are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant
countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to
identify the historical with the moral; and some have refused to believe in
religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of
the record. The facts of an ancient or religious history are amongst the most
important of all facts; but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the
true lesson which is to be gathered from them when we place ourselves above
them. These reflections tend to show that the difference between Plato and
ourselves, though not unimportant, is not so great as might at first sight
appear. For we should agree with him in placing the moral before the
historical truth of religion; and, generally, in disregarding those errors or
misstatements of fact which necessarily occur in the early stages of all
religions. We know also that changes in the traditions of a country cannot be
made in a day; and are therefore tolerant of many things which science and
criticism would condemn.
We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology, said to
have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before Christ by
Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of Plato, and here, as in
the Phaedrus, though for a different reason, was rejected by him. That
anachronisms whether of religion or law, when men have reached another
stage of civilization, should be got rid of by fictions is in accordance with
universal experience. Great is the art of interpretation; and by a natural
process, which when once discovered was always going on, what could not be
altered was explained away. And so without any palpable inconsistency there
existed side by side two forms of religion, the tradition inherited or invented
by the poets and the customary worship of the temple; on the other hand,
there was the religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of
ideas, but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Aesculapius, or to be seen
saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the antagonism between
the popular and philosophical religion, never so great among the Greeks as in
our own age, disappeared, and was only felt like the difference between the
religion of the educated and uneducated among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer
and Hesiod easily passed into the ‘royal mind’ of Plato (Philebus); the giant
Heracles became the knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still
more wonderful transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of
Stoics and neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ.
The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of
philosophy; having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into poetry
and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of their decay,
when their influence over the world was waning.
A singular conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie
in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that
involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie,
the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the
soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For
example, to represent God as false or immoral, or, according to Plato, as
deluding men with appearances or as the author of evil; or again, to affirm
with Protagoras that ‘knowledge is sensation,’ or that ‘being is becoming,’ or
with Thrasymachus ‘that might is right,’ would have been regarded by Plato as
a lie of this hateful sort. The greatest unconsciousness of the greatest untruth,
e.g. if, in the language of the Gospels (John), ‘he who was blind’ were to say ‘I
see,’ is another aspect of the state of mind which Plato is describing. The lie in
the soul may be further compared with the sin against the Holy Ghost (Luke),
allowing for the difference between Greek and Christian modes of speaking.
To this is opposed the lie in words, which is only such a deception as may
occur in a play or poem, or allegory or figure of speech, or in any sort of
accommodation — which though useless to the gods may be useful to men in
certain cases. Socrates is here answering the question which he had himself
raised about the propriety of deceiving a madman; and he is also contrasting
the nature of God and man. For God is Truth, but mankind can only be true by
appearing sometimes to be partial, or false. Reserving for another place the
greater questions of religion or education, we may note further, (1) the
approval of the old traditional education of Greece; (2) the preparation which
Plato is making for the attack on Homer and the poets; (3) the preparation
which he is also making for the use of economies in the State; (4) the
contemptuous and at the same time euphemistic manner in which here as
below he alludes to the ‘Chronique Scandaleuse’ of the gods.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK III.
There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to banish fear; for no
man can be courageous who is afraid of death, or who believes the tales which
are repeated by the poets concerning the world below. They must be gently
requested not to abuse hell; they may be reminded that their stories are both
untrue and discouraging. Nor must they be angry if we expunge obnoxious
passages, such as the depressing words of Achilles —‘I would rather be a
serving-man than rule over all the dead;’ and the verses which tell of the
squalid mansions, the senseless shadows, the flitting soul mourning over lost
strength and youth, the soul with a gibber going beneath the earth like smoke,
or the souls of the suitors which flutter about like bats. The terrors and horrors
of Cocytus and Styx, ghosts and sapless shades, and the rest of their Tartarean
nomenclature, must vanish. Such tales may have their use; but they are not
the proper food for soldiers. As little can we admit the sorrows and sympathies
of the Homeric heroes:— Achilles, the son of Thetis, in tears, throwing ashes
on his head, or pacing up and down the sea-shore in distraction; or Priam, the
cousin of the gods, crying aloud, rolling in the mire. A good man is not
prostrated at the loss of children or fortune. Neither is death terrible to him;
and therefore lamentations over the dead should not be practised by men of
note; they should be the concern of inferior persons only, whether women or
men. Still worse is the attribution of such weakness to the gods; as when the
goddesses say, ‘Alas! my travail!’ and worst of all, when the king of heaven
himself laments his inability to save Hector, or sorrows over the impending
doom of his dear Sarpedon. Such a character of God, if not ridiculed by our
young men, is likely to be imitated by them. Nor should our citizens be given
to excess of laughter —‘Such violent delights’ are followed by a violent re-
action. The description in the Iliad of the gods shaking their sides at the
clumsiness of Hephaestus will not be admitted by us. ‘Certainly not.’
Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we
were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But
this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common
man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient would
tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain.
In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists
in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer
teaches in some places: ‘The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in
silent awe of their leaders;’— but a very different one in other places: ‘O heavy
with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a stag.’ Language of the
latter kind will not impress self-control on the minds of youth. The same may
be said about his praises of eating and drinking and his dread of starvation;
also about the verses in which he tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here,
or of how Hephaestus once detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar
occasion. There is a nobler strain heard in the words:—‘Endure, my soul, thou
hast endured worse.’ Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to
say, ‘Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings;’ or to applaud the ignoble
advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of the Greeks
before he assisted them; or the meanness of Achilles himself in taking gifts
from Agamemnon; or his requiring a ransom for the body of Hector; or his
cursing of Apollo; or his insolence to the river-god Scamander; or his
dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which had been already
dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his cruelty in dragging the
body of Hector round the walls, and slaying the captives at the pyre: such a
combination of meanness and cruelty in Cheiron’s pupil is inconceivable. The
amatory exploits of Peirithous and Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these
so-called sons of gods were not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the
poets imagine them, any more than the gods themselves are the authors of
evil. The youth who believes that such things are done by those who have the
blood of heaven flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their
example.
Enough of gods and heroes; — what shall we say about men? What the
poets and story-tellers say — that the wicked prosper and the righteous are
afflicted, or that justice is another’s gain? Such misrepresentations cannot be
allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition of justice, and had
therefore better defer the enquiry.
The subjects of poetry have been sufficiently treated; next follows style.
Now all poetry is a narrative of events past, present, or to come; and narrative
is of three kinds, the simple, the imitative, and a composition of the two. An
instance will make my meaning clear. The first scene in Homer is of the last or
mixed kind, being partly description and partly dialogue. But if you throw the
dialogue into the ‘oratio obliqua,’ the passage will run thus: The priest came
and prayed Apollo that the Achaeans might take Troy and have a safe return if
Agamemnon would only give him back his daughter; and the other Greeks
assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and so on — The whole then becomes
descriptive, and the poet is the only speaker left; or, if you omit the narrative,
the whole becomes dialogue. These are the three styles — which of them is to
be admitted into our State? ‘Do you ask whether tragedy and comedy are to be
admitted?’ Yes, but also something more — Is it not doubtful whether our
guardians are to be imitators at all? Or rather, has not the question been
already answered, for we have decided that one man cannot in his life play
many parts, any more than he can act both tragedy and comedy, or be
rhapsodist and actor at once? Human nature is coined into very small pieces,
and as our guardians have their own business already, which is the care of
freedom, they will have enough to do without imitating. If they imitate they
should imitate, not any meanness or baseness, but the good only; for the mask
which the actor wears is apt to become his face. We cannot allow men to play
the parts of women, quarrelling, weeping, scolding, or boasting against the
gods — least of all when making love or in labour. They must not represent
slaves, or bullies, or cowards, drunkards, or madmen, or blacksmiths, or
neighing horses, or bellowing bulls, or sounding rivers, or a raging sea. A good
or wise man will be willing to perform good and wise actions, but he will be
ashamed to play an inferior part which he has never practised; and he will
prefer to employ the descriptive style with as little imitation as possible. The
man who has no self-respect, on the contrary, will imitate anybody and
anything; sounds of nature and cries of animals alike; his whole performance
will be imitation of gesture and voice. Now in the descriptive style there are
few changes, but in the dramatic there are a great many. Poets and musicians
use either, or a compound of both, and this compound is very attractive to
youth and their teachers as well as to the vulgar. But our State in which one
man plays one part only is not adapted for complexity. And when one of these
polyphonous pantomimic gentlemen offers to exhibit himself and his poetry
we will show him every observance of respect, but at the same time tell him
that there is no room for his kind in our State; we prefer the rough, honest
poet, and will not depart from our original models (Laws).
Next as to the music. A song or ode has three parts — the subject, the
harmony, and the rhythm; of which the two last are dependent upon the first.
As we banished strains of lamentation, so we may now banish the mixed
Lydian harmonies, which are the harmonies of lamentation; and as our
citizens are to be temperate, we may also banish convivial harmonies, such as
the Ionian and pure Lydian. Two remain — the Dorian and Phrygian, the first
for war, the second for peace; the one expressive of courage, the other of
obedience or instruction or religious feeling. And as we reject varieties of
harmony, we shall also reject the many-stringed, variously-shaped
instruments which give utterance to them, and in particular the flute, which is
more complex than any of them. The lyre and the harp may be permitted in
the town, and the Pan’s-pipe in the fields. Thus we have made a purgation of
music, and will now make a purgation of metres. These should be like the
harmonies, simple and suitable to the occasion. There are four notes of the
tetrachord, and there are three ratios of metre, 3/2, 2/2, 2/1, which have all
their characteristics, and the feet have different characteristics as well as the
rhythms. But about this you and I must ask Damon, the great musician, who
speaks, if I remember rightly, of a martial measure as well as of dactylic,
trochaic, and iambic rhythms, which he arranges so as to equalize the syllables
with one another, assigning to each the proper quantity. We only venture to
affirm the general principle that the style is to conform to the subject and the
metre to the style; and that the simplicity and harmony of the soul should be
reflected in them all. This principle of simplicity has to be learnt by every one
in the days of his youth, and may be gathered anywhere, from the creative and
constructive arts, as well as from the forms of plants and animals.
Other artists as well as poets should be warned against meanness or
unseemliness. Sculpture and painting equally with music must conform to the
law of simplicity. He who violates it cannot be allowed to work in our city, and
to corrupt the taste of our citizens. For our guardians must grow up, not amid
images of deformity which will gradually poison and corrupt their souls, but in
a land of health and beauty where they will drink in from every object sweet
and harmonious influences. And of all these influences the greatest is the
education given by music, which finds a way into the innermost soul and
imparts to it the sense of beauty and of deformity. At first the effect is
unconscious; but when reason arrives, then he who has been thus trained
welcomes her as the friend whom he always knew. As in learning to read, first
we acquire the elements or letters separately, and afterwards their
combinations, and cannot recognize reflections of them until we know the
letters themselves; — in like manner we must first attain the elements or
essential forms of the virtues, and then trace their combinations in life and
experience. There is a music of the soul which answers to the harmony of the
world; and the fairest object of a musical soul is the fair mind in the fair body.
Some defect in the latter may be excused, but not in the former. True love is
the daughter of temperance, and temperance is utterly opposed to the
madness of bodily pleasure. Enough has been said of music, which makes a
fair ending with love.
Next we pass on to gymnastics; about which I would remark, that the soul
is related to the body as a cause to an effect, and therefore if we educate the
mind we may leave the education of the body in her charge, and need only give
a general outline of the course to be pursued. In the first place the guardians
must abstain from strong drink, for they should be the last persons to lose
their wits. Whether the habits of the palaestra are suitable to them is more
doubtful, for the ordinary gymnastic is a sleepy sort of thing, and if left off
suddenly is apt to endanger health. But our warrior athletes must be wide-
awake dogs, and must also be inured to all changes of food and climate. Hence
they will require a simpler kind of gymnastic, akin to their simple music; and
for their diet a rule may be found in Homer, who feeds his heroes on roast
meat only, and gives them no fish although they are living at the sea-side, nor
boiled meats which involve an apparatus of pots and pans; and, if I am not
mistaken, he nowhere mentions sweet sauces. Sicilian cookery and Attic
confections and Corinthian courtezans, which are to gymnastic what Lydian
and Ionian melodies are to music, must be forbidden. Where gluttony and
intemperance prevail the town quickly fills with doctors and pleaders; and law
and medicine give themselves airs as soon as the freemen of a State take an
interest in them. But what can show a more disgraceful state of education than
to have to go abroad for justice because you have none of your own at home?
And yet there IS a worse stage of the same disease — when men have learned
to take a pleasure and pride in the twists and turns of the law; not considering
how much better it would be for them so to order their lives as to have no need
of a nodding justice. And there is a like disgrace in employing a physician, not
for the cure of wounds or epidemic disorders, but because a man has by
laziness and luxury contracted diseases which were unknown in the days of
Asclepius. How simple is the Homeric practice of medicine. Eurypylus after he
has been wounded drinks a posset of Pramnian wine, which is of a heating
nature; and yet the sons of Asclepius blame neither the damsel who gives him
the drink, nor Patroclus who is attending on him. The truth is that this
modern system of nursing diseases was introduced by Herodicus the trainer;
who, being of a sickly constitution, by a compound of training and medicine
tortured first himself and then a good many other people, and lived a great
deal longer than he had any right. But Asclepius would not practise this art,
because he knew that the citizens of a well-ordered State have no leisure to be
ill, and therefore he adopted the ‘kill or cure’ method, which artisans and
labourers employ. ‘They must be at their business,’ they say, ‘and have no time
for coddling: if they recover, well; if they don’t, there is an end of them.’
Whereas the rich man is supposed to be a gentleman who can afford to be ill.
Do you know a maxim of Phocylides — that ‘when a man begins to be rich’ (or,
perhaps, a little sooner) ‘he should practise virtue’? But how can excessive care
of health be inconsistent with an ordinary occupation, and yet consistent with
that practice of virtue which Phocylides inculcates? When a student imagines
that philosophy gives him a headache, he never does anything; he is always
unwell. This was the reason why Asclepius and his sons practised no such art.
They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve
useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases
they honestly cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper
remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to
treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made
large fortunes out of them. As to the story of Pindar, that Asclepius was slain
by a thunderbolt for restoring a rich man to life, that is a lie — following our
old rule we must say either that he did not take bribes, or that he was not the
son of a god.
Glaucon then asks Socrates whether the best physicians and the best
judges will not be those who have had severally the greatest experience of
diseases and of crimes. Socrates draws a distinction between the two
professions. The physician should have had experience of disease in his own
body, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. But the judge controls
mind by mind; and therefore his mind should not be corrupted by crime.
Where then is he to gain experience? How is he to be wise and also innocent?
When young a good man is apt to be deceived by evil-doers, because he has no
pattern of evil in himself; and therefore the judge should be of a certain age;
his youth should have been innocent, and he should have acquired insight into
evil not by the practice of it, but by the observation of it in others. This is the
ideal of a judge; the criminal turned detective is wonderfully suspicious, but
when in company with good men who have experience, he is at fault, for he
foolishly imagines that every one is as bad as himself. Vice may be known of
virtue, but cannot know virtue. This is the sort of medicine and this the sort of
law which will prevail in our State; they will be healing arts to better natures;
but the evil body will be left to die by the one, and the evil soul will be put to
death by the other. And the need of either will be greatly diminished by good
music which will give harmony to the soul, and good gymnastic which will give
health to the body. Not that this division of music and gymnastic really
corresponds to soul and body; for they are both equally concerned with the
soul, which is tamed by the one and aroused and sustained by the other. The
two together supply our guardians with their twofold nature. The passionate
disposition when it has too much gymnastic is hardened and brutalized, the
gentle or philosophic temper which has too much music becomes enervated.
While a man is allowing music to pour like water through the funnel of his
ears, the edge of his soul gradually wears away, and the passionate or spirited
element is melted out of him. Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much
quickly passes into nervous irritability. So, again, the athlete by feeding and
training has his courage doubled, but he soon grows stupid; he is like a wild
beast, ready to do everything by blows and nothing by counsel or policy. There
are two principles in man, reason and passion, and to these, not to the soul
and body, the two arts of music and gymnastic correspond. He who mingles
them in harmonious concord is the true musician — he shall be the presiding
genius of our State.
The next question is, Who are to be our rulers? First, the elder must rule
the younger; and the best of the elders will be the best guardians. Now they
will be the best who love their subjects most, and think that they have a
common interest with them in the welfare of the state. These we must select;
but they must be watched at every epoch of life to see whether they have
retained the same opinions and held out against force and enchantment. For
time and persuasion and the love of pleasure may enchant a man into a
change of purpose, and the force of grief and pain may compel him. And
therefore our guardians must be men who have been tried by many tests, like
gold in the refiner’s fire, and have been passed first through danger, then
through pleasure, and at every age have come out of such trials victorious and
without stain, in full command of themselves and their principles; having all
their faculties in harmonious exercise for their country’s good. These shall
receive the highest honours both in life and death. (It would perhaps be better
to confine the term ‘guardians’ to this select class: the younger men may be
called ‘auxiliaries.’)
And now for one magnificent lie, in the belief of which, Oh that we could
train our rulers! — at any rate let us make the attempt with the rest of the
world. What I am going to tell is only another version of the legend of Cadmus;
but our unbelieving generation will be slow to accept such a story. The tale
must be imparted, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, lastly to the people.
We will inform them that their youth was a dream, and that during the time
when they seemed to be undergoing their education they were really being
fashioned in the earth, who sent them up when they were ready; and that they
must protect and cherish her whose children they are, and regard each other
as brothers and sisters. ‘I do not wonder at your being ashamed to propound
such a fiction.’ There is more behind. These brothers and sisters have different
natures, and some of them God framed to rule, whom he fashioned of gold;
others he made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again to be husbandmen and
craftsmen, and these were formed by him of brass and iron. But as they are all
sprung from a common stock, a golden parent may have a silver son, or a
silver parent a golden son, and then there must be a change of rank; the son of
the rich must descend, and the child of the artisan rise, in the social scale; for
an oracle says ‘that the State will come to an end if governed by a man of brass
or iron.’ Will our citizens ever believe all this? ‘Not in the present generation,
but in the next, perhaps, Yes.’
Now let the earthborn men go forth under the command of their rulers,
and look about and pitch their camp in a high place, which will be safe against
enemies from without, and likewise against insurrections from within. There
let them sacrifice and set up their tents; for soldiers they are to be and not
shopkeepers, the watchdogs and guardians of the sheep; and luxury and
avarice will turn them into wolves and tyrants. Their habits and their
dwellings should correspond to their education. They should have no
property; their pay should only meet their expenses; and they should have
common meals. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God, and
this divine gift in their souls they must not alloy with that earthly dross which
passes under the name of gold. They only of the citizens may not touch it, or
be under the same roof with it, or drink from it; it is the accursed thing.
Should they ever acquire houses or lands or money of their own, they will
become householders and tradesmen instead of guardians, enemies and
tyrants instead of helpers, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and the
rest of the State, will be at hand.
The religious and ethical aspect of Plato’s education will hereafter be
considered under a separate head. Some lesser points may be more
conveniently noticed in this place.
1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave irony,
Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics and
psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to distinguish the
better lesson from the worse, sometimes altering the text from design; more
than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately, after the manner of the
early logographers turning the Iliad into prose, and delighting to draw far-
fetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them.
He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus
(Heracl.), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth;
not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times
the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are
sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer
add a charm to Plato’s style, and at the same time they have the effect of a
satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to
himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of
speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which
have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the
words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather
from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations.
Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has
been the art of interpretation.
2. ‘The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.’
Notwithstanding the fascination which the word ‘classical’ exercises over us,
we can hardly maintain that this rule is observed in all the Greek poetry which
has come down to us. We cannot deny that the thought often exceeds the
power of lucid expression in Aeschylus and Pindar; or that rhetoric gets the
better of the thought in the Sophist-poet Euripides. Only perhaps in Sophocles
is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a grace of
language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or
to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them.
The connection in the Tragic Choruses and in the Greek lyric poets is not
unfrequently a tangled thread which in an age before logic the poet was unable
to draw out. Many thoughts and feelings mingled in his mind, and he had no
power of disengaging or arranging them. For there is a subtle influence of logic
which requires to be transferred from prose to poetry, just as the music and
perfection of language are infused by poetry into prose. In all ages the poet has
been a bad judge of his own meaning (Apol.); for he does not see that the word
which is full of associations to his own mind is difficult and unmeaning to that
of another; or that the sequence which is clear to himself is puzzling to others.
There are many passages in some of our greatest modern poets which are far
too obscure; in which there is no proportion between style and subject, in
which any half-expressed figure, any harsh construction, any distorted
collocation of words, any remote sequence of ideas is admitted; and there is no
voice ‘coming sweetly from nature,’ or music adding the expression of feeling
to thought. As if there could be poetry without beauty, or beauty without ease
and clearness. The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the
state of language and logic which existed in their age. They are not examples
to be followed by us; for the use of language ought in every generation to
become clearer and clearer. Like Shakespere, they were great in spite, not in
consequence, of their imperfections of expression. But there is no reason for
returning to the necessary obscurity which prevailed in the infancy of
literature. The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure;
and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to
the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own
times has not out-stripped language; a want of Plato’s ‘art of measuring’ is the
rule cause of the disproportion between them.
3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a theory
of art than anywhere else in Plato. His views may be summed up as follows:—
True art is not fanciful and imitative, but simple and ideal — the expression of
the highest moral energy, whether in action or repose. To live among works of
plastic art which are of this noble and simple character, or to listen to such
strains, is the best of influences — the true Greek atmosphere, in which youth
should be brought up. That is the way to create in them a natural good taste,
which will have a feeling of truth and beauty in all things. For though the poets
are to be expelled, still art is recognized as another aspect of reason — like love
in the Symposium, extending over the same sphere, but confined to the
preliminary education, and acting through the power of habit; and this
conception of art is not limited to strains of music or the forms of plastic art,
but pervades all nature and has a wide kindred in the world. The Republic of
Plato, like the Athens of Pericles, has an artistic as well as a political side.
There is hardly any mention in Plato of the creative arts; only in two or
three passages does he even allude to them (Rep.; Soph.). He is not lost in
rapture at the great works of Phidias, the Parthenon, the Propylea, the statues
of Zeus or Athene. He would probably have regarded any abstract truth of
number or figure as higher than the greatest of them. Yet it is hard to suppose
that some influence, such as he hopes to inspire in youth, did not pass into his
own mind from the works of art which he saw around him. We are living upon
the fragments of them, and find in a few broken stones the standard of truth
and beauty. But in Plato this feeling has no expression; he nowhere says that
beauty is the object of art; he seems to deny that wisdom can take an external
form (Phaedrus); he does not distinguish the fine from the mechanical arts.
Whether or no, like some writers, he felt more than he expressed, it is at any
rate remarkable that the greatest perfection of the fine arts should coincide
with an almost entire silence about them. In one very striking passage he tells
us that a work of art, like the State, is a whole; and this conception of a whole
and the love of the newly-born mathematical sciences may be regarded, if not
as the inspiring, at any rate as the regulating principles of Greek art (Xen.
Mem.; and Sophist).
 4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better
not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own
person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is to
be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted
late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge
should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be
a hearer of moral philosophy. The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of
vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this
train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws it is
acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union
of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was
afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the
intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it. There is a
directness of aim in virtue which gives an insight into vice. And the knowledge
of character is in some degree a natural sense independent of any special
experience of good or evil.
5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because unGreek and
also very different from anything which existed at all in his age of the world, is
the transposition of ranks. In the Spartan state there had been
enfranchisement of Helots and degradation of citizens under special
circumstances. And in the ancient Greek aristocracies, merit was certainly
recognized as one of the elements on which government was based. The
founders of states were supposed to be their benefactors, who were raised by
their great actions above the ordinary level of humanity; at a later period, the
services of warriors and legislators were held to entitle them and their
descendants to the privileges of citizenship and to the first rank in the state.
And although the existence of an ideal aristocracy is slenderly proven from the
remains of early Greek history, and we have a difficulty in ascribing such a
character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state — or
indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world — still the rule of the
best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably
accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own
notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians
of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell short of a fixed standard
were either removed from the governing body, or not admitted to it; and this
‘academic’ discipline did to a certain extent prevail in Greek states, especially
in Sparta. He also indicates that the system of caste, which existed in a great
part of the ancient, and is by no means extinct in the modern European world,
should be set aside from time to time in favour of merit. He is aware how
deeply the greater part of mankind resent any interference with the order of
society, and therefore he proposes his novel idea in the form of what he
himself calls a ‘monstrous fiction.’ (Compare the ceremony of preparation for
the two ‘great waves’ in Book v.) Two principles are indicated by him: first,
that there is a distinction of ranks dependent on circumstances prior to the
individual: second, that this distinction is and ought to be broken through by
personal qualities. He adapts mythology like the Homeric poems to the wants
of the state, making ‘the Phoenician tale’ the vehicle of his ideas. Every Greek
state had a myth respecting its own origin; the Platonic republic may also have
a tale of earthborn men. The gravity and verisimilitude with which the tale is
told, and the analogy of Greek tradition, are a sufficient verification of the
‘monstrous falsehood.’ Ancient poetry had spoken of a gold and silver and
brass and iron age succeeding one another, but Plato supposes these
differences in the natures of men to exist together in a single state. Mythology
supplies a figure under which the lesson may be taught (as Protagoras says,
‘the myth is more interesting’), and also enables Plato to touch lightly on new
principles without going into details. In this passage he shadows forth a
general truth, but he does not tell us by what steps the transposition of ranks
is to be effected. Indeed throughout the Republic he allows the lower ranks to
fade into the distance. We do not know whether they are to carry arms, and
whether in the fifth book they are or are not included in the communistic
regulations respecting property and marriage. Nor is there any use in arguing
strictly either from a few chance words, or from the silence of Plato, or in
drawing inferences which were beyond his vision. Aristotle, in his criticism on
the position of the lower classes, does not perceive that the poetical creation is
‘like the air, invulnerable,’ and cannot be penetrated by the shafts of his logic
(Pol.).
6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest degree
fanciful and ideal, and which suggest to him many reflections, are to be found
in the third book of the Republic: first, the great power of music, so much
beyond any influence which is experienced by us in modern times, when the
art or science has been far more developed, and has found the secret of
harmony, as well as of melody; secondly, the indefinite and almost absolute
control which the soul is supposed to exercise over the body.
In the first we suspect some degree of exaggeration, such as we may also
observe among certain masters of the art, not unknown to us, at the present
day. With this natural enthusiasm, which is felt by a few only, there seems to
mingle in Plato a sort of Pythagorean reverence for numbers and numerical
proportion to which Aristotle is a stranger. Intervals of sound and number are
to him sacred things which have a law of their own, not dependent on the
variations of sense. They rise above sense, and become a connecting link with
the world of ideas. But it is evident that Plato is describing what to him
appears to be also a fact. The power of a simple and characteristic melody on
the impressible mind of the Greek is more than we can easily appreciate. The
effect of national airs may bear some comparison with it. And, besides all this,
there is a confusion between the harmony of musical notes and the harmony
of soul and body, which is so potently inspired by them.
The second paradox leads up to some curious and interesting questions —
How far can the mind control the body? Is the relation between them one of
mutual antagonism or of mutual harmony? Are they two or one, and is either
of them the cause of the other? May we not at times drop the opposition
between them, and the mode of describing them, which is so familiar to us,
and yet hardly conveys any precise meaning, and try to view this composite
creature, man, in a more simple manner? Must we not at any rate admit that
there is in human nature a higher and a lower principle, divided by no distinct
line, which at times break asunder and take up arms against one another? Or
again, they are reconciled and move together, either unconsciously in the
ordinary work of life, or consciously in the pursuit of some noble aim, to be
attained not without an effort, and for which every thought and nerve are
strained. And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or
instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost
superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a
hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are
brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a single human being. They
are ever parting, ever meeting; and the identity or diversity of their tendencies
or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us. When the mind touches the
body through the appetites, we acknowledge the responsibility of the one to
the other. There is a tendency in us which says ‘Drink.’ There is another which
says, ‘Do not drink; it is not good for you.’ And we all of us know which is the
rightful superior. We are also responsible for our health, although into this
sphere there enter some elements of necessity which may be beyond our
control. Still even in the management of health, care and thought, continued
over many years, may make us almost free agents, if we do not exact too much
of ourselves, and if we acknowledge that all human freedom is limited by the
laws of nature and of mind.
We are disappointed to find that Plato, in the general condemnation which
he passes on the practice of medicine prevailing in his own day, depreciates
the effects of diet. He would like to have diseases of a definite character and
capable of receiving a definite treatment. He is afraid of invalidism interfering
with the business of life. He does not recognize that time is the great healer
both of mental and bodily disorders; and that remedies which are gradual and
proceed little by little are safer than those which produce a sudden
catastrophe. Neither does he see that there is no way in which the mind can
more surely influence the body than by the control of eating and drinking; or
any other action or occasion of human life on which the higher freedom of the
will can be more simple or truly asserted.
7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked.
(1) The affected ignorance of music, which is Plato’s way of expressing that
he is passing lightly over the subject.
(2) The tentative manner in which here, as in the second book, he
proceeds with the construction of the State.
(3) The description of the State sometimes as a reality, and then again as a
work of imagination only; these are the arts by which he sustains the reader’s
interest.
(4) Connecting links, or the preparation for the entire expulsion of the
poets in Book X.
(5) The companion pictures of the lover of litigation and the
valetudinarian, the satirical jest about the maxim of Phocylides, the manner in
which the image of the gold and silver citizens is taken up into the subject, and
the argument from the practice of Asclepius, should not escape notice.
 The Republic, by Plato
BOOK IV.
Adeimantus said: ‘Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that you make your
citizens miserable, and this by their own free-will; they are the lords of the
city, and yet instead of having, like other men, lands and houses and money of
their own, they live as mercenaries and are always mounting guard.’ You may
add, I replied, that they receive no pay but only their food, and have no money
to spend on a journey or a mistress. ‘Well, and what answer do you give?’ My
answer is, that our guardians may or may not be the happiest of men — I
should not be surprised to find in the long-run that they were — but this is not
the aim of our constitution, which was designed for the good of the whole and
not of any one part. If I went to a sculptor and blamed him for having painted
the eye, which is the noblest feature of the face, not purple but black, he would
reply: ‘The eye must be an eye, and you should look at the statue as a whole.’
‘Now I can well imagine a fool’s paradise, in which everybody is eating and
drinking, clothed in purple and fine linen, and potters lie on sofas and have
their wheel at hand, that they may work a little when they please; and cobblers
and all the other classes of a State lose their distinctive character. And a State
may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into boon
companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of
peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do
his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State
as a whole. I have another remark to make:— A middle condition is best for
artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be
independent of business. And will not the same condition be best for our
citizens? If they are poor, they will be mean; if rich, luxurious and lazy; and in
neither case contented. ‘But then how will our poor city be able to go to war
against an enemy who has money?’ There may be a difficulty in fighting
against one enemy; against two there will be none. In the first place, the
contest will be carried on by trained warriors against well-to-do citizens: and
is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least?
Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two
cities, saying, ‘Silver and gold we have not; do you help us and take our share
of the spoil;’— who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might
join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? ‘But if many states join their
resources, shall we not be in danger?’ I am amused to hear you use the word
‘state’ of any but our own State. They are ‘states,’ but not ‘a state’— many in
one. For in every state there are two hostile nations, rich and poor, which you
may set one against the other. But our State, while she remains true to her
principles, will be in very deed the mightiest of Hellenic states.
To the size of the state there is no limit but the necessity of unity; it must
be neither too large nor too small to be one. This is a matter of secondary
importance, like the principle of transposition which was intimated in the
parable of the earthborn men. The meaning there implied was that every man
should do that for which he was fitted, and be at one with himself, and then
the whole city would be united. But all these things are secondary, if
education, which is the great matter, be duly regarded. When the wheel has
once been set in motion, the speed is always increasing; and each generation
improves upon the preceding, both in physical and moral qualities. The care of
the governors should be directed to preserve music and gymnastic from
innovation; alter the songs of a country, Damon says, and you will soon end by
altering its laws. The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play; but
the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of
individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the
institutions of a state; and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. But if
education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A
restorative process will be always going on; the spirit of law and order will
raise up what has fallen down. Nor will any regulations be needed for the
lesser matters of life — rules of deportment or fashions of dress. Like invites
like for good or for evil. Education will correct deficiencies and supply the
power of self-government. Far be it from us to enter into the particulars of
legislation; let the guardians take care of education, and education will take
care of all other things.
But without education they may patch and mend as they please; they will
make no progress, any more than a patient who thinks to cure himself by some
favourite remedy and will not give up his luxurious mode of living. If you tell
such persons that they must first alter their habits, then they grow angry; they
are charming people. ‘Charming — nay, the very reverse.’ Evidently these
gentlemen are not in your good graces, nor the state which is like them. And
such states there are which first ordain under penalty of death that no one
shall alter the constitution, and then suffer themselves to be flattered into and
out of anything; and he who indulges them and fawns upon them, is their
leader and saviour. ‘Yes, the men are as bad as the states.’ But do you not
admire their cleverness? ‘Nay, some of them are stupid enough to believe what
the people tell them.’ And when all the world is telling a man that he is six feet
high, and he has no measure, how can he believe anything else? But don’t get
into a passion: to see our statesmen trying their nostrums, and fancying that
they can cut off at a blow the Hydra-like rogueries of mankind, is as good as a
play. Minute enactments are superfluous in good states, and are useless in bad
ones.
And now what remains of the work of legislation? Nothing for us; but to
Apollo the god of Delphi we leave the ordering of the greatest of all things —
that is to say, religion. Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and
navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such
magnitude. No foreign god shall be supreme in our realms . . .
Here, as Socrates would say, let us ‘reflect on’ (Greek) what has preceded:
thus far we have spoken not of the happiness of the citizens, but only of the
well-being of the State. They may be the happiest of men, but our principal
aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be
guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the
famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the
relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility.
First duty, then happiness, is the natural order of our moral ideas. The
utilitarian principle is valuable as a corrective of error, and shows to us a side
of ethics which is apt to be neglected. It may be admitted further that right and
utility are co-extensive, and that he who makes the happiness of mankind his
object has one of the highest and noblest motives of human action. But utility
is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in which moral and
religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is,
as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government of the universe. The
greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue
and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be
of a divine purpose, that ‘all mankind should be saved;’ and we infer the one
from the other. And the greatest happiness of the individual may be the
reverse of the greatest happiness in the ordinary sense of the term, and may be
realised in a life of pain, or in a voluntary death. Further, the word ‘happiness’
has several ambiguities; it may mean either pleasure or an ideal life, happiness
subjective or objective, in this world or in another, of ourselves only or of our
neighbours and of all men everywhere. By the modern founder of
Utilitarianism the self-regarding and disinterested motives of action are
included under the same term, although they are commonly opposed by us as
benevolence and self-love. The word happiness has not the definiteness or the
sacredness of ‘truth’ and ‘right’; it does not equally appeal to our higher
nature, and has not sunk into the conscience of mankind. It is associated too
much with the comforts and conveniences of life; too little with ‘the goods of
the soul which we desire for their own sake.’ In a great trial, or danger, or
temptation, or in any great and heroic action, it is scarcely thought of. For
these reasons ‘the greatest happiness’ principle is not the true foundation of
ethics. But though not the first principle, it is the second, which is like unto it,
and is often of easier application. For the larger part of human actions are
neither right nor wrong, except in so far as they tend to the happiness of
mankind (Introd. to Gorgias and Philebus).
The same question reappears in politics, where the useful or expedient
seems to claim a larger sphere and to have a greater authority. For concerning
political measures, we chiefly ask: How will they affect the happiness of
mankind? Yet here too we may observe that what we term expediency is
merely the law of right limited by the conditions of human society. Right and
truth are the highest aims of government as well as of individuals; and we
ought not to lose sight of them because we cannot directly enforce them. They
appeal to the better mind of nations; and sometimes they are too much for
merely temporal interests to resist. They are the watchwords which all men
use in matters of public policy, as well as in their private dealings; the peace of
Europe may be said to depend upon them. In the most commercial and
utilitarian states of society the power of ideas remains. And all the higher class
of statesmen have in them something of that idealism which Pericles is said to
have gathered from the teaching of Anaxagoras. They recognise that the true
leader of men must be above the motives of ambition, and that national
character is of greater value than material comfort and prosperity. And this is
the order of thought in Plato; first, he expects his citizens to do their duty, and
then under favourable circumstances, that is to say, in a well-ordered State,
their happiness is assured. That he was far from excluding the modern
principle of utility in politics is sufficiently evident from other passages; in
which ‘the most beneficial is affirmed to be the most honourable’, and also ‘the
most sacred’.
We may note
(1) The manner in which the objection of Adeimantus here, is designed to
draw out and deepen the argument of Socrates.
(2) The conception of a whole as lying at the foundation both of politics
and of art, in the latter supplying the only principle of criticism, which, under
the various names of harmony, symmetry, measure, proportion, unity, the
Greek seems to have applied to works of art.
(3) The requirement that the State should be limited in size, after the
traditional model of a Greek state; as in the Politics of Aristotle, the fact that
the cities of Hellas were small is converted into a principle.
(4) The humorous pictures of the lean dogs and the fatted sheep, of the
light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen at least, of the ‘charming’
patients who are always making themselves worse; or again, the playful
assumption that there is no State but our own; or the grave irony with which
the statesman is excused who believes that he is six feet high because he is told
so, and having nothing to measure with is to be pardoned for his ignorance —
he is too amusing for us to be seriously angry with him.
(5) The light and superficial manner in which religion is passed over when
provision has been made for two great principles — first, that religion shall be
based on the highest conception of the gods, secondly, that the true national or
Hellenic type shall be maintained . . .
Socrates proceeds: But where amid all this is justice? Son of Ariston, tell
me where. Light a candle and search the city, and get your brother and the rest
of our friends to help in seeking for her. ‘That won’t do,’ replied Glaucon, ‘you
yourself promised to make the search and talked about the impiety of
deserting justice.’ Well, I said, I will lead the way, but do you follow. My notion
is, that our State being perfect will contain all the four virtues — wisdom,
courage, temperance, justice. If we eliminate the three first, the unknown
remainder will be justice.
 First then, of wisdom: the State which we have called into being will be
wise because politic. And policy is one among many kinds of skill — not the
skill of the carpenter, or of the worker in metal, or of the husbandman, but the
skill of him who advises about the interests of the whole State. Of such a kind
is the skill of the guardians, who are a small class in number, far smaller than
the blacksmiths; but in them is concentrated the wisdom of the State. And if
this small ruling class have wisdom, then the whole State will be wise.
Our second virtue is courage, which we have no difficulty in finding in
another class — that of soldiers. Courage may be defined as a sort of salvation
— the never-failing salvation of the opinions which law and education have
prescribed concerning dangers. You know the way in which dyers first prepare
the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple or of any other colour.
Colours dyed in this way become fixed, and no soap or lye will ever wash them
out. Now the ground is education, and the laws are the colours; and if the
ground is properly laid, neither the soap of pleasure nor the lye of pain or fear
will ever wash them out. This power which preserves right opinion about
danger I would ask you to call ‘courage,’ adding the epithet ‘political’ or
‘civilized’ in order to distinguish it from mere animal courage and from a
higher courage which may hereafter be discussed.
Two virtues remain; temperance and justice. More than the preceding
virtues temperance suggests the idea of harmony. Some light is thrown upon
the nature of this virtue by the popular description of a man as ‘master of
himself’— which has an absurd sound, because the master is also the servant.
The expression really means that the better principle in a man masters the
worse. There are in cities whole classes — women, slaves and the like — who
correspond to the worse, and a few only to the better; and in our State the
former class are held under control by the latter. Now to which of these classes
does temperance belong? ‘To both of them.’ And our State if any will be the
abode of temperance; and we were right in describing this virtue as a harmony
which is diffused through the whole, making the dwellers in the city to be of
one mind, and attuning the upper and middle and lower classes like the
strings of an instrument, whether you suppose them to differ in wisdom,
strength or wealth.
And now we are near the spot; let us draw in and surround the cover and
watch with all our eyes, lest justice should slip away and escape. Tell me, if you
see the thicket move first. ‘Nay, I would have you lead.’ Well then, offer up a
prayer and follow. The way is dark and difficult; but we must push on. I begin
to see a track. ‘Good news.’ Why, Glaucon, our dulness of scent is quite
ludicrous! While we are straining our eyes into the distance, justice is
tumbling out at our feet. We are as bad as people looking for a thing which
they have in their hands. Have you forgotten our old principle of the division
of labour, or of every man doing his own business, concerning which we spoke
at the foundation of the State — what but this was justice? Is there any other
virtue remaining which can compete with wisdom and temperance and
courage in the scale of political virtue? For ‘every one having his own’ is the
great object of government; and the great object of trade is that every man
should do his own business. Not that there is much harm in a carpenter trying
to be a cobbler, or a cobbler transforming himself into a carpenter; but great
evil may arise from the cobbler leaving his last and turning into a guardian or
legislator, or when a single individual is trainer, warrior, legislator, all in one.
And this evil is injustice, or every man doing another’s business. I do not say
that as yet we are in a condition to arrive at a final conclusion. For the
definition which we believe to hold good in states has still to be tested by the
individual. Having read the large letters we will now come back to the small.
From the two together a brilliant light may be struck out . . .
Socrates proceeds to discover the nature of justice by a method of
residues. Each of the first three virtues corresponds to one of the three parts of
the soul and one of the three classes in the State, although the third,
temperance, has more of the nature of a harmony than the first two. If there be
a fourth virtue, that can only be sought for in the relation of the three parts in
the soul or classes in the State to one another. It is obvious and simple, and for
that very reason has not been found out. The modern logician will be inclined
to object that ideas cannot be separated like chemical substances, but that they
run into one another and may be only different aspects or names of the same
thing, and such in this instance appears to be the case. For the definition here
given of justice is verbally the same as one of the definitions of temperance
given by Socrates in the Charmides, which however is only provisional, and is
afterwards rejected. And so far from justice remaining over when the other
virtues are eliminated, the justice and temperance of the Republic can with
difficulty be distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only,
and one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul. Yet on
the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony, and in this
respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from temperance in degree
rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the harmony of discordant
elements, justice is the perfect order by which all natures and classes do their
own business, the right man in the right place, the division and co-operation
of all the citizens. Justice, again, is a more abstract notion than the other
virtues, and therefore, from Plato’s point of view, the foundation of them, to
which they are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit
temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony.
There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of
Plato (Protagoras; Arist. Nic. Ethics), ‘Whether the virtues are one or many?’
This receives an answer which is to the effect that there are four cardinal
virtues (now for the first time brought together in ethical philosophy), and one
supreme over the rest, which is not like Aristotle’s conception of universal
justice, virtue relative to others, but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To
this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the
moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the
second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to
succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms ‘law,’ ‘order,’
‘harmony;’ but while the idea of good embraces ‘all time and all existence,’ the
conception of justice is not extended beyond man.
. . . Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But first
he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul. His argument is
as follows:— Quantity makes no difference in quality. The word ‘just,’ whether
applied to the individual or to the State, has the same meaning. And the term
‘justice’ implied that the same three principles in the State and in the
individual were doing their own business. But are they really three or one? The
question is difficult, and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which
we are now using; but the truer and longer way would take up too much of our
time. ‘The shorter will satisfy me.’ Well then, you would admit that the
qualities of states mean the qualities of the individuals who compose them?
The Scythians and Thracians are passionate, our own race intellectual, and the
Egyptians and Phoenicians covetous, because the individual members of each
have such and such a character; the difficulty is to determine whether the
several principles are one or three; whether, that is to say, we reason with one
part of our nature, desire with another, are angry with another, or whether the
whole soul comes into play in each sort of action. This enquiry, however,
requires a very exact definition of terms. The same thing in the same relation
cannot be affected in two opposite ways. But there is no impossibility in a man
standing still, yet moving his arms, or in a top which is fixed on one spot going
round upon its axis. There is no necessity to mention all the possible
exceptions; let us provisionally assume that opposites cannot do or be or
suffer opposites in the same relation. And to the class of opposites belong
assent and dissent, desire and avoidance. And one form of desire is thirst and
hunger: and here arises a new point — thirst is thirst of drink, hunger is
hunger of food; not of warm drink or of a particular kind of food, with the
single exception of course that the very fact of our desiring anything implies
that it is good. When relative terms have no attributes, their correlatives have
no attributes; when they have attributes, their correlatives also have them. For
example, the term ‘greater’ is simply relative to ‘less,’ and knowledge refers to
a subject of knowledge. But on the other hand, a particular knowledge is of a
particular subject. Again, every science has a distinct character, which is
defined by an object; medicine, for example, is the science of health, although
not to be confounded with health. Having cleared our ideas thus far, let us
return to the original instance of thirst, which has a definite object — drink.
Now the thirsty soul may feel two distinct impulses; the animal one saying
‘Drink;’ the rational one, which says ‘Do not drink.’ The two impulses are
contradictory; and therefore we may assume that they spring from distinct
principles in the soul. But is passion a third principle, or akin to desire? There
is a story of a certain Leontius which throws some light on this question. He
was coming up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, and he passed a spot
where there were dead bodies lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire
to see them and also an abhorrence of them; at first he turned away and shut
his eyes, then, suddenly tearing them open, he said — ‘Take your fill, ye
wretches, of the fair sight.’ Now is there not here a third principle which is
often found to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of
desire against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of
which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following case:—
When a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not indignant at
the hardships which he undergoes: but when he suffers unjustly, his
indignation is his great support; hunger and thirst cannot tame him; the spirit
within him must do or die, until the voice of the shepherd, that is, of reason,
bidding his dog bark no more, is heard within. This shows that passion is the
ally of reason. Is passion then the same with reason? No, for the former exists
in children and brutes; and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between
them when he says, ‘He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.’
And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to infer that
the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same. For wisdom and
courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom and courage and
justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the three classes will do
the work of its own class in the State, and each part in the individual soul;
reason, the superior, and passion, the inferior, will be harmonized by the
influence of music and gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head
and the arm, will act together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in
proper subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a
right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of the
counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and reason. The
virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the subject principles,
both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we have already spoken; and
the notion already given of it may be confirmed by common instances. Will the
just state or the just individual steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of
impiety to gods and men? ‘No.’ And is not the reason of this that the several
principles, whether in the state or in the individual, do their own business?
And justice is the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our
old division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one
use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has
now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three
chords of the soul, and then acts harmoniously in every relation of life. And
injustice, which is the insubordination and disobedience of the inferior
elements in the soul, is the opposite of justice, and is inharmonious and
unnatural, being to the soul what disease is to the body; for in the soul as well
as in the body, good or bad actions produce good or bad habits. And virtue is
the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, and vice is the disease and
weakness and deformity of the soul.
 Again the old question returns upon us: Is justice or injustice the more
profitable? The question has become ridiculous. For injustice, like mortal
disease, makes life not worth having. Come up with me to the hill which
overhangs the city and look down upon the single form of virtue, and the
infinite forms of vice, among which are four special ones, characteristic both
of states and of individuals. And the state which corresponds to the single
form of virtue is that which we have been describing, wherein reason rules
under one of two names — monarchy and aristocracy. Thus there are five
forms in all, both of states and of souls . . .
In attempting to prove that the soul has three separate faculties, Plato
takes occasion to discuss what makes difference of faculties. And the criterion
which he proposes is difference in the working of the faculties. The same
faculty cannot produce contradictory effects. But the path of early reasoners is
beset by thorny entanglements, and he will not proceed a step without first
clearing the ground. This leads him into a tiresome digression, which is
intended to explain the nature of contradiction. First, the contradiction must
be at the same time and in the same relation. Secondly, no extraneous word
must be introduced into either of the terms in which the contradictory
proposition is expressed: for example, thirst is of drink, not of warm drink. He
implies, what he does not say, that if, by the advice of reason, or by the
impulse of anger, a man is restrained from drinking, this proves that thirst, or
desire under which thirst is included, is distinct from anger and reason. But
suppose that we allow the term ‘thirst’ or ‘desire’ to be modified, and say an
‘angry thirst,’ or a ‘revengeful desire,’ then the two spheres of desire and anger
overlap and become confused. This case therefore has to be excluded. And still
there remains an exception to the rule in the use of the term ‘good,’ which is
always implied in the object of desire. These are the discussions of an age
before logic; and any one who is wearied by them should remember that they
are necessary to the clearing up of ideas in the first development of the human
faculties.
The psychology of Plato extends no further than the division of the soul
into the rational, irascible, and concupiscent elements, which, as far as we
know, was first made by him, and has been retained by Aristotle and
succeeding ethical writers. The chief difficulty in this early analysis of the
mind is to define exactly the place of the irascible faculty (Greek), which may
be variously described under the terms righteous indignation, spirit, passion.
It is the foundation of courage, which includes in Plato moral courage, the
courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting intellectual difficulties, as well
as of meeting dangers in war. Though irrational, it inclines to side with the
rational: it cannot be aroused by punishment when justly inflicted: it
sometimes takes the form of an enthusiasm which sustains a man in the
performance of great actions. It is the ‘lion heart’ with which the reason makes
a treaty. On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at
wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus,
aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which
prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter
term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle
has retained the word, yet we may observe that ‘passion’ (Greek) has with him
lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from ‘anger’
(Greek). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert,
though not always. By modern philosophy too, as well as in our ordinary
conversation, the words anger or passion are employed almost exclusively in a
bad sense; there is no connotation of a just or reasonable cause by which they
are aroused. The feeling of ‘righteous indignation’ is too partial and accidental
to admit of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also
to doubt whether Plato is right in supposing that an offender, however justly
condemned, could be expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence; this
is the spirit of a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal.
We may observe how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle’s famous thesis,
that ‘good actions produce good habits.’ The words ‘as healthy practices
(Greek) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,’ have a sound
very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental remark
in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an inseparable
part of a great Ethical system.
There is a difficulty in understanding what Plato meant by ‘the longer
way’: he seems to intimate some metaphysic of the future which will not be
satisfied with arguing from the principle of contradiction. In the sixth and
seventh books (compare Sophist and Parmenides) he has given us a sketch of
such a metaphysic; but when Glaucon asks for the final revelation of the idea
of good, he is put off with the declaration that he has not yet studied the
preliminary sciences. How he would have filled up the sketch, or argued about
such questions from a higher point of view, we can only conjecture. Perhaps he
hoped to find some a priori method of developing the parts out of the whole;
or he might have asked which of the ideas contains the other ideas, and
possibly have stumbled on the Hegelian identity of the ‘ego’ and the
‘universal.’ Or he may have imagined that ideas might be constructed in some
manner analogous to the construction of figures and numbers in the
mathematical sciences. The most certain and necessary truth was to Plato the
universal; and to this he was always seeking to refer all knowledge or opinion,
just as in modern times we seek to rest them on the opposite pole of induction
and experience. The aspirations of metaphysicians have always tended to pass
beyond the limits of human thought and language: they seem to have reached
a height at which they are ‘moving about in worlds unrealized,’ and their
conceptions, although profoundly affecting their own minds, become invisible
or unintelligible to others. We are not therefore surprized to find that Plato
himself has nowhere clearly explained his doctrine of ideas; or that his school
in a later generation, like his contemporaries Glaucon and Adeimantus, were
unable to follow him in this region of speculation. In the Sophist, where he is
refuting the scepticism which maintained either that there was no such thing
as predication, or that all might be predicated of all, he arrives at the
conclusion that some ideas combine with some, but not all with all. But he
makes only one or two steps forward on this path; he nowhere attains to any
connected system of ideas, or even to a knowledge of the most elementary
relations of the sciences to one another.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK V.
I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in states, when
Polemarchus — he was sitting a little farther from me than Adeimantus —
taking him by the coat and leaning towards him, said something in an
undertone, of which I only caught the words, ‘Shall we let him off?’ ‘Certainly
not,’ said Adeimantus, raising his voice. Whom, I said, are you not going to let
off? ‘You,’ he said. Why? ‘Because we think that you are not dealing fairly with
us in omitting women and children, of whom you have slily disposed under
the general formula that friends have all things in common.’ And was I not
right? ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but there are many sorts of communism or
community, and we want to know which of them is right. The company, as you
have just heard, are resolved to have a further explanation.’ Thrasymachus
said, ‘Do you think that we have come hither to dig for gold, or to hear you
discourse?’ Yes, I said; but the discourse should be of a reasonable length.
Glaucon added, ‘Yes, Socrates, and there is reason in spending the whole of
life in such discussions; but pray, without more ado, tell us how this
community is to be carried out, and how the interval between birth and
education is to be filled up.’ Well, I said, the subject has several difficulties —
What is possible? is the first question. What is desirable? is the second. ‘Fear
not,’ he replied, ‘for you are speaking among friends.’ That, I replied, is a sorry
consolation; I shall destroy my friends as well as myself. Not that I mind a
little innocent laughter; but he who kills the truth is a murderer. ‘Then,’ said
Glaucon, laughing, ‘in case you should murder us we will acquit you
beforehand, and you shall be held free from the guilt of deceiving us.’
Socrates proceeds:— The guardians of our state are to be watch-dogs, as
we have already said. Now dogs are not divided into hes and shes — we do not
take the masculine gender out to hunt and leave the females at home to look
after their puppies. They have the same employments — the only difference
between them is that the one sex is stronger and the other weaker. But if
women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same
education — they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I
know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying
weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in
the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to
become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when
they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at
last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment of the person,
and now they laugh no more. Evil only should be the subject of ridicule.
The first question is, whether women are able either wholly or partially to
share in the employments of men. And here we may be charged with
inconsistency in making the proposal at all. For we started originally with the
division of labour; and the diversity of employments was based on the
difference of natures. But is there no difference between men and women?
Nay, are they not wholly different? THERE was the difficulty, Glaucon, which
made me unwilling to speak of family relations. However, when a man is out
of his depth, whether in a pool or in an ocean, he can only swim for his life;
and we must try to find a way of escape, if we can.
The argument is, that different natures have different uses, and the
natures of men and women are said to differ. But this is only a verbal
opposition. We do not consider that the difference may be purely nominal and
accidental; for example, a bald man and a hairy man are opposed in a single
point of view, but you cannot infer that because a bald man is a cobbler a hairy
man ought not to be a cobbler. Now why is such an inference erroneous?
Simply because the opposition between them is partial only, like the difference
between a male physician and a female physician, not running through the
whole nature, like the difference between a physician and a carpenter. And if
the difference of the sexes is only that the one beget and the other bear
children, this does not prove that they ought to have distinct educations.
Admitting that women differ from men in capacity, do not men equally differ
from one another? Has not nature scattered all the qualities which our citizens
require indifferently up and down among the two sexes? and even in their
peculiar pursuits, are not women often, though in some cases superior to men,
ridiculously enough surpassed by them? Women are the same in kind as men,
and have the same aptitude or want of aptitude for medicine or gymnastic or
war, but in a less degree. One woman will be a good guardian, another not;
and the good must be chosen to be the colleagues of our guardians. If however
their natures are the same, the inference is that their education must also be
the same; there is no longer anything unnatural or impossible in a woman
learning music and gymnastic. And the education which we give them will be
the very best, far superior to that of cobblers, and will train up the very best
women, and nothing can be more advantageous to the State than this.
Therefore let them strip, clothed in their chastity, and share in the toils of war
and in the defence of their country; he who laughs at them is a fool for his
pains.
The first wave is past, and the argument is compelled to admit that men
and women have common duties and pursuits. A second and greater wave is
rolling in-community of wives and children; is this either expedient or
possible? The expediency I do not doubt; I am not so sure of the possibility.
‘Nay, I think that a considerable doubt will be entertained on both points.’ I
meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first, but as you have
detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only allow me to feed my
fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of what might be, and then I
will return to the question of what can be.
In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where
they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as legislator, have
already selected the men; and now you shall select the women. After the
selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses and have their
meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity more certain
than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness;
that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the
avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness
will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to
ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take
the greatest care in the mating? ‘Certainly.’ And there is no reason to suppose
that less care is required in the marriage of human beings. But then our rulers
must be skilful physicians of the State, for they will often need a strong dose of
falsehood in order to bring about desirable unions between their subjects. The
good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the
offspring of the one must be reared, and of the other destroyed; in this way the
flock will be preserved in prime condition. Hymeneal festivals will be
celebrated at times fixed with an eye to population, and the brides and
bridegrooms will meet at them; and by an ingenious system of lots the rulers
will contrive that the brave and the fair come together, and that those of
inferior breed are paired with inferiors — the latter will ascribe to chance what
is really the invention of the rulers. And when children are born, the offspring
of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city,
and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places
unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children;
care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring;
and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and
getting up at night will be transferred to attendants. ‘Then the wives of our
guardians will have a fine easy time when they are having children.’ And quite
right too, I said, that they should.
The parents ought to be in the prime of life, which for a man may be
reckoned at thirty years — from twenty-five, when he has ‘passed the point at
which the speed of life is greatest,’ to fifty-five; and at twenty years for a
woman — from twenty to forty. Any one above or below those ages who
partakes in the hymeneals shall be guilty of impiety; also every one who forms
a marriage connexion at other times without the consent of the rulers. This
latter regulation applies to those who are within the specified ages, after which
they may range at will, provided they avoid the prohibited degrees of parents
and children, or of brothers and sisters, which last, however, are not
absolutely prohibited, if a dispensation be procured. ‘But how shall we know
the degrees of affinity, when all things are common?’ The answer is, that
brothers and sisters are all such as are born seven or nine months after the
espousals, and their parents those who are then espoused, and every one will
have many children and every child many parents.
Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous
and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity;
the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there
are no private pleasures or pains or interests — where if one member suffers
all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and
the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and
vibrates to the soul. For the true State, like an individual, is injured as a whole
when any part is affected. Every State has subjects and rulers, who in a
democracy are called rulers, and in other States masters: but in our State they
are called saviours and allies; and the subjects who in other States are termed
slaves, are by us termed nurturers and paymasters, and those who are termed
comrades and colleagues in other places, are by us called fathers and brothers.
And whereas in other States members of the same government regard one of
their colleagues as a friend and another as an enemy, in our State no man is a
stranger to another; for every citizen is connected with every other by ties of
blood, and these names and this way of speaking will have a corresponding
reality — brother, father, sister, mother, repeated from infancy in the ears of
children, will not be mere words. Then again the citizens will have all things in
common, in having common property they will have common pleasures and
pains.
Can there be strife and contention among those who are of one mind; or
lawsuits about property when men have nothing but their bodies which they
call their own; or suits about violence when every one is bound to defend
himself? The permission to strike when insulted will be an ‘antidote’ to the
knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will
strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred,
and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens
will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no
sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the
citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with
blessings greater still — they and their children having a better maintenance
during life, and after death an honourable burial. Nor has the happiness of the
individual been sacrificed to the happiness of the State; our Olympic victor has
not been turned into a cobbler, but he has a happiness beyond that of any
cobbler. At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of
appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that ‘half is better
than the whole.’ ‘I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has
the promise of such a brave life.’
But is such a community possible? — as among the animals, so also among
men; and if possible, in what way possible? About war there is no difficulty;
the principle of communism is adapted to military service. Parents will take
their children to look on at a battle, just as potters’ boys are trained to the
business by looking on at the wheel. And to the parents themselves, as to other
animals, the sight of their young ones will prove a great incentive to bravery.
Young warriors must learn, but they must not run into danger, although a
certain degree of risk is worth incurring when the benefit is great. The young
creatures should be placed under the care of experienced veterans, and they
should have wings — that is to say, swift and tractable steeds on which they
may fly away and escape. One of the first things to be done is to teach a youth
to ride.
Cowards and deserters shall be degraded to the class of husbandmen;
gentlemen who allow themselves to be taken prisoners, may be presented to
the enemy. But what shall be done to the hero? First of all he shall be crowned
by all the youths in the army; secondly, he shall receive the right hand of
fellowship; and thirdly, do you think that there is any harm in his being
kissed? We have already determined that he shall have more wives than
others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast
he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave
men with ‘long chines,’ which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a
very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats
to the brave — may they do them good! And he who dies in battle will be at
once declared to be of the golden race, and will, as we believe, become one of
Hesiod’s guardian angels. He shall be worshipped after death in the manner
prescribed by the oracle; and not only he, but all other benefactors of the State
who die in any other way, shall be admitted to the same honours.
The next question is, How shall we treat our enemies? Shall Hellenes be
enslaved? No; for there is too great a risk of the whole race passing under the
yoke of the barbarians. Or shall the dead be despoiled? Certainly not; for that
sort of thing is an excuse for skulking, and has been the ruin of many an army.
There is meanness and feminine malice in making an enemy of the dead body,
when the soul which was the owner has fled — like a dog who cannot reach his
assailants, and quarrels with the stones which are thrown at him instead.
Again, the arms of Hellenes should not be offered up in the temples of the
Gods; they are a pollution, for they are taken from brethren. And on similar
grounds there should be a limit to the devastation of Hellenic territory — the
houses should not be burnt, nor more than the annual produce carried off. For
war is of two kinds, civil and foreign; the first of which is properly termed
‘discord,’ and only the second ‘war;’ and war between Hellenes is in reality
civil war — a quarrel in a family, which is ever to be regarded as unpatriotic
and unnatural, and ought to be prosecuted with a view to reconciliation in a
true phil-Hellenic spirit, as of those who would chasten but not utterly
enslave. The war is not against a whole nation who are a friendly multitude of
men, women, and children, but only against a few guilty persons; when they
are punished peace will be restored. That is the way in which Hellenes should
war against one another — and against barbarians, as they war against one
another now.
‘But, my dear Socrates, you are forgetting the main question: Is such a
State possible? I grant all and more than you say about the blessedness of
being one family — fathers, brothers, mothers, daughters, going out to war
together; but I want to ascertain the possibility of this ideal State.’ You are too
unmerciful. The first wave and the second wave I have hardly escaped, and
now you will certainly drown me with the third. When you see the towering
crest of the wave, I expect you to take pity. ‘Not a whit.’
Well, then, we were led to form our ideal polity in the search after justice,
and the just man answered to the just State. Is this ideal at all the worse for
being impracticable? Would the picture of a perfectly beautiful man be any the
worse because no such man ever lived? Can any reality come up to the idea?
Nature will not allow words to be fully realized; but if I am to try and realize
the ideal of the State in a measure, I think that an approach may be made to
the perfection of which I dream by one or two, I do not say slight, but possible
changes in the present constitution of States. I would reduce them to a single
one — the great wave, as I call it. Until, then, kings are philosophers, or
philosophers are kings, cities will never cease from ill: no, nor the human race;
nor will our ideal polity ever come into being. I know that this is a hard saying,
which few will be able to receive. ‘Socrates, all the world will take off his coat
and rush upon you with sticks and stones, and therefore I would advise you to
prepare an answer.’ You got me into the scrape, I said. ‘And I was right,’ he
replied; ‘however, I will stand by you as a sort of do-nothing, well-meaning
ally.’ Having the help of such a champion, I will do my best to maintain my
position. And first, I must explain of whom I speak and what sort of natures
these are who are to be philosophers and rulers. As you are a man of pleasure,
you will not have forgotten how indiscriminate lovers are in their attachments;
they love all, and turn blemishes into beauties. The snub-nosed youth is said
to have a winning grace; the beak of another has a royal look; the featureless
are faultless; the dark are manly, the fair angels; the sickly have a new term of
endearment invented expressly for them, which is ‘honey-pale.’ Lovers of wine
and lovers of ambition also desire the objects of their affection in every form.
Now here comes the point:— The philosopher too is a lover of knowledge in
every form; he has an insatiable curiosity. ‘But will curiosity make a
philosopher? Are the lovers of sights and sounds, who let out their ears to
every chorus at the Dionysiac festivals, to be called philosophers?’ They are
not true philosophers, but only an imitation. ‘Then how are we to describe the
true?’
You would acknowledge the existence of abstract ideas, such as justice,
beauty, good, evil, which are severally one, yet in their various combinations
appear to be many. Those who recognize these realities are philosophers;
whereas the other class hear sounds and see colours, and understand their use
in the arts, but cannot attain to the true or waking vision of absolute justice or
beauty or truth; they have not the light of knowledge, but of opinion, and what
they see is a dream only. Perhaps he of whom we say the last will be angry with
us; can we pacify him without revealing the disorder of his mind? Suppose we
say that, if he has knowledge we rejoice to hear it, but knowledge must be of
something which is, as ignorance is of something which is not; and there is a
third thing, which both is and is not, and is matter of opinion only. Opinion
and knowledge, then, having distinct objects, must also be distinct faculties.
And by faculties I mean powers unseen and distinguishable only by the
difference in their objects, as opinion and knowledge differ, since the one is
liable to err, but the other is unerring and is the mightiest of all our faculties.
If being is the object of knowledge, and not-being of ignorance, and these are
the extremes, opinion must lie between them, and may be called darker than
the one and brighter than the other. This intermediate or contingent matter is
and is not at the same time, and partakes both of existence and of non-
existence. Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and
justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he
sees is not in some point of view different — the beautiful ugly, the pious
impious, the just unjust? Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and
light relative terms which pass into one another? Everything is and is not, as
in the old riddle —‘A man and not a man shot and did not shoot a bird and not
a bird with a stone and not a stone.’ The mind cannot be fixed on either
alternative; and these ambiguous, intermediate, erring, half-lighted objects,
which have a disorderly movement in the region between being and not-being,
are the proper matter of opinion, as the immutable objects are the proper
matter of knowledge. And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only
this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion
only . . .
The fifth book is the new beginning of the Republic, in which the
community of property and of family are first maintained, and the transition is
made to the kingdom of philosophers. For both of these Plato, after his
manner, has been preparing in some chance words of Book IV, which fall
unperceived on the reader’s mind, as they are supposed at first to have fallen
on the ear of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The ‘paradoxes,’ as Morgenstern terms
them, of this book of the Republic will be reserved for another place; a few
remarks on the style, and some explanations of difficulties, may be briefly
added.
First, there is the image of the waves, which serves for a sort of scheme or
plan of the book. The first wave, the second wave, the third and greatest wave
come rolling in, and we hear the roar of them. All that can be said of the
extravagance of Plato’s proposals is anticipated by himself. Nothing is more
admirable than the hesitation with which he proposes the solemn text, ‘Until
kings are philosophers,’ etc.; or the reaction from the sublime to the
ridiculous, when Glaucon describes the manner in which the new truth will be
received by mankind.
Some defects and difficulties may be noted in the execution of the
communistic plan. Nothing is told us of the application of communism to the
lower classes; nor is the table of prohibited degrees capable of being made out.
It is quite possible that a child born at one hymeneal festival may marry one of
its own brothers or sisters, or even one of its parents, at another. Plato is
afraid of incestuous unions, but at the same time he does not wish to bring
before us the fact that the city would be divided into families of those born
seven and nine months after each hymeneal festival. If it were worth while to
argue seriously about such fancies, we might remark that while all the old
affinities are abolished, the newly prohibited affinity rests not on any natural
or rational principle, but only upon the accident of children having been born
in the same month and year. Nor does he explain how the lots could be so
manipulated by the legislature as to bring together the fairest and best. The
singular expression which is employed to describe the age of five-and-twenty
may perhaps be taken from some poet.
In the delineation of the philosopher, the illustrations of the nature of
philosophy derived from love are more suited to the apprehension of Glaucon,
the Athenian man of pleasure, than to modern tastes or feelings. They are
partly facetious, but also contain a germ of truth. That science is a whole,
remains a true principle of inductive as well as of metaphysical philosophy;
and the love of universal knowledge is still the characteristic of the
philosopher in modern as well as in ancient times.
At the end of the fifth book Plato introduces the figment of contingent
matter, which has exercised so great an influence both on the Ethics and
Theology of the modern world, and which occurs here for the first time in the
history of philosophy. He did not remark that the degrees of knowledge in the
subject have nothing corresponding to them in the object. With him a word
must answer to an idea; and he could not conceive of an opinion which was an
opinion about nothing. The influence of analogy led him to invent ‘parallels
and conjugates’ and to overlook facts. To us some of his difficulties are
puzzling only from their simplicity: we do not perceive that the answer to
them ‘is tumbling out at our feet.’ To the mind of early thinkers, the
conception of not-being was dark and mysterious; they did not see that this
terrible apparition which threatened destruction to all knowledge was only a
logical determination. The common term under which, through the accidental
use of language, two entirely different ideas were included was another source
of confusion. Thus through the ambiguity of (Greek) Plato, attempting to
introduce order into the first chaos of human thought, seems to have confused
perception and opinion, and to have failed to distinguish the contingent from
the relative. In the Theaetetus the first of these difficulties begins to clear up;
in the Sophist the second; and for this, as well as for other reasons, both these
dialogues are probably to be regarded as later than the Republic.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VI.
Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true being, and have
no clear patterns in their minds of justice, beauty, truth, and that philosophers
have such patterns, we have now to ask whether they or the many shall be
rulers in our State. But who can doubt that philosophers should be chosen, if
they have the other qualities which are required in a ruler? For they are lovers
of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth; they are haters of falsehood;
their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge; they are
spectators of all time and all existence; and in the magnificence of their
contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also
they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and
arrogance. They learn and remember easily; they have harmonious, well-
regulated minds; truth flows to them sweetly by nature. Can the god of
Jealousy himself find any fault with such an assemblage of good qualities?
Here Adeimantus interposes:—‘No man can answer you, Socrates; but
every man feels that this is owing to his own deficiency in argument. He is
driven from one position to another, until he has nothing more to say, just as
an unskilful player at draughts is reduced to his last move by a more skilled
opponent. And yet all the time he may be right. He may know, in this very
instance, that those who make philosophy the business of their lives, generally
turn out rogues if they are bad men, and fools if they are good. What do you
say?’ I should say that he is quite right. ‘Then how is such an admission
reconcileable with the doctrine that philosophers should be kings?’
I shall answer you in a parable which will also let you see how poor a hand
I am at the invention of allegories. The relation of good men to their
governments is so peculiar, that in order to defend them I must take an
illustration from the world of fiction. Conceive the captain of a ship, taller by a
head and shoulders than any of the crew, yet a little deaf, a little blind, and
rather ignorant of the seaman’s art. The sailors want to steer, although they
know nothing of the art; and they have a theory that it cannot be learned. If
the helm is refused them, they drug the captain’s posset, bind him hand and
foot, and take possession of the ship. He who joins in the mutiny is termed a
good pilot and what not; they have no conception that the true pilot must
observe the winds and the stars, and must be their master, whether they like it
or not; — such an one would be called by them fool, prater, star-gazer. This is
my parable; which I will beg you to interpret for me to those gentlemen who
ask why the philosopher has such an evil name, and to explain to them that
not he, but those who will not use him, are to blame for his uselessness. The
philosopher should not beg of mankind to be put in authority over them. The
wise man should not seek the rich, as the proverb bids, but every man,
whether rich or poor, must knock at the door of the physician when he has
need of him. Now the pilot is the philosopher — he whom in the parable they
call star-gazer, and the mutinous sailors are the mob of politicians by whom
he is rendered useless. Not that these are the worst enemies of philosophy,
who is far more dishonoured by her own professing sons when they are
corrupted by the world. Need I recall the original image of the philosopher?
Did we not say of him just now, that he loved truth and hated falsehood, and
that he could not rest in the multiplicity of phenomena, but was led by a
sympathy in his own nature to the contemplation of the absolute? All the
virtues as well as truth, who is the leader of them, took up their abode in his
soul. But as you were observing, if we turn aside to view the reality, we see that
the persons who were thus described, with the exception of a small and useless
class, are utter rogues.
The point which has to be considered, is the origin of this corruption in
nature. Every one will admit that the philosopher, in our description of him, is
a rare being. But what numberless causes tend to destroy these rare beings!
There is no good thing which may not be a cause of evil — health, wealth,
strength, rank, and the virtues themselves, when placed under unfavourable
circumstances. For as in the animal or vegetable world the strongest seeds
most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human
characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil; whereas
weak natures hardly ever do any considerable good or harm; they are not the
stuff out of which either great criminals or great heroes are made. The
philosopher follows the same analogy: he is either the best or the worst of all
men. Some persons say that the Sophists are the corrupters of youth; but is
not public opinion the real Sophist who is everywhere present — in those very
persons, in the assembly, in the courts, in the camp, in the applauses and
hisses of the theatre re-echoed by the surrounding hills? Will not a young
man’s heart leap amid these discordant sounds? and will any education save
him from being carried away by the torrent? Nor is this all. For if he will not
yield to opinion, there follows the gentle compulsion of exile or death. What
principle of rival Sophists or anybody else can overcome in such an unequal
contest? Characters there may be more than human, who are exceptions —
God may save a man, but not his own strength. Further, I would have you
consider that the hireling Sophist only gives back to the world their own
opinions; he is the keeper of the monster, who knows how to flatter or anger
him, and observes the meaning of his inarticulate grunts. Good is what pleases
him, evil what he dislikes; truth and beauty are determined only by the taste of
the brute. Such is the Sophist’s wisdom, and such is the condition of those who
make public opinion the test of truth, whether in art or in morals. The curse is
laid upon them of being and doing what it approves, and when they attempt
first principles the failure is ludicrous. Think of all this and ask yourself
whether the world is more likely to be a believer in the unity of the idea, or in
the multiplicity of phenomena. And the world if not a believer in the idea
cannot be a philosopher, and must therefore be a persecutor of philosophers.
There is another evil:— the world does not like to lose the gifted nature, and so
they flatter the young (Alcibiades) into a magnificent opinion of his own
capacity; the tall, proper youth begins to expand, and is dreaming of kingdoms
and empires. If at this instant a friend whispers to him, ‘Now the gods lighten
thee; thou art a great fool’ and must be educated — do you think that he will
listen? Or suppose a better sort of man who is attracted towards philosophy,
will they not make Herculean efforts to spoil and corrupt him? Are we not
right in saying that the love of knowledge, no less than riches, may divert him?
Men of this class (Critias) often become politicians — they are the authors of
great mischief in states, and sometimes also of great good. And thus
philosophy is deserted by her natural protectors, and others enter in and
dishonour her. Vulgar little minds see the land open and rush from the prisons
of the arts into her temple. A clever mechanic having a soul coarse as his body,
thinks that he will gain caste by becoming her suitor. For philosophy, even in
her fallen estate, has a dignity of her own — and he, like a bald little
blacksmith’s apprentice as he is, having made some money and got out of
durance, washes and dresses himself as a bridegroom and marries his master’s
daughter. What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and
bastard, devoid of truth and nature? ‘They will.’ Small, then, is the remnant of
genuine philosophers; there may be a few who are citizens of small states, in
which politics are not worth thinking of, or who have been detained by
Theages’ bridle of ill health; for my own case of the oracular sign is almost
unique, and too rare to be worth mentioning. And these few when they have
tasted the pleasures of philosophy, and have taken a look at that den of thieves
and place of wild beasts, which is human life, will stand aside from the storm
under the shelter of a wall, and try to preserve their own innocence and to
depart in peace. ‘A great work, too, will have been accomplished by them.’
Great, yes, but not the greatest; for man is a social being, and can only attain
his highest development in the society which is best suited to him.
Enough, then, of the causes why philosophy has such an evil name.
Another question is, Which of existing states is suited to her? Not one of them;
at present she is like some exotic seed which degenerates in a strange soil;
only in her proper state will she be shown to be of heavenly growth. ‘And is her
proper state ours or some other?’ Ours in all points but one, which was left
undetermined. You may remember our saying that some living mind or
witness of the legislator was needed in states. But we were afraid to enter upon
a subject of such difficulty, and now the question recurs and has not grown
easier:— How may philosophy be safely studied? Let us bring her into the light
of day, and make an end of the inquiry.
In the first place, I say boldly that nothing can be worse than the present
mode of study. Persons usually pick up a little philosophy in early youth, and
in the intervals of business, but they never master the real difficulty, which is
dialectic. Later, perhaps, they occasionally go to a lecture on philosophy. Years
advance, and the sun of philosophy, unlike that of Heracleitus, sets never to
rise again. This order of education should be reversed; it should begin with
gymnastics in youth, and as the man strengthens, he should increase the
gymnastics of his soul. Then, when active life is over, let him finally return to
philosophy. ‘You are in earnest, Socrates, but the world will be equally earnest
in withstanding you — no more than Thrasymachus.’ Do not make a quarrel
between Thrasymachus and me, who were never enemies and are now good
friends enough. And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the
truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another
life, we may again take part in similar discussions. ‘That will be a long time
hence.’ Not long in comparison with eternity. The many will probably remain
incredulous, for they have never seen the natural unity of ideas, but only
artificial juxtapositions; not free and generous thoughts, but tricks of
controversy and quips of law; — a perfect man ruling in a perfect state, even a
single one they have not known. And we foresaw that there was no chance of
perfection either in states or individuals until a necessity was laid upon
philosophers — not the rogues, but those whom we called the useless class —
of holding office; or until the sons of kings were inspired with a true love of
philosophy. Whether in the infinity of past time there has been, or is in some
distant land, or ever will be hereafter, an ideal such as we have described, we
stoutly maintain that there has been, is, and will be such a state whenever the
Muse of philosophy rules. Will you say that the world is of another mind? O,
my friend, do not revile the world! They will soon change their opinion if they
are gently entreated, and are taught the true nature of the philosopher. Who
can hate a man who loves him? Or be jealous of one who has no jealousy?
Consider, again, that the many hate not the true but the false philosophers —
the pretenders who force their way in without invitation, and are always
speaking of persons and not of principles, which is unlike the spirit of
philosophy. For the true philosopher despises earthly strife; his eye is fixed on
the eternal order in accordance with which he moulds himself into the Divine
image (and not himself only, but other men), and is the creator of the virtues
private as well as public. When mankind see that the happiness of states is
only to be found in that image, will they be angry with us for attempting to
delineate it? ‘Certainly not. But what will be the process of delineation?’ The
artist will do nothing until he has made a tabula rasa; on this he will inscribe
the constitution of a state, glancing often at the divine truth of nature, and
from that deriving the godlike among men, mingling the two elements,
rubbing out and painting in, until there is a perfect harmony or fusion of the
divine and human. But perhaps the world will doubt the existence of such an
artist. What will they doubt? That the philosopher is a lover of truth, having a
nature akin to the best? — and if they admit this will they still quarrel with us
for making philosophers our kings? ‘They will be less disposed to quarrel.’ Let
us assume then that they are pacified. Still, a person may hesitate about the
probability of the son of a king being a philosopher. And we do not deny that
they are very liable to be corrupted; but yet surely in the course of ages there
might be one exception — and one is enough. If one son of a king were a
philosopher, and had obedient citizens, he might bring the ideal polity into
being. Hence we conclude that our laws are not only the best, but that they are
also possible, though not free from difficulty.
I gained nothing by evading the troublesome questions which arose
concerning women and children. I will be wiser now and acknowledge that we
must go to the bottom of another question: What is to be the education of our
guardians? It was agreed that they were to be lovers of their country, and were
to be tested in the refiner’s fire of pleasures and pains, and those who came
forth pure and remained fixed in their principles were to have honours and
rewards in life and after death. But at this point, the argument put on her veil
and turned into another path. I hesitated to make the assertion which I now
hazard — that our guardians must be philosophers. You remember all the
contradictory elements, which met in the philosopher — how difficult to find
them all in a single person! Intelligence and spirit are not often combined with
steadiness; the stolid, fearless, nature is averse to intellectual toil. And yet
these opposite elements are all necessary, and therefore, as we were saying
before, the aspirant must be tested in pleasures and dangers; and also, as we
must now further add, in the highest branches of knowledge. You will
remember, that when we spoke of the virtues mention was made of a longer
road, which you were satisfied to leave unexplored. ‘Enough seemed to have
been said.’ Enough, my friend; but what is enough while anything remains
wanting? Of all men the guardian must not faint in the search after truth; he
must be prepared to take the longer road, or he will never reach that higher
region which is above the four virtues; and of the virtues too he must not only
get an outline, but a clear and distinct vision. (Strange that we should be so
precise about trifles, so careless about the highest truths!) ‘And what are the
highest?’ You to pretend unconsciousness, when you have so often heard me
speak of the idea of good, about which we know so little, and without which
though a man gain the world he has no profit of it! Some people imagine that
the good is wisdom; but this involves a circle — the good, they say, is wisdom,
wisdom has to do with the good. According to others the good is pleasure; but
then comes the absurdity that good is bad, for there are bad pleasures as well
as good. Again, the good must have reality; a man may desire the appearance
of virtue, but he will not desire the appearance of good. Ought our guardians
then to be ignorant of this supreme principle, of which every man has a
presentiment, and without which no man has any real knowledge of anything?
‘But, Socrates, what is this supreme principle, knowledge or pleasure, or what?
You may think me troublesome, but I say that you have no business to be
always repeating the doctrines of others instead of giving us your own.’ Can I
say what I do not know? ‘You may offer an opinion.’ And will the blindness
and crookedness of opinion content you when you might have the light and
certainty of science? ‘I will only ask you to give such an explanation of the
good as you have given already of temperance and justice.’ I wish that I could,
but in my present mood I cannot reach to the height of the knowledge of the
good. To the parent or principal I cannot introduce you, but to the child
begotten in his image, which I may compare with the interest on the principal,
I will. (Audit the account, and do not let me give you a false statement of the
debt.) You remember our old distinction of the many beautiful and the one
beautiful, the particular and the universal, the objects of sight and the objects
of thought? Did you ever consider that the objects of sight imply a faculty of
sight which is the most complex and costly of our senses, requiring not only
objects of sense, but also a medium, which is light; without which the sight
will not distinguish between colours and all will be a blank? For light is the
noble bond between the perceiving faculty and the thing perceived, and the
god who gives us light is the sun, who is the eye of the day, but is not to be
confounded with the eye of man. This eye of the day or sun is what I call the
child of the good, standing in the same relation to the visible world as the good
to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees, and in the intellectual
world where truth is, there is sight and light. Now that which is the sun of
intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the cause of knowledge and truth, yet
other and fairer than they are, and standing in the same relation to them in
which the sun stands to light. O inconceivable height of beauty, which is above
knowledge and above truth! (‘You cannot surely mean pleasure,’ he said.
Peace, I replied.) And this idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of
growth, and the author not of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far
than either in dignity and power. ‘That is a reach of thought more than
human; but, pray, go on with the image, for I suspect that there is more
behind.’ There is, I said; and bearing in mind our two suns or principles,
imagine further their corresponding worlds — one of the visible, the other of
the intelligible; you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the
image of a line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each
part into two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in
either sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will consist of
shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will contain real
objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the intelligible will also
have two divisions — one of mathematics, in which there is no ascent but all is
descent; no inquiring into premises, but only drawing of inferences. In this
division the mind works with figures and numbers, the images of which are
taken not from the shadows, but from the objects, although the truth of them
is seen only with the mind’s eye; and they are used as hypotheses without
being analysed. Whereas in the other division reason uses the hypotheses as
stages or steps in the ascent to the idea of good, to which she fastens them,
and then again descends, walking firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas
only, in her ascent as well as descent, and finally resting in them. ‘I partly
understand,’ he replied; ‘you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the
hypothetical, metaphorical conceptions of geometry and the other arts or
sciences, whichever is to be the name of them; and the latter conceptions you
refuse to make subjects of pure intellect, because they have no first principle,
although when resting on a first principle, they pass into the higher sphere.’
You understand me very well, I said. And now to those four divisions of
knowledge you may assign four corresponding faculties — pure intelligence to
the highest sphere; active intelligence to the second; to the third, faith; to the
fourth, the perception of shadows — and the clearness of the several faculties
will be in the same ratio as the truth of the objects to which they are related . . .
Like Socrates, we may recapitulate the virtues of the philosopher. In
language which seems to reach beyond the horizon of that age and country, he
is described as ‘the spectator of all time and all existence.’ He has the noblest
gifts of nature, and makes the highest use of them. All his desires are absorbed
in the love of wisdom, which is the love of truth. None of the graces of a
beautiful soul are wanting in him; neither can he fear death, or think much of
human life. The ideal of modern times hardly retains the simplicity of the
antique; there is not the same originality either in truth or error which
characterized the Greeks. The philosopher is no longer living in the unseen,
nor is he sent by an oracle to convince mankind of ignorance; nor does he
regard knowledge as a system of ideas leading upwards by regular stages to
the idea of good. The eagerness of the pursuit has abated; there is more
division of labour and less of comprehensive reflection upon nature and
human life as a whole; more of exact observation and less of anticipation and
inspiration. Still, in the altered conditions of knowledge, the parallel is not
wholly lost; and there may be a use in translating the conception of Plato into
the language of our own age. The philosopher in modern times is one who
fixes his mind on the laws of nature in their sequence and connexion, not on
fragments or pictures of nature; on history, not on controversy; on the truths
which are acknowledged by the few, not on the opinions of the many. He is
aware of the importance of ‘classifying according to nature,’ and will try to
‘separate the limbs of science without breaking them’ (Phaedr.). There is no
part of truth, whether great or small, which he will dishonour; and in the least
things he will discern the greatest (Parmen.). Like the ancient philosopher he
sees the world pervaded by analogies, but he can also tell ‘why in some cases a
single instance is sufficient for an induction’ (Mill’s Logic), while in other
cases a thousand examples would prove nothing. He inquires into a portion of
knowledge only, because the whole has grown too vast to be embraced by a
single mind or life. He has a clearer conception of the divisions of science and
of their relation to the mind of man than was possible to the ancients. Like
Plato, he has a vision of the unity of knowledge, not as the beginning of
philosophy to be attained by a study of elementary mathematics, but as the
far-off result of the working of many minds in many ages. He is aware that
mathematical studies are preliminary to almost every other; at the same time,
he will not reduce all varieties of knowledge to the type of mathematics. He
too must have a nobility of character, without which genius loses the better
half of greatness. Regarding the world as a point in immensity, and each
individual as a link in a never-ending chain of existence, he will not think
much of his own life, or be greatly afraid of death.
Adeimantus objects first of all to the form of the Socratic reasoning, thus
showing that Plato is aware of the imperfection of his own method. He brings
the accusation against himself which might be brought against him by a
modern logician — that he extracts the answer because he knows how to put
the question. In a long argument words are apt to change their meaning
slightly, or premises may be assumed or conclusions inferred with rather too
much certainty or universality; the variation at each step may be unobserved,
and yet at last the divergence becomes considerable. Hence the failure of
attempts to apply arithmetical or algebraic formulae to logic. The
imperfection, or rather the higher and more elastic nature of language, does
not allow words to have the precision of numbers or of symbols. And this
quality in language impairs the force of an argument which has many steps.
The objection, though fairly met by Socrates in this particular instance,
may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning.
And here, as elsewhere, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when
the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a
positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later
dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with
facts; for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues.
Contrary to all expectation Socrates has no hesitation in admitting the truth of
this, and explains the anomaly in an allegory, first characteristically
depreciating his own inventive powers. In this allegory the people are
distinguished from the professional politicians, and, as elsewhere, are spoken
of in a tone of pity rather than of censure under the image of ‘the noble captain
who is not very quick in his perceptions.’
The uselessness of philosophers is explained by the circumstance that
mankind will not use them. The world in all ages has been divided between
contempt and fear of those who employ the power of ideas and know no other
weapons. Concerning the false philosopher, Socrates argues that the best is
most liable to corruption; and that the finer nature is more likely to suffer
from alien conditions. We too observe that there are some kinds of excellence
which spring from a peculiar delicacy of constitution; as is evidently true of
the poetical and imaginative temperament, which often seems to depend on
impressions, and hence can only breathe or live in a certain atmosphere. The
man of genius has greater pains and greater pleasures, greater powers and
greater weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in
ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness
without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of patriotism and
philosophy — he can say the word which all men are thinking, he has an
insight which is terrible into the follies and weaknesses of his fellow-men. An
Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon the First, are born either to be the
authors of great evils in states, or ‘of great good, when they are drawn in that
direction.’
 Yet the thesis, ‘corruptio optimi pessima,’ cannot be maintained generally
or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien
conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture
to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a
congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-workers. But also he may
sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises
up against them and reforms them. And while weaker or coarser characters
will extract good out of evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society,
and live on happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures
may be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influences — may become
misanthrope and philanthrope by turns; or in a few instances, like the
founders of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity
in themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and
from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil,
sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a convent, a
school, a family.
Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered
by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to get
possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any political
or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs and teaching
them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices and interests. The
‘monster’ corporation to which they belong judges right and truth to be the
pleasure of the community. The individual becomes one with his order; or, if
he resists, the world is too much for him, and will sooner or later be revenged
on him. This is, perhaps, a one-sided but not wholly untrue picture of the
maxims and practice of mankind when they ‘sit down together at an assembly,’
either in ancient or modern times.
When the higher natures are corrupted by politics, the lower take
possession of the vacant place of philosophy. This is described in one of those
continuous images in which the argument, to use a Platonic expression, ‘veils
herself,’ and which is dropped and reappears at intervals. The question is
asked — Why are the citizens of states so hostile to philosophy? The answer is,
that they do not know her. And yet there is also a better mind of the many;
they would believe if they were taught. But hitherto they have only known a
conventional imitation of philosophy, words without thoughts, systems which
have no life in them; a (divine) person uttering the words of beauty and
freedom, the friend of man holding communion with the Eternal, and seeking
to frame the state in that image, they have never known. The same double
feeling respecting the mass of mankind has always existed among men. The
first thought is that the people are the enemies of truth and right; the second,
that this only arises out of an accidental error and confusion, and that they do
not really hate those who love them, if they could be educated to know them.
In the latter part of the sixth book, three questions have to be considered:
1st, the nature of the longer and more circuitous way, which is contrasted with
the shorter and more imperfect method of Book IV; 2nd, the heavenly pattern
or idea of the state; 3rd, the relation of the divisions of knowledge to one
another and to the corresponding faculties of the soul
1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse.
Neither here nor in the Phaedrus or Symposium, nor yet in the Philebus or
Sophist, does he give any clear explanation of his meaning. He would probably
have described his method as proceeding by regular steps to a system of
universal knowledge, which inferred the parts from the whole rather than the
whole from the parts. This ideal logic is not practised by him in the search
after justice, or in the analysis of the parts of the soul; there, like Aristotle in
the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues from experience and the common use of
language. But at the end of the sixth book he conceives another and more
perfect method, in which all ideas are only steps or grades or moments of
thought, forming a connected whole which is self-supporting, and in which
consistency is the test of truth. He does not explain to us in detail the nature of
the process. Like many other thinkers both in ancient and modern times his
mind seems to be filled with a vacant form which he is unable to realize. He
supposes the sciences to have a natural order and connexion in an age when
they can hardly be said to exist. He is hastening on to the ‘end of the
intellectual world’ without even making a beginning of them.
In modern times we hardly need to be reminded that the process of
acquiring knowledge is here confused with the contemplation of absolute
knowledge. In all science a priori and a posteriori truths mingle in various
proportions. The a priori part is that which is derived from the most universal
experience of men, or is universally accepted by them; the a posteriori is that
which grows up around the more general principles and becomes
imperceptibly one with them. But Plato erroneously imagines that the
synthesis is separable from the analysis, and that the method of science can
anticipate science. In entertaining such a vision of a priori knowledge he is
sufficiently justified, or at least his meaning may be sufficiently explained by
the similar attempts of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and even of Bacon himself, in
modern philosophy. Anticipations or divinations, or prophetic glimpses of
truths whether concerning man or nature, seem to stand in the same relation
to ancient philosophy which hypotheses bear to modern inductive science.
These ‘guesses at truth’ were not made at random; they arose from a
superficial impression of uniformities and first principles in nature which the
genius of the Greek, contemplating the expanse of heaven and earth, seemed
to recognize in the distance. Nor can we deny that in ancient times knowledge
must have stood still, and the human mind been deprived of the very
instruments of thought, if philosophy had been strictly confined to the results
of experience.
2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist will
fill in the lineaments of the ideal state. Is this a pattern laid up in heaven, or
mere vacancy on which he is supposed to gaze with wondering eye? The
answer is, that such ideals are framed partly by the omission of particulars,
partly by imagination perfecting the form which experience supplies (Phaedo).
Plato represents these ideals in a figure as belonging to another world; and in
modern times the idea will sometimes seem to precede, at other times to co-
operate with the hand of the artist. As in science, so also in creative art, there
is a synthetical as well as an analytical method. One man will have the whole
in his mind before he begins; to another the processes of mind and hand will
be simultaneous.
3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato’s divisions of knowledge are
based, first, on the fundamental antithesis of sensible and intellectual which
pervades the whole pre-Socratic philosophy; in which is implied also the
opposition of the permanent and transient, of the universal and particular. But
the age of philosophy in which he lived seemed to require a further distinction;
— numbers and figures were beginning to separate from ideas. The world
could no longer regard justice as a cube, and was learning to see, though
imperfectly, that the abstractions of sense were distinct from the abstractions
of mind. Between the Eleatic being or essence and the shadows of phenomena,
the Pythagorean principle of number found a place, and was, as Aristotle
remarks, a conducting medium from one to the other. Hence Plato is led to
introduce a third term which had not hitherto entered into the scheme of his
philosophy. He had observed the use of mathematics in education; they were
the best preparation for higher studies. The subjective relation between them
further suggested an objective one; although the passage from one to the other
is really imaginary (Metaph.). For metaphysical and moral philosophy has no
connexion with mathematics; number and figure are the abstractions of time
and space, not the expressions of purely intellectual conceptions. When
divested of metaphor, a straight line or a square has no more to do with right
and justice than a crooked line with vice. The figurative association was
mistaken for a real one; and thus the three latter divisions of the Platonic
proportion were constructed.
There is more difficulty in comprehending how he arrived at the first term
of the series, which is nowhere else mentioned, and has no reference to any
other part of his system. Nor indeed does the relation of shadows to objects
correspond to the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led by
the love of analogy (Timaeus) to make four terms instead of three, although
the objects perceived in both divisions of the lower sphere are equally objects
of sense. He is also preparing the way, as his manner is, for the shadows of
images at the beginning of the seventh book, and the imitation of an imitation
in the tenth. The line may be regarded as reaching from unity to infinity, and
is divided into two unequal parts, and subdivided into two more; each lower
sphere is the multiplication of the preceding. Of the four faculties, faith in the
lower division has an intermediate position (cp. for the use of the word faith or
belief, (Greek), Timaeus), contrasting equally with the vagueness of the
perception of shadows (Greek) and the higher certainty of understanding
(Greek) and reason (Greek).
The difference between understanding and mind or reason (Greek) is
analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the parts and the
contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a whole, and is at rest;
consistency and universality are the tests of truth. To this self-evidencing
knowledge of the whole the faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But
there is a knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion
always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those ideas are called
both images and hypotheses — images because they are clothed in sense,
hypotheses because they are assumptions only, until they are brought into
connexion with the idea of good.
The general meaning of the passage, ‘Noble, then, is the bond which links
together sight . . . And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible . . . ’ so far as the
thought contained in it admits of being translated into the terms of modern
philosophy, may be described or explained as follows:— There is a truth, one
and self-existent, to which by the help of a ladder let down from above, the
human intelligence may ascend. This unity is like the sun in the heavens, the
light by which all things are seen, the being by which they are created and
sustained. It is the IDEA of good. And the steps of the ladder leading up to this
highest or universal existence are the mathematical sciences, which also
contain in themselves an element of the universal. These, too, we see in a new
manner when we connect them with the idea of good. They then cease to be
hypotheses or pictures, and become essential parts of a higher truth which is
at once their first principle and their final cause.
We cannot give any more precise meaning to this remarkable passage, but
we may trace in it several rudiments or vestiges of thought which are common
to us and to Plato: such as (1) the unity and correlation of the sciences, or
rather of science, for in Plato’s time they were not yet parted off or
distinguished; (2) the existence of a Divine Power, or life or idea or cause or
reason, not yet conceived or no longer conceived as in the Timaeus and
elsewhere under the form of a person; (3) the recognition of the hypothetical
and conditional character of the mathematical sciences, and in a measure of
every science when isolated from the rest; (4) the conviction of a truth which is
invisible, and of a law, though hardly a law of nature, which permeates the
intellectual rather than the visible world.
The method of Socrates is hesitating and tentative, awaiting the fuller
explanation of the idea of good, and of the nature of dialectic in the seventh
book. The imperfect intelligence of Glaucon, and the reluctance of Socrates to
make a beginning, mark the difficulty of the subject. The allusion to Theages’
bridle, and to the internal oracle, or demonic sign, of Socrates, which here, as
always in Plato, is only prohibitory; the remark that the salvation of any
remnant of good in the present evil state of the world is due to God only; the
reference to a future state of existence, which is unknown to Glaucon in the
tenth book, and in which the discussions of Socrates and his disciples would
be resumed; the surprise in the answers; the fanciful irony of Socrates, where
he pretends that he can only describe the strange position of the philosopher
in a figure of speech; the original observation that the Sophists, after all, are
only the representatives and not the leaders of public opinion; the picture of
the philosopher standing aside in the shower of sleet under a wall; the figure
of ‘the great beast’ followed by the expression of good-will towards the
common people who would not have rejected the philosopher if they had
known him; the ‘right noble thought’ that the highest truths demand the
greatest exactness; the hesitation of Socrates in returning once more to his
well-worn theme of the idea of good; the ludicrous earnestness of Glaucon; the
comparison of philosophy to a deserted maiden who marries beneath her —
are some of the most interesting characteristics of the sixth book.
Yet a few more words may be added, on the old theme, which was so oft
discussed in the Socratic circle, of which we, like Glaucon and Adeimantus,
would fain, if possible, have a clearer notion. Like them, we are dissatisfied
when we are told that the idea of good can only be revealed to a student of the
mathematical sciences, and we are inclined to think that neither we nor they
could have been led along that path to any satisfactory goal. For we have
learned that differences of quantity cannot pass into differences of quality, and
that the mathematical sciences can never rise above themselves into the
sphere of our higher thoughts, although they may sometimes furnish symbols
and expressions of them, and may train the mind in habits of abstraction and
self-concentration. The illusion which was natural to an ancient philosopher
has ceased to be an illusion to us. But if the process by which we are supposed
to arrive at the idea of good be really imaginary, may not the idea itself be also
a mere abstraction? We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in
primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted
an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or
negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They
have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was
a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas,
but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to
attach the powers and associations of the elder deities.
 The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which
were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which
all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and
also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences
human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were
brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human
personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and
all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the
mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether
God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God
could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God. The
God of the Timaeus is not really at variance with the idea of good; they are
aspects of the same, differing only as the personal from the impersonal, or the
masculine from the neuter, the one being the expression or language of
mythology, the other of philosophy.
This, or something like this, is the meaning of the idea of good as
conceived by Plato. Ideas of number, order, harmony, development may also
be said to enter into it. The paraphrase which has just been given of it goes
beyond the actual words of Plato. We have perhaps arrived at the stage of
philosophy which enables us to understand what he is aiming at, better than
he did himself. We are beginning to realize what he saw darkly and at a
distance. But if he could have been told that this, or some conception of the
same kind, but higher than this, was the truth at which he was aiming, and the
need which he sought to supply, he would gladly have recognized that more
was contained in his own thoughts than he himself knew. As his words are few
and his manner reticent and tentative, so must the style of his interpreter be.
We should not approach his meaning more nearly by attempting to define it
further. In translating him into the language of modern thought, we might
insensibly lose the spirit of ancient philosophy. It is remarkable that although
Plato speaks of the idea of good as the first principle of truth and being, it is
nowhere mentioned in his writings except in this passage. Nor did it retain any
hold upon the minds of his disciples in a later generation; it was probably
unintelligible to them. Nor does the mention of it in Aristotle appear to have
any reference to this or any other passage in his extant writings.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VII.
And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or unenlightenment of
our nature:— Imagine human beings living in an underground den which is
open towards the light; they have been there from childhood, having their
necks and legs chained, and can only see into the den. At a distance there is a
fire, and between the fire and the prisoners a raised way, and a low wall is
built along the way, like the screen over which marionette players show their
puppets. Behind the wall appear moving figures, who hold in their hands
various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, wood and
stone, and some of the passers-by are talking and others silent. ‘A strange
parable,’ he said, ‘and strange captives.’ They are ourselves, I replied; and they
see only the shadows of the images which the fire throws on the wall of the
den; to these they give names, and if we add an echo which returns from the
wall, the voices of the passengers will seem to proceed from the shadows.
Suppose now that you suddenly turn them round and make them look with
pain and grief to themselves at the real images; will they believe them to be
real? Will not their eyes be dazzled, and will they not try to get away from the
light to something which they are able to behold without blinking? And
suppose further, that they are dragged up a steep and rugged ascent into the
presence of the sun himself, will not their sight be darkened with the excess of
light? Some time will pass before they get the habit of perceiving at all; and at
first they will be able to perceive only shadows and reflections in the water;
then they will recognize the moon and the stars, and will at length behold the
sun in his own proper place as he is. Last of all they will conclude:— This is he
who gives us the year and the seasons, and is the author of all that we see.
How will they rejoice in passing from darkness to light! How worthless to
them will seem the honours and glories of the den! But now imagine further,
that they descend into their old habitations; — in that underground dwelling
they will not see as well as their fellows, and will not be able to compete with
them in the measurement of the shadows on the wall; there will be many jokes
about the man who went on a visit to the sun and lost his eyes, and if they find
anybody trying to set free and enlighten one of their number, they will put him
to death, if they can catch him. Now the cave or den is the world of sight, the
fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of
knowledge the idea of good is last seen and with difficulty, but when seen is
inferred to be the author of good and right — parent of the lord of light in this
world, and of truth and understanding in the other. He who attains to the
beatific vision is always going upwards; he is unwilling to descend into
political assemblies and courts of law; for his eyes are apt to blink at the
images or shadows of images which they behold in them — he cannot enter
into the ideas of those who have never in their lives understood the relation of
the shadow to the substance. But blindness is of two kinds, and may be caused
either by passing out of darkness into light or out of light into darkness, and a
man of sense will distinguish between them, and will not laugh equally at both
of them, but the blindness which arises from fulness of light he will deem
blessed, and pity the other; or if he laugh at the puzzled soul looking at the
sun, he will have more reason to laugh than the inhabitants of the den at those
who descend from above. There is a further lesson taught by this parable of
ours. Some persons fancy that instruction is like giving eyes to the blind, but
we say that the faculty of sight was always there, and that the soul only
requires to be turned round towards the light. And this is conversion; other
virtues are almost like bodily habits, and may be acquired in the same manner,
but intelligence has a diviner life, and is indestructible, turning either to good
or evil according to the direction given. Did you never observe how the mind
of a clever rogue peers out of his eyes, and the more clearly he sees, the more
evil he does? Now if you take such an one, and cut away from him those leaden
weights of pleasure and desire which bind his soul to earth, his intelligence
will be turned round, and he will behold the truth as clearly as he now discerns
his meaner ends. And have we not decided that our rulers must neither be so
uneducated as to have no fixed rule of life, nor so over-educated as to be
unwilling to leave their paradise for the business of the world? We must
choose out therefore the natures who are most likely to ascend to the light and
knowledge of the good; but we must not allow them to remain in the region of
light; they must be forced down again among the captives in the den to
partake of their labours and honours. ‘Will they not think this a hardship?’
You should remember that our purpose in framing the State was not that our
citizens should do what they like, but that they should serve the State for the
common good of all. May we not fairly say to our philosopher — Friend, we do
you no wrong; for in other States philosophy grows wild, and a wild plant owes
nothing to the gardener, but you have been trained by us to be the rulers and
kings of our hive, and therefore we must insist on your descending into the
den. You must, each of you, take your turn, and become able to use your eyes
in the dark, and with a little practice you will see far better than those who
quarrel about the shadows, whose knowledge is a dream only, whilst yours is a
waking reality. It may be that the saint or philosopher who is best fitted, may
also be the least inclined to rule, but necessity is laid upon him, and he must
no longer live in the heaven of ideas. And this will be the salvation of the State.
For those who rule must not be those who are desirous to rule; and, if you can
offer to our citizens a better life than that of rulers generally is, there will be a
chance that the rich, not only in this world’s goods, but in virtue and wisdom,
may bear rule. And the only life which is better than the life of political
ambition is that of philosophy, which is also the best preparation for the
government of a State.
Then now comes the question — How shall we create our rulers; what way
is there from darkness to light? The change is effected by philosophy; it is not
the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the conversion of a soul from night to
day, from becoming to being. And what training will draw the soul upwards?
Our former education had two branches, gymnastic, which was occupied with
the body, and music, the sister art, which infused a natural harmony into mind
and literature; but neither of these sciences gave any promise of doing what
we want. Nothing remains to us but that universal or primary science of which
all the arts and sciences are partakers, I mean number or calculation. ‘Very
true.’ Including the art of war? ‘Yes, certainly.’ Then there is something
ludicrous about Palamedes in the tragedy, coming in and saying that he had
invented number, and had counted the ranks and set them in order. For if
Agamemnon could not count his feet (and without number how could he?) he
must have been a pretty sort of general indeed. No man should be a soldier
who cannot count, and indeed he is hardly to be called a man. But I am not
speaking of these practical applications of arithmetic, for number, in my view,
is rather to be regarded as a conductor to thought and being. I will explain
what I mean by the last expression:— Things sensible are of two kinds; the one
class invite or stimulate the mind, while in the other the mind acquiesces. Now
the stimulating class are the things which suggest contrast and relation. For
example, suppose that I hold up to the eyes three fingers — a fore finger, a
middle finger, a little finger — the sight equally recognizes all three fingers,
but without number cannot further distinguish them. Or again, suppose two
objects to be relatively great and small, these ideas of greatness and smallness
are supplied not by the sense, but by the mind. And the perception of their
contrast or relation quickens and sets in motion the mind, which is puzzled by
the confused intimations of sense, and has recourse to number in order to find
out whether the things indicated are one or more than one. Number replies
that they are two and not one, and are to be distinguished from one another.
Again, the sight beholds great and small, but only in a confused chaos, and not
until they are distinguished does the question arise of their respective natures;
we are thus led on to the distinction between the visible and intelligible. That
was what I meant when I spoke of stimulants to the intellect; I was thinking of
the contradictions which arise in perception. The idea of unity, for example,
like that of a finger, does not arouse thought unless involving some conception
of plurality; but when the one is also the opposite of one, the contradiction
gives rise to reflection; an example of this is afforded by any object of sight. All
number has also an elevating effect; it raises the mind out of the foam and flux
of generation to the contemplation of being, having lesser military and retail
uses also. The retail use is not required by us; but as our guardian is to be a
soldier as well as a philosopher, the military one may be retained. And to our
higher purpose no science can be better adapted; but it must be pursued in the
spirit of a philosopher, not of a shopkeeper. It is concerned, not with visible
objects, but with abstract truth; for numbers are pure abstractions — the true
arithmetician indignantly denies that his unit is capable of division. When you
divide, he insists that you are only multiplying; his ‘one’ is not material or
resolvable into fractions, but an unvarying and absolute equality; and this
proves the purely intellectual character of his study. Note also the great power
which arithmetic has of sharpening the wits; no other discipline is equally
severe, or an equal test of general ability, or equally improving to a stupid
person.
Let our second branch of education be geometry. ‘I can easily see,’ replied
Glaucon, ‘that the skill of the general will be doubled by his knowledge of
geometry.’ That is a small matter; the use of geometry, to which I refer, is the
assistance given by it in the contemplation of the idea of good, and the
compelling the mind to look at true being, and not at generation only. Yet the
present mode of pursuing these studies, as any one who is the least of a
mathematician is aware, is mean and ridiculous; they are made to look
downwards to the arts, and not upwards to eternal existence. The geometer is
always talking of squaring, subtending, apposing, as if he had in view action;
whereas knowledge is the real object of the study. It should elevate the soul,
and create the mind of philosophy; it should raise up what has fallen down,
not to speak of lesser uses in war and military tactics, and in the improvement
of the faculties.
Shall we propose, as a third branch of our education, astronomy? ‘Very
good,’ replied Glaucon; ‘the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for
husbandry, navigation, military tactics.’ I like your way of giving useful
reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a
difficulty in proving to mankind that education is not only useful information
but a purification of the eye of the soul, which is better than the bodily eye, for
by this alone is truth seen. Now, will you appeal to mankind in general or to
the philosopher? or would you prefer to look to yourself only? ‘Every man is
his own best friend.’ Then take a step backward, for we are out of order, and
insert the third dimension which is of solids, after the second which is of
planes, and then you may proceed to solids in motion. But solid geometry is
not popular and has not the patronage of the State, nor is the use of it fully
recognized; the difficulty is great, and the votaries of the study are conceited
and impatient. Still the charm of the pursuit wins upon men, and, if
government would lend a little assistance, there might be great progress made.
‘Very true,’ replied Glaucon; ‘but do I understand you now to begin with plane
geometry, and to place next geometry of solids, and thirdly, astronomy, or the
motion of solids?’ Yes, I said; my hastiness has only hindered us.
‘Very good, and now let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am willing
to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the contemplation of
the heavens draws the soul upwards.’ I am an exception, then; astronomy as
studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but
downwards. Star-gazing is just looking up at the ceiling — no better; a man
may lie on his back on land or on water — he may look up or look down, but
there is no science in that. The vision of knowledge of which I speak is seen
not with the eyes, but with the mind. All the magnificence of the heavens is but
the embroidery of a copy which falls far short of the divine Original, and
teaches nothing about the absolute harmonies or motions of things. Their
beauty is like the beauty of figures drawn by the hand of Daedalus or any other
great artist, which may be used for illustration, but no mathematician would
seek to obtain from them true conceptions of equality or numerical relations.
How ridiculous then to look for these in the map of the heavens, in which the
imperfection of matter comes in everywhere as a disturbing element, marring
the symmetry of day and night, of months and years, of the sun and stars in
their courses. Only by problems can we place astronomy on a truly scientific
basis. Let the heavens alone, and exert the intellect.
Still, mathematics admit of other applications, as the Pythagoreans say,
and we agree. There is a sister science of harmonical motion, adapted to the
ear as astronomy is to the eye, and there may be other applications also. Let us
inquire of the Pythagoreans about them, not forgetting that we have an aim
higher than theirs, which is the relation of these sciences to the idea of good.
The error which pervades astronomy also pervades harmonics. The musicians
put their ears in the place of their minds. ‘Yes,’ replied Glaucon, ‘I like to see
them laying their ears alongside of their neighbours’ faces — some saying,
“That’s a new note,” others declaring that the two notes are the same.’ Yes, I
said; but you mean the empirics who are always twisting and torturing the
strings of the lyre, and quarrelling about the tempers of the strings; I am
referring rather to the Pythagorean harmonists, who are almost equally in
error. For they investigate only the numbers of the consonances which are
heard, and ascend no higher — of the true numerical harmony which is
unheard, and is only to be found in problems, they have not even a conception.
‘That last,’ he said, ‘must be a marvellous thing.’ A thing, I replied, which is
only useful if pursued with a view to the good.
All these sciences are the prelude of the strain, and are profitable if they
are regarded in their natural relations to one another. ‘I dare say, Socrates,’
said Glaucon; ‘but such a study will be an endless business.’ What study do
you mean — of the prelude, or what? For all these things are only the prelude,
and you surely do not suppose that a mere mathematician is also a
dialectician? ‘Certainly not. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who
could reason.’ And yet, Glaucon, is not true reasoning that hymn of dialectic
which is the music of the intellectual world, and which was by us compared to
the effort of sight, when from beholding the shadows on the wall we arrived at
last at the images which gave the shadows? Even so the dialectical faculty
withdrawing from sense arrives by the pure intellect at the contemplation of
the idea of good, and never rests but at the very end of the intellectual world.
And the royal road out of the cave into the light, and the blinking of the eyes at
the sun and turning to contemplate the shadows of reality, not the shadows of
an image only — this progress and gradual acquisition of a new faculty of sight
by the help of the mathematical sciences, is the elevation of the soul to the
contemplation of the highest ideal of being.
‘So far, I agree with you. But now, leaving the prelude, let us proceed to
the hymn. What, then, is the nature of dialectic, and what are the paths which
lead thither?’ Dear Glaucon, you cannot follow me here. There can be no
revelation of the absolute truth to one who has not been disciplined in the
previous sciences. But that there is a science of absolute truth, which is
attained in some way very different from those now practised, I am confident.
For all other arts or sciences are relative to human needs and opinions; and
the mathematical sciences are but a dream or hypothesis of true being, and
never analyse their own principles. Dialectic alone rises to the principle which
is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of
the barbarous slough of ignorance into the light of the upper world, with the
help of the sciences which we have been describing — sciences, as they are
often termed, although they require some other name, implying greater
clearness than opinion and less clearness than science, and this in our
previous sketch was understanding. And so we get four names — two for
intellect, and two for opinion — reason or mind, understanding, faith,
perception of shadows — which make a proportion —
being:becoming::intellect:opinion — and science:belief::understanding:
perception of shadows. Dialectic may be further described as that science
which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature, which
distinguishes and abstracts the good, and is ready to do battle against all
opponents in the cause of good. To him who is not a dialectician life is but a
sleepy dream; and many a man is in his grave before his is well waked up. And
would you have the future rulers of your ideal State intelligent beings, or
stupid as posts? ‘Certainly not the latter.’ Then you must train them in
dialectic, which will teach them to ask and answer questions, and is the
coping-stone of the sciences.
I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and the
process of selection may be carried a step further:— As before, they must be
constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must
also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they
must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent
natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues; not lame and one-sided,
diligent in bodily exercise and indolent in mind, or conversely; not a maimed
soul, which hates falsehood and yet unintentionally is always wallowing in the
mire of ignorance; not a bastard or feeble person, but sound in wind and limb,
and in perfect condition for the great gymnastic trial of the mind. Justice
herself can find no fault with natures such as these; and they will be the
saviours of our State; disciples of another sort would only make philosophy
more ridiculous than she is at present. Forgive my enthusiasm; I am becoming
excited; but when I see her trampled underfoot, I am angry at the authors of
her disgrace. ‘I did not notice that you were more excited than you ought to
have been.’ But I felt that I was. Now do not let us forget another point in the
selection of our disciples — that they must be young and not old. For Solon is
mistaken in saying that an old man can be always learning; youth is the time
of study, and here we must remember that the mind is free and dainty, and,
unlike the body, must not be made to work against the grain. Learning should
be at first a sort of play, in which the natural bent is detected. As in training
them for war, the young dogs should at first only taste blood; but when the
necessary gymnastics are over which during two or three years divide life
between sleep and bodily exercise, then the education of the soul will become
a more serious matter. At twenty years of age, a selection must be made of the
more promising disciples, with whom a new epoch of education will begin.
The sciences which they have hitherto learned in fragments will now be
brought into relation with each other and with true being; for the power of
combining them is the test of speculative and dialectical ability. And
afterwards at thirty a further selection shall be made of those who are able to
withdraw from the world of sense into the abstraction of ideas. But at this
point, judging from present experience, there is a danger that dialectic may be
the source of many evils. The danger may be illustrated by a parallel case:—
Imagine a person who has been brought up in wealth and luxury amid a crowd
of flatterers, and who is suddenly informed that he is a supposititious son. He
has hitherto honoured his reputed parents and disregarded the flatterers, and
now he does the reverse. This is just what happens with a man’s principles.
There are certain doctrines which he learnt at home and which exercised a
parental authority over him. Presently he finds that imputations are cast upon
them; a troublesome querist comes and asks, ‘What is the just and good?’ or
proves that virtue is vice and vice virtue, and his mind becomes unsettled, and
he ceases to love, honour, and obey them as he has hitherto done. He is
seduced into the life of pleasure, and becomes a lawless person and a rogue.
The case of such speculators is very pitiable, and, in order that our thirty years’
old pupils may not require this pity, let us take every possible care that young
persons do not study philosophy too early. For a young man is a sort of puppy
who only plays with an argument; and is reasoned into and out of his opinions
every day; he soon begins to believe nothing, and brings himself and
philosophy into discredit. A man of thirty does not run on in this way; he will
argue and not merely contradict, and adds new honour to philosophy by the
sobriety of his conduct. What time shall we allow for this second gymnastic
training of the soul? — say, twice the time required for the gymnastics of the
body; six, or perhaps five years, to commence at thirty, and then for fifteen
years let the student go down into the den, and command armies, and gain
experience of life. At fifty let him return to the end of all things, and have his
eyes uplifted to the idea of good, and order his life after that pattern; if
necessary, taking his turn at the helm of State, and training up others to be his
successors. When his time comes he shall depart in peace to the islands of the
blest. He shall be honoured with sacrifices, and receive such worship as the
Pythian oracle approves.
‘You are a statuary, Socrates, and have made a perfect image of our
governors.’ Yes, and of our governesses, for the women will share in all things
with the men. And you will admit that our State is not a mere aspiration, but
may really come into being when there shall arise philosopher-kings, one or
more, who will despise earthly vanities, and will be the servants of justice only.
‘And how will they begin their work?’ Their first act will be to send away into
the country all those who are more than ten years of age, and to proceed with
those who are left . . .
 At the commencement of the sixth book, Plato anticipated his explanation
of the relation of the philosopher to the world in an allegory, in this, as in
other passages, following the order which he prescribes in education, and
proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. At the commencement of Book
VII, under the figure of a cave having an opening towards a fire and a way
upwards to the true light, he returns to view the divisions of knowledge,
exhibiting familiarly, as in a picture, the result which had been hardly won by
a great effort of thought in the previous discussion; at the same time casting a
glance onward at the dialectical process, which is represented by the way
leading from darkness to light. The shadows, the images, the reflection of the
sun and stars in the water, the stars and sun themselves, severally correspond
— the first, to the realm of fancy and poetry — the second, to the world of
sense — the third, to the abstractions or universals of sense, of which the
mathematical sciences furnish the type — the fourth and last to the same
abstractions, when seen in the unity of the idea, from which they derive a new
meaning and power. The true dialectical process begins with the
contemplation of the real stars, and not mere reflections of them, and ends
with the recognition of the sun, or idea of good, as the parent not only of light
but of warmth and growth. To the divisions of knowledge the stages of
education partly answer:— first, there is the early education of childhood and
youth in the fancies of the poets, and in the laws and customs of the State; —
then there is the training of the body to be a warrior athlete, and a good
servant of the mind; — and thirdly, after an interval follows the education of
later life, which begins with mathematics and proceeds to philosophy in
general.
There seem to be two great aims in the philosophy of Plato — first, to
realize abstractions; secondly, to connect them. According to him, the true
education is that which draws men from becoming to being, and to a
comprehensive survey of all being. He desires to develop in the human mind
the faculty of seeing the universal in all things; until at last the particulars of
sense drop away and the universal alone remains. He then seeks to combine
the universals which he has disengaged from sense, not perceiving that the
correlation of them has no other basis but the common use of language. He
never understands that abstractions, as Hegel says, are ‘mere abstractions’—
of use when employed in the arrangement of facts, but adding nothing to the
sum of knowledge when pursued apart from them, or with reference to an
imaginary idea of good. Still the exercise of the faculty of abstraction apart
from facts has enlarged the mind, and played a great part in the education of
the human race. Plato appreciated the value of this faculty, and saw that it
might be quickened by the study of number and relation. All things in which
there is opposition or proportion are suggestive of reflection. The mere
impression of sense evokes no power of thought or of mind, but when sensible
objects ask to be compared and distinguished, then philosophy begins. The
science of arithmetic first suggests such distinctions. The follow in order the
other sciences of plain and solid geometry, and of solids in motion, one branch
of which is astronomy or the harmony of the spheres — to this is appended the
sister science of the harmony of sounds. Plato seems also to hint at the
possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions,
such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the
Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e.g. his
distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics
(Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics.
The modern mathematician will readily sympathise with Plato’s delight in
the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:
— Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in
themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He
will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be
dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the
possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of
analysis. He will remark with interest on the backward state of solid geometry,
which, alas! was not encouraged by the aid of the State in the age of Plato; and
he will recognize the grasp of Plato’s mind in his ability to conceive of one
science of solids in motion including the earth as well as the heavens — not
forgetting to notice the intimation to which allusion has been already made,
that besides astronomy and harmonics the science of solids in motion may
have other applications. Still more will he be struck with the
comprehensiveness of view which led Plato, at a time when these sciences
hardly existed, to say that they must be studied in relation to one another, and
to the idea of good, or common principle of truth and being. But he will also
see (and perhaps without surprise) that in that stage of physical and
mathematical knowledge, Plato has fallen into the error of supposing that he
can construct the heavens a priori by mathematical problems, and determine
the principles of harmony irrespective of the adaptation of sounds to the
human ear. The illusion was a natural one in that age and country. The
simplicity and certainty of astronomy and harmonics seemed to contrast with
the variation and complexity of the world of sense; hence the circumstance
that there was some elementary basis of fact, some measurement of distance
or time or vibrations on which they must ultimately rest, was overlooked by
him. The modern predecessors of Newton fell into errors equally great; and
Plato can hardly be said to have been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort
of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of
astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of
which most astronomical discoveries have been made.
The metaphysical philosopher from his point of view recognizes
mathematics as an instrument of education — which strengthens the power of
attention, developes the sense of order and the faculty of construction, and
enables the mind to grasp under simple formulae the quantitative differences
of physical phenomena. But while acknowledging their value in education, he
sees also that they have no connexion with our higher moral and intellectual
ideas. In the attempt which Plato makes to connect them, we easily trace the
influences of ancient Pythagorean notions. There is no reason to suppose that
he is speaking of the ideal numbers; but he is describing numbers which are
pure abstractions, to which he assigns a real and separate existence, which, as
‘the teachers of the art’ (meaning probably the Pythagoreans) would have
affirmed, repel all attempts at subdivision, and in which unity and every other
number are conceived of as absolute. The truth and certainty of numbers,
when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the
eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and
fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men,
‘who,’ in the words of the Timaeus, ‘might learn to regulate their erring lives
according to them.’ It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical
symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves. And those who in
modern times see the world pervaded by universal law, may also see an
anticipation of this last word of modern philosophy in the Platonic idea of
good, which is the source and measure of all things, and yet only an
abstraction (Philebus).
Two passages seem to require more particular explanations. First, that
which relates to the analysis of vision. The difficulty in this passage may be
explained, like many others, from differences in the modes of conception
prevailing among ancient and modern thinkers. To us, the perceptions of
sense are inseparable from the act of the mind which accompanies them. The
consciousness of form, colour, distance, is indistinguishable from the simple
sensation, which is the medium of them. Whereas to Plato sense is the
Heraclitean flux of sense, not the vision of objects in the order in which they
actually present themselves to the experienced sight, but as they may be
imagined to appear confused and blurred to the half-awakened eye of the
infant. The first action of the mind is aroused by the attempt to set in order
this chaos, and the reason is required to frame distinct conceptions under
which the confused impressions of sense may be arranged. Hence arises the
question, ‘What is great, what is small?’ and thus begins the distinction of the
visible and the intelligible.
The second difficulty relates to Plato’s conception of harmonics. Three
classes of harmonists are distinguished by him:— first, the Pythagoreans,
whom he proposes to consult as in the previous discussion on music he was to
consult Damon — they are acknowledged to be masters in the art, but are
altogether deficient in the knowledge of its higher import and relation to the
good; secondly, the mere empirics, whom Glaucon appears to confuse with
them, and whom both he and Socrates ludicrously describe as experimenting
by mere auscultation on the intervals of sounds. Both of these fall short in
different degrees of the Platonic idea of harmony, which must be studied in a
purely abstract way, first by the method of problems, and secondly as a part of
universal knowledge in relation to the idea of good.
The allegory has a political as well as a philosophical meaning. The den or
cave represents the narrow sphere of politics or law (compare the description
of the philosopher and lawyer in the Theaetetus), and the light of the eternal
ideas is supposed to exercise a disturbing influence on the minds of those who
return to this lower world. In other words, their principles are too wide for
practical application; they are looking far away into the past and future, when
their business is with the present. The ideal is not easily reduced to the
conditions of actual life, and may often be at variance with them. And at first,
those who return are unable to compete with the inhabitants of the den in the
measurement of the shadows, and are derided and persecuted by them; but
after a while they see the things below in far truer proportions than those who
have never ascended into the upper world. The difference between the
politician turned into a philosopher and the philosopher turned into a
politician, is symbolized by the two kinds of disordered eyesight, the one
which is experienced by the captive who is transferred from darkness to day,
the other, of the heavenly messenger who voluntarily for the good of his
fellow-men descends into the den. In what way the brighter light is to dawn on
the inhabitants of the lower world, or how the idea of good is to become the
guiding principle of politics, is left unexplained by Plato. Like the nature and
divisions of dialectic, of which Glaucon impatiently demands to be informed,
perhaps he would have said that the explanation could not be given except to a
disciple of the previous sciences. (Symposium.)
Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may be found in modern
Politics and in daily life. For among ourselves, too, there have been two sorts
of Politicians or Statesmen, whose eyesight has become disordered in two
different ways. First, there have been great men who, in the language of Burke,
‘have been too much given to general maxims,’ who, like J.S. Mill or Burke
himself, have been theorists or philosophers before they were politicians, or
who, having been students of history, have allowed some great historical
parallel, such as the English Revolution of 1688, or possibly Athenian
democracy or Roman Imperialism, to be the medium through which they
viewed contemporary events. Or perhaps the long projecting shadow of some
existing institution may have darkened their vision. The Church of the future,
the Commonwealth of the future, the Society of the future, have so absorbed
their minds, that they are unable to see in their true proportions the Politics of
today. They have been intoxicated with great ideas, such as liberty, or equality,
or the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the brotherhood of
humanity, and they no longer care to consider how these ideas must be limited
in practice or harmonized with the conditions of human life. They are full of
light, but the light to them has become only a sort of luminous mist or
blindness. Almost every one has known some enthusiastic half-educated
person, who sees everything at false distances, and in erroneous proportions.
 With this disorder of eyesight may be contrasted another — of those who
see not far into the distance, but what is near only; who have been engaged all
their lives in a trade or a profession; who are limited to a set or sect of their
own. Men of this kind have no universal except their own interests or the
interests of their class, no principle but the opinion of persons like themselves,
no knowledge of affairs beyond what they pick up in the streets or at their
club. Suppose them to be sent into a larger world, to undertake some higher
calling, from being tradesmen to turn generals or politicians, from being
schoolmasters to become philosophers:— or imagine them on a sudden to
receive an inward light which reveals to them for the first time in their lives a
higher idea of God and the existence of a spiritual world, by this sudden
conversion or change is not their daily life likely to be upset; and on the other
hand will not many of their old prejudices and narrownesses still adhere to
them long after they have begun to take a more comprehensive view of human
things? From familiar examples like these we may learn what Plato meant by
the eyesight which is liable to two kinds of disorders.
Nor have we any difficulty in drawing a parallel between the young
Athenian in the fifth century before Christ who became unsettled by new
ideas, and the student of a modern University who has been the subject of a
similar ‘aufklarung.’ We too observe that when young men begin to criticise
customary beliefs, or to analyse the constitution of human nature, they are apt
to lose hold of solid principle (Greek). They are like trees which have been
frequently transplanted. The earth about them is loose, and they have no roots
reaching far into the soil. They ‘light upon every flower,’ following their own
wayward wills, or because the wind blows them. They catch opinions, as
diseases are caught — when they are in the air. Borne hither and thither, ‘they
speedily fall into beliefs’ the opposite of those in which they were brought up.
They hardly retain the distinction of right and wrong; they seem to think one
thing as good as another. They suppose themselves to be searching after truth
when they are playing the game of ‘follow my leader.’ They fall in love ‘at first
sight’ with paradoxes respecting morality, some fancy about art, some novelty
or eccentricity in religion, and like lovers they are so absorbed for a time in
their new notion that they can think of nothing else. The resolution of some
philosophical or theological question seems to them more interesting and
important than any substantial knowledge of literature or science or even than
a good life. Like the youth in the Philebus, they are ready to discourse to any
one about a new philosophy. They are generally the disciples of some eminent
professor or sophist, whom they rather imitate than understand. They may be
counted happy if in later years they retain some of the simple truths which
they acquired in early education, and which they may, perhaps, find to be
worth all the rest. Such is the picture which Plato draws and which we only
reproduce, partly in his own words, of the dangers which beset youth in times
of transition, when old opinions are fading away and the new are not yet
firmly established. Their condition is ingeniously compared by him to that of a
supposititious son, who has made the discovery that his reputed parents are
not his real ones, and, in consequence, they have lost their authority over him.
The distinction between the mathematician and the dialectician is also
noticeable. Plato is very well aware that the faculty of the mathematician is
quite distinct from the higher philosophical sense which recognizes and
combines first principles. The contempt which he expresses for distinctions of
words, the danger of involuntary falsehood, the apology which Socrates makes
for his earnestness of speech, are highly characteristic of the Platonic style and
mode of thought. The quaint notion that if Palamedes was the inventor of
number Agamemnon could not have counted his feet; the art by which we are
made to believe that this State of ours is not a dream only; the gravity with
which the first step is taken in the actual creation of the State, namely, the
sending out of the city all who had arrived at ten years of age, in order to
expedite the business of education by a generation, are also truly Platonic.
(For the last, compare the passage at the end of the third book, in which he
expects the lie about the earthborn men to be believed in the second
generation.)
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VIII.
And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the perfect State wives and
children are to be in common; and the education and pursuits of men and
women, both in war and peace, are to be common, and kings are to be
philosophers and warriors, and the soldiers of the State are to live together,
having all things in common; and they are to be warrior athletes, receiving no
pay but only their food, from the other citizens. Now let us return to the point
at which we digressed. ‘That is easily done,’ he replied: ‘You were speaking of
the State which you had constructed, and of the individual who answered to
this, both of whom you affirmed to be good; and you said that of inferior
States there were four forms and four individuals corresponding to them,
which although deficient in various degrees, were all of them worth inspecting
with a view to determining the relative happiness or misery of the best or
worst man. Then Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupted you, and this led
to another argument — and so here we are.’ Suppose that we put ourselves
again in the same position, and do you repeat your question. ‘I should like to
know of what constitutions you were speaking?’ Besides the perfect State there
are only four of any note in Hellas:— first, the famous Lacedaemonian or
Cretan commonwealth; secondly, oligarchy, a State full of evils; thirdly,
democracy, which follows next in order; fourthly, tyranny, which is the disease
or death of all government. Now, States are not made of ‘oak and rock,’ but of
flesh and blood; and therefore as there are five States there must be five
human natures in individuals, which correspond to them. And first, there is
the ambitious nature, which answers to the Lacedaemonian State; secondly,
the oligarchical nature; thirdly, the democratical; and fourthly, the tyrannical.
This last will have to be compared with the perfectly just, which is the fifth,
that we may know which is the happier, and then we shall be able to determine
whether the argument of Thrasymachus or our own is the more convincing.
And as before we began with the State and went on to the individual, so now,
beginning with timocracy, let us go on to the timocratical man, and then
proceed to the other forms of government, and the individuals who answer to
them.
 But how did timocracy arise out of the perfect State? Plainly, like all
changes of government, from division in the rulers. But whence came
division? ‘Sing, heavenly Muses,’ as Homer says; — let them condescend to
answer us, as if we were children, to whom they put on a solemn face in jest.
‘And what will they say?’ They will say that human things are fated to decay,
and even the perfect State will not escape from this law of destiny, when ‘the
wheel comes full circle’ in a period short or long. Plants or animals have times
of fertility and sterility, which the intelligence of rulers because alloyed by
sense will not enable them to ascertain, and children will be born out of
season. For whereas divine creations are in a perfect cycle or number, the
human creation is in a number which declines from perfection, and has four
terms and three intervals of numbers, increasing, waning, assimilating,
dissimilating, and yet perfectly commensurate with each other. The base of the
number with a fourth added (or which is 3:4), multiplied by five and cubed,
gives two harmonies:— the first a square number, which is a hundred times
the base (or a hundred times a hundred); the second, an oblong, being a
hundred squares of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which is five,
subtracting one from each square or two perfect squares from all, and adding
a hundred cubes of three. This entire number is geometrical and contains the
rule or law of generation. When this law is neglected marriages will be
unpropitious; the inferior offspring who are then born will in time become the
rulers; the State will decline, and education fall into decay; gymnastic will be
preferred to music, and the gold and silver and brass and iron will form a
chaotic mass — thus division will arise. Such is the Muses’ answer to our
question. ‘And a true answer, of course:— but what more have they to say?’
They say that the two races, the iron and brass, and the silver and gold, will
draw the State different ways; — the one will take to trade and moneymaking,
and the others, having the true riches and not caring for money, will resist
them: the contest will end in a compromise; they will agree to have private
property, and will enslave their fellow-citizens who were once their friends
and nurturers. But they will retain their warlike character, and will be chiefly
occupied in fighting and exercising rule. Thus arises timocracy, which is
intermediate between aristocracy and oligarchy.
The new form of government resembles the ideal in obedience to rulers
and contempt for trade, and having common meals, and in devotion to warlike
and gymnastic exercises. But corruption has crept into philosophy, and
simplicity of character, which was once her note, is now looked for only in the
military class. Arts of war begin to prevail over arts of peace; the ruler is no
longer a philosopher; as in oligarchies, there springs up among them an
extravagant love of gain — get another man’s and save your own, is their
principle; and they have dark places in which they hoard their gold and silver,
for the use of their women and others; they take their pleasures by stealth, like
boys who are running away from their father — the law; and their education is
not inspired by the Muse, but imposed by the strong arm of power. The
leading characteristic of this State is party spirit and ambition.
And what manner of man answers to such a State? ‘In love of contention,’
replied Adeimantus, ‘he will be like our friend Glaucon.’ In that respect,
perhaps, but not in others. He is self-asserting and ill-educated, yet fond of
literature, although not himself a speaker — fierce with slaves, but obedient to
rulers, a lover of power and honour, which he hopes to gain by deeds of arms
— fond, too, of gymnastics and of hunting. As he advances in years he grows
avaricious, for he has lost philosophy, which is the only saviour and guardian
of men. His origin is as follows:— His father is a good man dwelling in an ill-
ordered State, who has retired from politics in order that he may lead a quiet
life. His mother is angry at her loss of precedence among other women; she is
disgusted at her husband’s selfishness, and she expatiates to her son on the
unmanliness and indolence of his father. The old family servant takes up the
tale, and says to the youth:—‘When you grow up you must be more of a man
than your father.’ All the world are agreed that he who minds his own business
is an idiot, while a busybody is highly honoured and esteemed. The young man
compares this spirit with his father’s words and ways, and as he is naturally
well disposed, although he has suffered from evil influences, he rests at a
middle point and becomes ambitious and a lover of honour.
And now let us set another city over against another man. The next form
of government is oligarchy, in which the rule is of the rich only; nor is it
difficult to see how such a State arises. The decline begins with the possession
of gold and silver; illegal modes of expenditure are invented; one draws
another on, and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; lovers of
money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of politicians; and, in time,
political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from
violence in order to effect their purposes.
Thus much of the origin — let us next consider the evils of oligarchy.
Would a man who wanted to be safe on a voyage take a bad pilot because he
was rich, or refuse a good one because he was poor? And does not the analogy
apply still more to the State? And there are yet greater evils: two nations are
struggling together in one — the rich and the poor; and the rich dare not put
arms into the hands of the poor, and are unwilling to pay for defenders out of
their own money. And have we not already condemned that State in which the
same persons are warriors as well as shopkeepers? The greatest evil of all is
that a man may sell his property and have no place in the State; while there is
one class which has enormous wealth, the other is entirely destitute. But
observe that these destitutes had not really any more of the governing nature
in them when they were rich than now that they are poor; they were miserable
spendthrifts always. They are the drones of the hive; only whereas the actual
drone is unprovided by nature with a sting, the two-legged things whom we
call drones are some of them without stings and some of them have dreadful
stings; in other words, there are paupers and there are rogues. These are never
far apart; and in oligarchical cities, where nearly everybody is a pauper who is
not a ruler, you will find abundance of both. And this evil state of society
originates in bad education and bad government.
Like State, like man — the change in the latter begins with the
representative of timocracy; he walks at first in the ways of his father, who
may have been a statesman, or general, perhaps; and presently he sees him
‘fallen from his high estate,’ the victim of informers, dying in prison or exile,
or by the hand of the executioner. The lesson which he thus receives, makes
him cautious; he leaves politics, represses his pride, and saves pence. Avarice
is enthroned as his bosom’s lord, and assumes the style of the Great King; the
rational and spirited elements sit humbly on the ground at either side, the one
immersed in calculation, the other absorbed in the admiration of wealth. The
love of honour turns to love of money; the conversion is instantaneous. The
man is mean, saving, toiling, the slave of one passion which is the master of
the rest: Is he not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he
would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him.
And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some
knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the
power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that
his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a
divided existence; in which the better desires mostly prevail. But when he is
contending for prizes and other distinctions, he is afraid to incur a loss which
is to be repaid only by barren honour; in time of war he fights with a small
part of his resources, and usually keeps his money and loses the victory.
Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the
oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an oligarchy; and
they encourage expensive habits in order that they may gain by the ruin of
extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose their property or rights of
citizenship; but they remain in the city, full of hatred against the new owners
of their estates and ripe for revolution. The usurer with stooping walk
pretends not to see them; he passes by, and leaves his sting — that is, his
money — in some other victim; and many a man has to pay the parent or
principal sum multiplied into a family of children, and is reduced into a state
of dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit a
man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at his own risk.
But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only for money, and are
as careless of virtue as the poorest of the citizens. Now there are occasions on
which the governors and the governed meet together — at festivals, on a
journey, voyaging or fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of
danger he is not despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and
draws the conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions — ‘that
our people are not good for much;’ and as a sickly frame is made ill by a mere
touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready to fall to
pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at all, the city falls ill and
fights a battle for life or death. And democracy comes into power when the
poor are the victors, killing some and exiling some, and giving equal shares in
the government to all the rest.
The manner of life in such a State is that of democrats; there is freedom
and plainness of speech, and every man does what is right in his own eyes, and
has his own way of life. Hence arise the most various developments of
character; the State is like a piece of embroidery of which the colours and
figures are the manners of men, and there are many who, like women and
children, prefer this variety to real beauty and excellence. The State is not one
but many, like a bazaar at which you can buy anything. The great charm is,
that you may do as you like; you may govern if you like, let it alone if you like;
go to war and make peace if you feel disposed, and all quite irrespective of
anybody else. When you condemn men to death they remain alive all the
same; a gentleman is desired to go into exile, and he stalks about the streets
like a hero; and nobody sees him or cares for him. Observe, too, how grandly
Democracy sets her foot upon all our fine theories of education — how little
she cares for the training of her statesmen! The only qualification which she
demands is the profession of patriotism. Such is democracy; — a pleasing,
lawless, various sort of government, distributing equality to equals and
unequals alike.
Let us now inspect the individual democrat; and first, as in the case of the
State, we will trace his antecedents. He is the son of a miserly oligarch, and
has been taught by him to restrain the love of unnecessary pleasures. Perhaps
I ought to explain this latter term:— Necessary pleasures are those which are
good, and which we cannot do without; unnecessary pleasures are those which
do no good, and of which the desire might be eradicated by early training. For
example, the pleasures of eating and drinking are necessary and healthy, up to
a certain point; beyond that point they are alike hurtful to body and mind, and
the excess may be avoided. When in excess, they may be rightly called
expensive pleasures, in opposition to the useful ones. And the drone, as we
called him, is the slave of these unnecessary pleasures and desires, whereas
the miserly oligarch is subject only to the necessary.
The oligarch changes into the democrat in the following manner:— The
youth who has had a miserly bringing up, gets a taste of the drone’s honey; he
meets with wild companions, who introduce him to every new pleasure. As in
the State, so in the individual, there are allies on both sides, temptations from
without and passions from within; there is reason also and external influences
of parents and friends in alliance with the oligarchical principle; and the two
factions are in violent conflict with one another. Sometimes the party of order
prevails, but then again new desires and new disorders arise, and the whole
mob of passions gets possession of the Acropolis, that is to say, the soul, which
they find void and unguarded by true words and works. Falsehoods and
illusions ascend to take their place; the prodigal goes back into the country of
the Lotophagi or drones, and openly dwells there. And if any offer of alliance
or parley of individual elders comes from home, the false spirits shut the gates
of the castle and permit no one to enter — there is a battle, and they gain the
victory; and straightway making alliance with the desires, they banish
modesty, which they call folly, and send temperance over the border. When
the house has been swept and garnished, they dress up the exiled vices, and,
crowning them with garlands, bring them back under new names. Insolence
they call good breeding, anarchy freedom, waste magnificence, impudence
courage. Such is the process by which the youth passes from the necessary
pleasures to the unnecessary. After a while he divides his time impartially
between them; and perhaps, when he gets older and the violence of passion
has abated, he restores some of the exiles and lives in a sort of equilibrium,
indulging first one pleasure and then another; and if reason comes and tells
him that some pleasures are good and honourable, and others bad and vile, he
shakes his head and says that he can make no distinction between them. Thus
he lives in the fancy of the hour; sometimes he takes to drink, and then he
turns abstainer; he practises in the gymnasium or he does nothing at all; then
again he would be a philosopher or a politician; or again, he would be a
warrior or a man of business; he is
‘Every thing by starts and nothing long.’
There remains still the finest and fairest of all men and all States —
tyranny and the tyrant. Tyranny springs from democracy much as democracy
springs from oligarchy. Both arise from excess; the one from excess of wealth,
the other from excess of freedom. ‘The great natural good of life,’ says the
democrat, ‘is freedom.’ And this exclusive love of freedom and regardlessness
of everything else, is the cause of the change from democracy to tyranny. The
State demands the strong wine of freedom, and unless her rulers give her a
plentiful draught, punishes and insults them; equality and fraternity of
governors and governed is the approved principle. Anarchy is the law, not of
the State only, but of private houses, and extends even to the animals. Father
and son, citizen and foreigner, teacher and pupil, old and young, are all on a
level; fathers and teachers fear their sons and pupils, and the wisdom of the
young man is a match for the elder, and the old imitate the jaunty manners of
the young because they are afraid of being thought morose. Slaves are on a
level with their masters and mistresses, and there is no difference between
men and women. Nay, the very animals in a democratic State have a freedom
which is unknown in other places. The she-dogs are as good as their she-
mistresses, and horses and asses march along with dignity and run their noses
against anybody who comes in their way. ‘That has often been my experience.’
At last the citizens become so sensitive that they cannot endure the yoke of
laws, written or unwritten; they would have no man call himself their master.
Such is the glorious beginning of things out of which tyranny springs.
‘Glorious, indeed; but what is to follow?’ The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of
democracy; for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into
the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery. You
will remember that in the oligarchy were found two classes — rogues and
paupers, whom we compared to drones with and without stings. These two
classes are to the State what phlegm and bile are to the human body; and the
State-physician, or legislator, must get rid of them, just as the bee-master
keeps the drones out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones,
but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there
they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the
keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent
their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic
States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the
drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third class, who are
the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people.
When the people meet, they are omnipotent, but they cannot be brought
together unless they are attracted by a little honey; and the rich are made to
supply the honey, of which the demagogues keep the greater part themselves,
giving a taste only to the mob. Their victims attempt to resist; they are driven
mad by the stings of the drones, and so become downright oligarchs in self-
defence. Then follow informations and convictions for treason. The people
have some protector whom they nurse into greatness, and from this root the
tree of tyranny springs. The nature of the change is indicated in the old fable
of the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, which tells how he who tastes human flesh
mixed up with the flesh of other victims will turn into a wolf. Even so the
protector, who tastes human blood, and slays some and exiles others with or
without law, who hints at abolition of debts and division of lands, must either
perish or become a wolf — that is, a tyrant. Perhaps he is driven out, but he
soon comes back from exile; and then if his enemies cannot get rid of him by
lawful means, they plot his assassination. Thereupon the friend of the people
makes his well-known request to them for a body-guard, which they readily
grant, thinking only of his danger and not of their own. Now let the rich man
make to himself wings, for he will never run away again if he does not do so
then. And the Great Protector, having crushed all his rivals, stands proudly
erect in the chariot of State, a full-blown tyrant: Let us enquire into the nature
of his happiness.
In the early days of his tyranny he smiles and beams upon everybody; he is
not a ‘dominus,’ no, not he: he has only come to put an end to debt and the
monopoly of land. Having got rid of foreign enemies, he makes himself
necessary to the State by always going to war. He is thus enabled to depress
the poor by heavy taxes, and so keep them at work; and he can get rid of
bolder spirits by handing them over to the enemy. Then comes unpopularity;
some of his old associates have the courage to oppose him. The consequence
is, that he has to make a purgation of the State; but, unlike the physician who
purges away the bad, he must get rid of the high-spirited, the wise and the
wealthy; for he has no choice between death and a life of shame and
dishonour. And the more hated he is, the more he will require trusty guards;
but how will he obtain them? ‘They will come flocking like birds — for pay.’
Will he not rather obtain them on the spot? He will take the slaves from their
owners and make them his body-guard; these are his trusted friends, who
admire and look up to him. Are not the tragic poets wise who magnify and
exalt the tyrant, and say that he is wise by association with the wise? And are
not their praises of tyranny alone a sufficient reason why we should exclude
them from our State? They may go to other cities, and gather the mob about
them with fine words, and change commonwealths into tyrannies and
democracies, receiving honours and rewards for their services; but the higher
they and their friends ascend constitution hill, the more their honour will fail
and become ‘too asthmatic to mount.’ To return to the tyrant — How will he
support that rare army of his? First, by robbing the temples of their treasures,
which will enable him to lighten the taxes; then he will take all his father’s
property, and spend it on his companions, male or female. Now his father is
the demus, and if the demus gets angry, and says that a great hulking son
ought not to be a burden on his parents, and bids him and his riotous crew
begone, then will the parent know what a monster he has been nurturing, and
that the son whom he would fain expel is too strong for him. ‘You do not mean
to say that he will beat his father?’ Yes, he will, after having taken away his
arms. ‘Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.’ And the people have
jumped from the fear of slavery into slavery, out of the smoke into the fire.
Thus liberty, when out of all order and reason, passes into the worst form of
servitude . . .
In the previous books Plato has described the ideal State; now he returns
to the perverted or declining forms, on which he had lightly touched at the end
of Book IV. These he describes in a succession of parallels between the
individuals and the States, tracing the origin of either in the State or individual
which has preceded them. He begins by asking the point at which he
digressed; and is thus led shortly to recapitulate the substance of the three
former books, which also contain a parallel of the philosopher and the State.
Of the first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have
liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to
us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural
antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over
the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of
population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the
expression. Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual
perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race. His ideal was not
to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the
head of the legislator. When good laws had been given, he thought only of the
manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be
filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit. He
appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, ‘In the
brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished’; or again, as he
afterwards says in the Laws, ‘Infinite time is the maker of cities.’ The order of
constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather
than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame
a philosophy of history.
The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of
soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a
government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but
imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have
disappeared. The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the
soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead. The
individual who answers to timocracy has some noticeable qualities. He is
described as ill educated, but, like the Spartan, a lover of literature; and
although he is a harsh master to his servants he has no natural superiority
over them. His character is based upon a reaction against the circumstances of
his father, who in a troubled city has retired from politics; and his mother,
who is dissatisfied at her own position, is always urging him towards the life of
political ambition. Such a character may have had this origin, and indeed Livy
attributes the Licinian laws to a feminine jealousy of a similar kind. But there
is obviously no connection between the manner in which the timocratic State
springs out of the ideal, and the mere accident by which the timocratic man is
the son of a retired statesman.
The two next stages in the decline of constitutions have even less historical
foundation. For there is no trace in Greek history of a polity like the Spartan or
Cretan passing into an oligarchy of wealth, or of the oligarchy of wealth
passing into a democracy. The order of history appears to be different; first, in
the Homeric times there is the royal or patriarchal form of government, which
a century or two later was succeeded by an oligarchy of birth rather than of
wealth, and in which wealth was only the accident of the hereditary possession
of land and power. Sometimes this oligarchical government gave way to a
government based upon a qualification of property, which, according to
Aristotle’s mode of using words, would have been called a timocracy; and this
in some cities, as at Athens, became the conducting medium to democracy.
But such was not the necessary order of succession in States; nor, indeed, can
any order be discerned in the endless fluctuation of Greek history (like the
tides in the Euripus), except, perhaps, in the almost uniform tendency from
monarchy to aristocracy in the earliest times. At first sight there appears to be
a similar inversion in the last step of the Platonic succession; for tyranny,
instead of being the natural end of democracy, in early Greek history appears
rather as a stage leading to democracy; the reign of Peisistratus and his sons is
an episode which comes between the legislation of Solon and the constitution
of Cleisthenes; and some secret cause common to them all seems to have led
the greater part of Hellas at her first appearance in the dawn of history, e.g.
Athens, Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, and nearly every State with the exception of
Sparta, through a similar stage of tyranny which ended either in oligarchy or
democracy. But then we must remember that Plato is describing rather the
contemporary governments of the Sicilian States, which alternated between
democracy and tyranny, than the ancient history of Athens or Corinth.
The portrait of the tyrant himself is just such as the later Greek delighted
to draw of Phalaris and Dionysius, in which, as in the lives of mediaeval saints
or mythic heroes, the conduct and actions of one were attributed to another in
order to fill up the outline. There was no enormity which the Greek was not
today to believe of them; the tyrant was the negation of government and law;
his assassination was glorious; there was no crime, however unnatural, which
might not with probability be attributed to him. In this, Plato was only
following the common thought of his countrymen, which he embellished and
exaggerated with all the power of his genius. There is no need to suppose that
he drew from life; or that his knowledge of tyrants is derived from a personal
acquaintance with Dionysius. The manner in which he speaks of them would
rather tend to render doubtful his ever having ‘consorted’ with them, or
entertained the schemes, which are attributed to him in the Epistles, of
regenerating Sicily by their help.
Plato in a hyperbolical and serio-comic vein exaggerates the follies of
democracy which he also sees reflected in social life. To him democracy is a
state of individualism or dissolution; in which every one is doing what is right
in his own eyes. Of a people animated by a common spirit of liberty, rising as
one man to repel the Persian host, which is the leading idea of democracy in
Herodotus and Thucydides, he never seems to think. But if he is not a believer
in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious
condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and
also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is
leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which,
in Plato’s opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book I). This ideal of
wickedness living in helpless misery, is the reverse of that other portrait of
perfect injustice ruling in happiness and splendour, which first of all
Thrasymachus, and afterwards the sons of Ariston had drawn, and is also the
reverse of the king whose rule of life is the good of his subjects.
Each of these governments and individuals has a corresponding ethical
gradation: the ideal State is under the rule of reason, not extinguishing but
harmonizing the passions, and training them in virtue; in the timocracy and
the timocratic man the constitution, whether of the State or of the individual,
is based, first, upon courage, and secondly, upon the love of honour; this latter
virtue, which is hardly to be esteemed a virtue, has superseded all the rest. In
the second stage of decline the virtues have altogether disappeared, and the
love of gain has succeeded to them; in the third stage, or democracy, the
various passions are allowed to have free play, and the virtues and vices are
impartially cultivated. But this freedom, which leads to many curious
extravagances of character, is in reality only a state of weakness and
dissipation. At last, one monster passion takes possession of the whole nature
of man — this is tyranny. In all of them excess — the excess first of wealth and
then of freedom, is the element of decay.
The eighth book of the Republic abounds in pictures of life and fanciful
allusions; the use of metaphorical language is carried to a greater extent than
anywhere else in Plato. We may remark,
(1), the description of the two nations in one, which become more and
more divided in the Greek Republics, as in feudal times, and perhaps also in
our own;
(2), the notion of democracy expressed in a sort of Pythagorean formula as
equality among unequals;
(3), the free and easy ways of men and animals, which are characteristic of
liberty, as foreign mercenaries and universal mistrust are of the tyrant;
(4), the proposal that mere debts should not be recoverable by law is a
speculation which has often been entertained by reformers of the law in
modern times, and is in harmony with the tendencies of modern legislation.
Debt and land were the two great difficulties of the ancient lawgiver: in
modern times we may be said to have almost, if not quite, solved the first of
these difficulties, but hardly the second.
Still more remarkable are the corresponding portraits of individuals: there
is the family picture of the father and mother and the old servant of the
timocratical man, and the outward respectability and inherent meanness of
the oligarchical; the uncontrolled licence and freedom of the democrat, in
which the young Alcibiades seems to be depicted, doing right or wrong as he
pleases, and who at last, like the prodigal, goes into a far country (note here
the play of language by which the democratic man is himself represented
under the image of a State having a citadel and receiving embassies); and
there is the wild-beast nature, which breaks loose in his successor. The hit
about the tyrant being a parricide; the representation of the tyrant’s life as an
obscene dream; the rhetorical surprise of a more miserable than the most
miserable of men in Book IX; the hint to the poets that if they are the friends
of tyrants there is no place for them in a constitutional State, and that they are
too clever not to see the propriety of their own expulsion; the continuous
image of the drones who are of two kinds, swelling at last into the monster
drone having wings (Book IX) — are among Plato’s happiest touches.
There remains to be considered the great difficulty of this book of the
Republic, the so-called number of the State. This is a puzzle almost as great as
the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, and though apparently
known to Aristotle, is referred to by Cicero as a proverb of obscurity (Ep. ad
Att.). And some have imagined that there is no answer to the puzzle, and that
Plato has been practising upon his readers. But such a deception as this is
inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol.),
and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was
acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing
that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the obscurity arises from
our want of familiarity with the subject. On the other hand, Plato himself
indicates that he is not altogether serious, and in describing his number as a
solemn jest of the Muses, he appears to imply some degree of satire on the
symbolical use of number. (Compare Cratylus; Protag.)
Our hope of understanding the passage depends principally on an
accurate study of the words themselves; on which a faint light is thrown by the
parallel passage in the ninth book. Another help is the allusion in Aristotle,
who makes the important remark that the latter part of the passage (Greek)
describes a solid figure. (Pol. —‘He only says that nothing is abiding, but that
all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of the change is a base
of numbers which are in the ratio of 4:3; and this when combined with a figure
of five gives two harmonies; he means when the number of this figure
becomes solid.’) Some further clue may be gathered from the appearance of
the Pythagorean triangle, which is denoted by the numbers 3, 4, 5, and in
which, as in every right-angled triangle, the squares of the two lesser sides
equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16 = 25).
 Plato begins by speaking of a perfect or cyclical number (Tim.), i.e. a
number in which the sum of the divisors equals the whole; this is the divine or
perfect number in which all lesser cycles or revolutions are complete. He also
speaks of a human or imperfect number, having four terms and three intervals
of numbers which are related to one another in certain proportions; these he
converts into figures, and finds in them when they have been raised to the
third power certain elements of number, which give two ‘harmonies,’ the one
square, the other oblong; but he does not say that the square number answers
to the divine, or the oblong number to the human cycle; nor is any intimation
given that the first or divine number represents the period of the world, the
second the period of the state, or of the human race as Zeller supposes; nor is
the divine number afterwards mentioned (Arist.). The second is the number of
generations or births, and presides over them in the same mysterious manner
in which the stars preside over them, or in which, according to the
Pythagoreans, opportunity, justice, marriage, are represented by some
number or figure. This is probably the number 216.
The explanation given in the text supposes the two harmonies to make up
the number 8000. This explanation derives a certain plausibility from the
circumstance that 8000 is the ancient number of the Spartan citizens
(Herod.), and would be what Plato might have called ‘a number which nearly
concerns the population of a city’; the mysterious disappearance of the
Spartan population may possibly have suggested to him the first cause of his
decline of States. The lesser or square ‘harmony,’ of 400, might be a symbol of
the guardians — the larger or oblong ‘harmony,’ of the people, and the
numbers 3, 4, 5 might refer respectively to the three orders in the State or
parts of the soul, the four virtues, the five forms of government. The harmony
of the musical scale, which is elsewhere used as a symbol of the harmony of
the state, is also indicated. For the numbers 3, 4, 5, which represent the sides
of the Pythagorean triangle, also denote the intervals of the scale.
The terms used in the statement of the problem may be explained as
follows. A perfect number (Greek), as already stated, is one which is equal to
the sum of its divisors. Thus 6, which is the first perfect or cyclical number, = 1
+ 2 + 3. The words (Greek), ‘terms’ or ‘notes,’ and (Greek), ‘intervals,’ are
applicable to music as well as to number and figure. (Greek) is the ‘base’ on
which the whole calculation depends, or the ‘lowest term’ from which it can be
worked out. The words (Greek) have been variously translated —‘squared and
cubed’ (Donaldson), ‘equalling and equalled in power’ (Weber), ‘by involution
and evolution,’ i.e. by raising the power and extracting the root (as in the
translation). Numbers are called ‘like and unlike’ (Greek) when the factors or
the sides of the planes and cubes which they represent are or are not in the
same ratio: e.g. 8 and 27 = 2 cubed and 3 cubed; and conversely. ‘Waxing’
(Greek) numbers, called also ‘increasing’ (Greek), are those which are
exceeded by the sum of their divisors: e.g. 12 and 18 are less than 16 and 21.
‘Waning’ (Greek) numbers, called also ‘decreasing’ (Greek) are those which
succeed the sum of their divisors: e.g. 8 and 27 exceed 7 and 13. The words
translated ‘commensurable and agreeable to one another’ (Greek) seem to be
different ways of describing the same relation, with more or less precision.
They are equivalent to ‘expressible in terms having the same relation to one
another,’ like the series 8, 12, 18, 27, each of which numbers is in the relation
of (1 and 1/2) to the preceding. The ‘base,’ or ‘fundamental number, which has
1/3 added to it’ (1 and 1/3) = 4/3 or a musical fourth. (Greek) is a ‘proportion’
of numbers as of musical notes, applied either to the parts or factors of a single
number or to the relation of one number to another. The first harmony is a
‘square’ number (Greek); the second harmony is an ‘oblong’ number (Greek),
i.e. a number representing a figure of which the opposite sides only are equal.
(Greek) = ‘numbers squared from’ or ‘upon diameters’; (Greek) = ‘rational,’
i.e. omitting fractions, (Greek), ‘irrational,’ i.e. including fractions; e.g. 49 is a
square of the rational diameter of a figure the side of which = 5: 50, of an
irrational diameter of the same. For several of the explanations here given and
for a good deal besides I am indebted to an excellent article on the Platonic
Number by Dr. Donaldson (Proc. of the Philol. Society).
The conclusions which he draws from these data are summed up by him
as follows. Having assumed that the number of the perfect or divine cycle is
the number of the world, and the number of the imperfect cycle the number of
the state, he proceeds: ‘The period of the world is defined by the perfect
number 6, that of the state by the cube of that number or 216, which is the
product of the last pair of terms in the Platonic Tetractys (a series of seven
terms, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27); and if we take this as the basis of our computation,
we shall have two cube numbers (Greek), viz. 8 and 27; and the mean
proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three intervals and
four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the
sesqui-altera ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2. Now if we
remember that the number 216 = 8 x 27 = 3 cubed + 4 cubed + 5 cubed, and 3
squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, we must admit that this number implies the
numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much importance. And if we
combine the ratio 4/3 with the number 5, or multiply the ratios of the sides by
the hypotenuse, we shall by first squaring and then cubing obtain two
expressions, which denote the ratio of the two last pairs of terms in the
Platonic Tetractys, the former multiplied by the square, the latter by the cube
of the number 10, the sum of the first four digits which constitute the Platonic
Tetractys.’ The two (Greek) he elsewhere explains as follows: ‘The first (Greek)
is (Greek), in other words (4/3 x 5) all squared = 100 x 2 squared over 3
squared. The second (Greek), a cube of the same root, is described as 100
multiplied (alpha) by the rational diameter of 5 diminished by unity, i.e., as
shown above, 48: (beta) by two incommensurable diameters, i.e. the two first
irrationals, or 2 and 3: and (gamma) by the cube of 3, or 27. Thus we have (48
+ 5 + 27) 100 = 1000 x 2 cubed. This second harmony is to be the cube of the
number of which the former harmony is the square, and therefore must be
divided by the cube of 3. In other words, the whole expression will be: (1), for
the first harmony, 400/9: (2), for the second harmony, 8000/27.’
The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also
with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of births
are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in the first
part of the passage (Greek . . . ): (2) that the number 216 with its permutations
would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though unfamiliar to us:
(3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5 cubed, the
numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean triangle, of which the sides
when squared equal the square of the hypotenuse (9 + 16 = 25): (4) that it is
also the period of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis: (5) the three ultimate
terms or bases (3, 4, 5) of which 216 is composed answer to the third, fourth,
fifth in the musical scale: (6) that the number 216 is the product of the cubes
of 2 and 3, which are the two last terms in the Platonic Tetractys: (7) that the
Pythagorean triangle is said by Plutarch (de Is. et Osir.), Proclus (super prima
Eucl.), and Quintilian (de Musica) to be contained in this passage, so that the
tradition of the school seems to point in the same direction: (8) that the
Pythagorean triangle is called also the figure of marriage (Greek).
But though agreeing with Dr. Donaldson thus far, I see no reason for
supposing, as he does, that the first or perfect number is the world, the human
or imperfect number the state; nor has he given any proof that the second
harmony is a cube. Nor do I think that (Greek) can mean ‘two
incommensurables,’ which he arbitrarily assumes to be 2 and 3, but rather, as
the preceding clause implies, (Greek), i.e. two square numbers based upon
irrational diameters of a figure the side of which is 5 = 50 x 2.
The greatest objection to the translation is the sense given to the words
(Greek), ‘a base of three with a third added to it, multiplied by 5.’ In this
somewhat forced manner Plato introduces once more the numbers of the
Pythagorean triangle. But the coincidences in the numbers which follow are in
favour of the explanation. The first harmony of 400, as has been already
remarked, probably represents the rulers; the second and oblong harmony of
7600, the people.
And here we take leave of the difficulty. The discovery of the riddle would
be useless, and would throw no light on ancient mathematics. The point of
interest is that Plato should have used such a symbol, and that so much of the
Pythagorean spirit should have prevailed in him. His general meaning is that
divine creation is perfect, and is represented or presided over by a perfect or
cyclical number; human generation is imperfect, and represented or presided
over by an imperfect number or series of numbers. The number 5040, which is
the number of the citizens in the Laws, is expressly based by him on utilitarian
grounds, namely, the convenience of the number for division; it is also made
up of the first seven digits multiplied by one another. The contrast of the
perfect and imperfect number may have been easily suggested by the
corrections of the cycle, which were made first by Meton and secondly by
Callippus; (the latter is said to have been a pupil of Plato). Of the degree of
importance or of exactness to be attributed to the problem, the number of the
tyrant in Book IX (729 = 365 x 2), and the slight correction of the error in the
number 5040/12 (Laws), may furnish a criterion. There is nothing surprising
in the circumstance that those who were seeking for order in nature and had
found order in number, should have imagined one to give law to the other.
Plato believes in a power of number far beyond what he could see realized in
the world around him, and he knows the great influence which ‘the little
matter of 1, 2, 3’ exercises upon education. He may even be thought to have a
prophetic anticipation of the discoveries of Quetelet and others, that numbers
depend upon numbers; e.g. — in population, the numbers of births and the
respective numbers of children born of either sex, on the respective ages of
parents, i.e. on other numbers.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK IX.
Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence
is he, and how does he live — in happiness or in misery? There is, however, a
previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should
like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being
chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law.
‘What appetites do you mean?’ I mean those which are awake when the
reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any
self-respect or shame; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however
cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty. ‘True,’ he
said; ‘very true.’ But when a man’s pulse beats temperately; and he has supped
on a feast of reason and come to a knowledge of himself before going to rest,
and has satisfied his desires just enough to prevent their perturbing his
reason, which remains clear and luminous, and when he is free from quarrel
and heat — the visions which he has on his bed are least irregular and
abnormal. Even in good men there is such an irregular wild-beast nature,
which peers out in sleep.
To return:— You remember what was said of the democrat; that he was
the son of a miserly father, who encouraged the saving desires and repressed
the ornamental and expensive ones; presently the youth got into fine
company, and began to entertain a dislike to his father’s narrow ways; and
being a better man than the corrupters of his youth, he came to a mean, and
led a life, not of lawless or slavish passion, but of regular and successive
indulgence. Now imagine that the youth has become a father, and has a son
who is exposed to the same temptations, and has companions who lead him
into every sort of iniquity, and parents and friends who try to keep him right.
The counsellors of evil find that their only chance of retaining him is to
implant in his soul a monster drone, or love; while other desires buzz around
him and mystify him with sweet sounds and scents, this monster love takes
possession of him, and puts an end to every true or modest thought or wish.
Love, like drunkenness and madness, is a tyranny; and the tyrannical man,
whether made by nature or habit, is just a drinking, lusting, furious sort of
animal.
And how does such an one live? ‘Nay, that you must tell me.’ Well then, I
fancy that he will live amid revelries and harlotries, and love will be the lord
and master of the house. Many desires require much money, and so he spends
all that he has and borrows more; and when he has nothing the young ravens
are still in the nest in which they were hatched, crying for food. Love urges
them on; and they must be gratified by force or fraud, or if not, they become
painful and troublesome; and as the new pleasures succeed the old ones, so
will the son take possession of the goods of his parents; if they show signs of
refusing, he will defraud and deceive them; and if they openly resist, what
then? ‘I can only say, that I should not much like to be in their place.’ But, O
heavens, Adeimantus, to think that for some new-fangled and unnecessary
love he will give up his old father and mother, best and dearest of friends, or
enslave them to the fancies of the hour! Truly a tyrannical son is a blessing to
his father and mother! When there is no more to be got out of them, he turns
burglar or pickpocket, or robs a temple. Love overmasters the thoughts of his
youth, and he becomes in sober reality the monster that he was sometimes in
sleep. He waxes strong in all violence and lawlessness; and is ready for any
deed of daring that will supply the wants of his rabble-rout. In a well-ordered
State there are only a few such, and these in time of war go out and become
the mercenaries of a tyrant. But in time of peace they stay at home and do
mischief; they are the thieves, footpads, cut-purses, man-stealers of the
community; or if they are able to speak, they turn false-witnesses and
informers. ‘No small catalogue of crimes truly, even if the perpetrators are
few.’ Yes, I said; but small and great are relative terms, and no crimes which
are committed by them approach those of the tyrant, whom this class, growing
strong and numerous, create out of themselves. If the people yield, well and
good, but, if they resist, then, as before he beat his father and mother, so now
he beats his fatherland and motherland, and places his mercenaries over
them. Such men in their early days live with flatterers, and they themselves
flatter others, in order to gain their ends; but they soon discard their followers
when they have no longer any need of them; they are always either masters or
servants — the joys of friendship are unknown to them. And they are utterly
treacherous and unjust, if the nature of justice be at all understood by us. They
realize our dream; and he who is the most of a tyrant by nature, and leads the
life of a tyrant for the longest time, will be the worst of them, and being the
worst of them, will also be the most miserable.
Like man, like State — the tyrannical man will answer to tyranny, which is
the extreme opposite of the royal State; for one is the best and the other the
worst. But which is the happier? Great and terrible as the tyrant may appear
enthroned amid his satellites, let us not be afraid to go in and ask; and the
answer is, that the monarchical is the happiest, and the tyrannical the most
miserable of States. And may we not ask the same question about the men
themselves, requesting some one to look into them who is able to penetrate
the inner nature of man, and will not be panic-struck by the vain pomp of
tyranny? I will suppose that he is one who has lived with him, and has seen
him in family life, or perhaps in the hour of trouble and danger.
Assuming that we ourselves are the impartial judge for whom we seek, let
us begin by comparing the individual and State, and ask first of all, whether
the State is likely to be free or enslaved — Will there not be a little freedom
and a great deal of slavery? And the freedom is of the bad, and the slavery of
the good; and this applies to the man as well as to the State; for his soul is full
of meanness and slavery, and the better part is enslaved to the worse. He
cannot do what he would, and his mind is full of confusion; he is the very
reverse of a freeman. The State will be poor and full of misery and sorrow; and
the man’s soul will also be poor and full of sorrows, and he will be the most
miserable of men. No, not the most miserable, for there is yet a more
miserable. ‘Who is that?’ The tyrannical man who has the misfortune also to
become a public tyrant. ‘There I suspect that you are right.’ Say rather, ‘I am
sure;’ conjecture is out of place in an enquiry of this nature. He is like a
wealthy owner of slaves, only he has more of them than any private individual.
You will say, ‘The owners of slaves are not generally in any fear of them.’ But
why? Because the whole city is in a league which protects the individual.
Suppose however that one of these owners and his household is carried off by
a god into a wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him — will he not
be in an agony of terror? — will he not be compelled to flatter his slaves and to
promise them many things sore against his will? And suppose the same god
who carried him off were to surround him with neighbours who declare that
no man ought to have slaves, and that the owners of them should be punished
with death. ‘Still worse and worse! He will be in the midst of his enemies.’ And
is not our tyrant such a captive soul, who is tormented by a swarm of passions
which he cannot indulge; living indoors always like a woman, and jealous of
those who can go out and see the world?
Having so many evils, will not the most miserable of men be still more
miserable in a public station? Master of others when he is not master of
himself; like a sick man who is compelled to be an athlete; the meanest of
slaves and the most abject of flatterers; wanting all things, and never able to
satisfy his desires; always in fear and distraction, like the State of which he is
the representative. His jealous, hateful, faithless temper grows worse with
command; he is more and more faithless, envious, unrighteous — the most
wretched of men, a misery to himself and to others. And so let us have a final
trial and proclamation; need we hire a herald, or shall I proclaim the result?
‘Made the proclamation yourself.’ The son of Ariston (the best) is of opinion
that the best and justest of men is also the happiest, and that this is he who is
the most royal master of himself; and that the unjust man is he who is the
greatest tyrant of himself and of his State. And I add further —‘seen or unseen
by gods or men.’
This is our first proof. The second is derived from the three kinds of
pleasure, which answer to the three elements of the soul — reason, passion,
desire; under which last is comprehended avarice as well as sensual appetite,
while passion includes ambition, party-feeling, love of reputation. Reason,
again, is solely directed to the attainment of truth, and careless of money and
reputation. In accordance with the difference of men’s natures, one of these
three principles is in the ascendant, and they have their several pleasures
corresponding to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will
be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The
money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages
of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour;
whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call
other pleasures necessary rather than good. Now, how shall we decide
between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge?
And which of the three has the truest knowledge and the widest experience?
The experience of youth makes the philosopher acquainted with the two kinds
of desire, but the avaricious and the ambitious man never taste the pleasures
of truth and wisdom. Honour he has equally with them; they are ‘judged of
him,’ but he is ‘not judged of them,’ for they never attain to the knowledge of
true being. And his instrument is reason, whereas their standard is only
wealth and honour; and if by reason we are to judge, his good will be the
truest. And so we arrive at the result that the pleasure of the rational part of
the soul, and a life passed in such pleasure is the pleasantest. He who has a
right to judge judges thus. Next comes the life of ambition, and, in the third
place, that of money-making.
Twice has the just man overthrown the unjust — once more, as in an
Olympian contest, first offering up a prayer to the saviour Zeus, let him try a
fall. A wise man whispers to me that the pleasures of the wise are true and
pure; all others are a shadow only. Let us examine this: Is not pleasure
opposed to pain, and is there not a mean state which is neither? When a man
is sick, nothing is more pleasant to him than health. But this he never found
out while he was well. In pain he desires only to cease from pain; on the other
hand, when he is in an ecstasy of pleasure, rest is painful to him. Thus rest or
cessation is both pleasure and pain. But can that which is neither become
both? Again, pleasure and pain are motions, and the absence of them is rest;
but if so, how can the absence of either of them be the other? Thus we are led
to infer that the contradiction is an appearance only, and witchery of the
senses. And these are not the only pleasures, for there are others which have
no preceding pains. Pure pleasure then is not the absence of pain, nor pure
pain the absence of pleasure; although most of the pleasures which reach the
mind through the body are reliefs of pain, and have not only their reactions
when they depart, but their anticipations before they come. They can be best
described in a simile. There is in nature an upper, lower, and middle region,
and he who passes from the lower to the middle imagines that he is going up
and is already in the upper world; and if he were taken back again would
think, and truly think, that he was descending. All this arises out of his
ignorance of the true upper, middle, and lower regions. And a like confusion
happens with pleasure and pain, and with many other things. The man who
compares grey with black, calls grey white; and the man who compares
absence of pain with pain, calls the absence of pain pleasure. Again, hunger
and thirst are inanitions of the body, ignorance and folly of the soul; and food
is the satisfaction of the one, knowledge of the other. Now which is the purer
satisfaction — that of eating and drinking, or that of knowledge? Consider the
matter thus: The satisfaction of that which has more existence is truer than of
that which has less. The invariable and immortal has a more real existence
than the variable and mortal, and has a corresponding measure of knowledge
and truth. The soul, again, has more existence and truth and knowledge than
the body, and is therefore more really satisfied and has a more natural
pleasure. Those who feast only on earthly food, are always going at random up
to the middle and down again; but they never pass into the true upper world,
or have a taste of true pleasure. They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and
sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for
they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias). Their
pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and
intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go fighting
about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of
Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth.
The same may be said of the passionate element:— the desires of the
ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction. Only
when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do their
own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When not
attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow of
pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from philosophy
and reason, the more distant they will be from law and order, and the more
illusive will be their pleasures. The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest
from law, and those of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine
pleasure, and two spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the latter; he has
run away altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his
inferiority be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the
oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the shadow of a
shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from the king, and thus we
get the formula 3 x 3, which is the number of a surface, representing the
shadow which is the tyrant’s pleasure, and if you like to cube this ‘number of
the beast,’ you will find that the measure of the difference amounts to 729; the
king is 729 times more happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number
is NEARLY equal to the number of days and nights in a year (365 x 2 = 730);
and is therefore concerned with human life. This is the interval between a
good and bad man in happiness only: what must be the difference between
them in comeliness of life and virtue!
Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our
discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of justice.
Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us make an image of
the soul, which will personify his words. First of all, fashion a multitudinous
beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of animals, tame and wild, and able
to produce and change them at pleasure. Suppose now another form of a lion,
and another of a man; the second smaller than the first, the third than the
second; join them together and cover them with a human skin, in which they
are completely concealed. When this has been done, let us tell the supporter of
injustice that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The maintainer
of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the man; he is nourishing
the gentle principle within him, and making an alliance with the lion heart, in
order that he may be able to keep down the many-headed hydra, and bring all
into unity with each other and with themselves. Thus in every point of view,
whether in relation to pleasure, honour, or advantage, the just man is right,
and the unjust wrong.
But now, let us reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Is
not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the God in
man; the ignoble, that which subjects the man to the beast? And if so, who
would receive gold on condition that he was to degrade the noblest part of
himself under the worst? — who would sell his son or daughter into the hands
of brutal and evil men, for any amount of money? And will he sell his own
fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless and foul?
Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband’s life for a
necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and
pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent
element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of
spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is
subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real
disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in them have to
flatter, instead of mastering their desires; therefore we say that they should be
placed under the control of the better principle in another because they have
none in themselves; not, as Thrasymachus imagined, to the injury of the
subjects, but for their good. And our intention in educating the young, is to
give them self-control; the law desires to nurse up in them a higher principle,
and when they have acquired this, they may go their ways.
‘What, then, shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world’ and become
more and more wicked? Or what shall he profit by escaping discovery, if the
concealment of evil prevents the cure? If he had been punished, the brute
within him would have been silenced, and the gentler element liberated; and
he would have united temperance, justice, and wisdom in his soul — a union
better far than any combination of bodily gifts. The man of understanding will
honour knowledge above all; in the next place he will keep under his body, not
only for the sake of health and strength, but in order to attain the most perfect
harmony of body and soul. In the acquisition of riches, too, he will aim at
order and harmony; he will not desire to heap up wealth without measure, but
he will fear that the increase of wealth will disturb the constitution of his own
soul. For the same reason he will only accept such honours as will make him a
better man; any others he will decline. ‘In that case,’ said he, ‘he will never be a
politician.’ Yes, but he will, in his own city; though probably not in his native
country, unless by some divine accident. ‘You mean that he will be a citizen of
the ideal city, which has no place upon earth.’ But in heaven, I replied, there is
a pattern of such a city, and he who wishes may order his life after that image.
Whether such a state is or ever will be matters not; he will act according to
that pattern and no other . . .
The most noticeable points in the 9th Book of the Republic are:—(1) the
account of pleasure; (2) the number of the interval which divides the king
from the tyrant; (3) the pattern which is in heaven.
1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in this
respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed
to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but
rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural
satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as
something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance
that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in
the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope
and anticipation. In the previous book he had made the distinction between
necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he
now observes that there are a further class of ‘wild beast’ pleasures,
corresponding to Aristotle’s (Greek). He dwells upon the relative and unreal
character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast
of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason,
which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The pre-
eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a
judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are
incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of
pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is ‘sawn up into
quantities’ by Aristotle; the analysis which was originally made by him became
in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in
Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of
regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of
confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the
unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do
we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are
not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on
the accidents of our bodily state (Introduction to Philebus).
2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant,
and royal from tyrannical pleasures, is 729, the cube of 9. Which Plato
characteristically designates as a number concerned with human life, because
NEARLY equivalent to the number of days and nights in the year. He is
desirous of proclaiming that the interval between them is immeasurable, and
invents a formula to give expression to his idea. Those who spoke of justice as
a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot.), saw no inappropriateness in
conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as
separated from the pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of 729. And
in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a
philosophical formula. ‘It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except
perhaps in this way,’ says Plato. So we might say, that although the life of a
good man is not to be compared to that of a bad man, yet you may measure
the difference between them by valuing one minute of the one at an hour of
the other (‘One day in thy courts is better than a thousand’), or you might say
that ‘there is an infinite difference.’ But this is not so much as saying, in
homely phrase, ‘They are a thousand miles asunder.’ And accordingly Plato
finds the natural vehicle of his thoughts in a progression of numbers; this
arithmetical formula he draws out with the utmost seriousness, and both here
and in the number of generation seems to find an additional proof of the truth
of his speculation in forming the number into a geometrical figure; just as
persons in our own day are apt to fancy that a statement is verified when it has
been only thrown into an abstract form. In speaking of the number 729 as
proper to human life, he probably intended to intimate that one year of the
tyrannical = 12 hours of the royal life.
The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is
effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical
groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining
the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is removed in the
third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third
degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a
square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as = 5
but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a step towards the
cube.
3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more
convinced of the ideal character of his own speculations. At the end of the 9th
Book the pattern which is in heaven takes the place of the city of philosophers
on earth. The vision which has received form and substance at his hands, is
now discovered to be at a distance. And yet this distant kingdom is also the
rule of man’s life. (‘Say not lo! here, or lo! there, for the kingdom of God is
within you.’) Thus a note is struck which prepares for the revelation of a future
life in the following Book. But the future life is present still; the ideal of politics
is to be realized in the individual.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK X.
Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was nothing which
I liked better than the regulation about poetry. The division of the soul throws
a new light on our exclusion of imitation. I do not mind telling you in
confidence that all poetry is an outrage on the understanding, unless the
hearers have that balm of knowledge which heals error. I have loved Homer
ever since I was a boy, and even now he appears to me to be the great master
of tragic poetry. But much as I love the man, I love truth more, and therefore I
must speak out: and first of all, will you explain what is imitation, for really I
do not understand? ‘How likely then that I should understand!’ That might
very well be, for the duller often sees better than the keener eye. ‘True, but in
your presence I can hardly venture to say what I think.’ Then suppose that we
begin in our old fashion, with the doctrine of universals. Let us assume the
existence of beds and tables. There is one idea of a bed, or of a table, which the
maker of each had in his mind when making them; he did not make the ideas
of beds and tables, but he made beds and tables according to the ideas. And is
there not a maker of the works of all workmen, who makes not only vessels but
plants and animals, himself, the earth and heaven, and things in heaven and
under the earth? He makes the Gods also. ‘He must be a wizard indeed!’ But
do you not see that there is a sense in which you could do the same? You have
only to take a mirror, and catch the reflection of the sun, and the earth, or
anything else — there now you have made them. ‘Yes, but only in appearance.’
Exactly so; and the painter is such a creator as you are with the mirror, and he
is even more unreal than the carpenter; although neither the carpenter nor
any other artist can be supposed to make the absolute bed. ‘Not if
philosophers may be believed.’ Nor need we wonder that his bed has but an
imperfect relation to the truth. Reflect:— Here are three beds; one in nature,
which is made by God; another, which is made by the carpenter; and the third,
by the painter. God only made one, nor could he have made more than one;
for if there had been two, there would always have been a third — more
absolute and abstract than either, under which they would have been
included. We may therefore conceive God to be the natural maker of the bed,
and in a lower sense the carpenter is also the maker; but the painter is rather
the imitator of what the other two make; he has to do with a creation which is
thrice removed from reality. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, like every
other imitator, is thrice removed from the king and from the truth. The
painter imitates not the original bed, but the bed made by the carpenter. And
this, without being really different, appears to be different, and has many
points of view, of which only one is caught by the painter, who represents
everything because he represents a piece of everything, and that piece an
image. And he can paint any other artist, although he knows nothing of their
arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people.
Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man
who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:— should we not
infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and
falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-
wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know
all the arts and all the virtues, must we not infer that they are under a similar
delusion? they do not see that the poets are imitators, and that their creations
are only imitations. ‘Very true.’ But if a person could create as well as imitate,
he would rather leave some permanent work and not an imitation only; he
would rather be the receiver than the giver of praise? ‘Yes, for then he would
have more honour and advantage.’
Let us now interrogate Homer and the poets. Friend Homer, say I to him,
I am not going to ask you about medicine, or any art to which your poems
incidentally refer, but about their main subjects — war, military tactics,
politics. If you are only twice and not thrice removed from the truth — not an
imitator or an image-maker, please to inform us what good you have ever
done to mankind? Is there any city which professes to have received laws from
you, as Sicily and Italy have from Charondas, Sparta from Lycurgus, Athens
from Solon? Or was any war ever carried on by your counsels? or is any
invention attributed to you, as there is to Thales and Anacharsis? Or is there
any Homeric way of life, such as the Pythagorean was, in which you instructed
men, and which is called after you? ‘No, indeed; and Creophylus (Flesh-child)
was even more unfortunate in his breeding than he was in his name, if, as
tradition says, Homer in his lifetime was allowed by him and his other friends
to starve.’ Yes, but could this ever have happened if Homer had really been the
educator of Hellas? Would he not have had many devoted followers? If
Protagoras and Prodicus can persuade their contemporaries that no one can
manage house or State without them, is it likely that Homer and Hesiod would
have been allowed to go about as beggars — I mean if they had really been able
to do the world any good? — would not men have compelled them to stay
where they were, or have followed them about in order to get education? But
they did not; and therefore we may infer that Homer and all the poets are only
imitators, who do but imitate the appearances of things. For as a painter by a
knowledge of figure and colour can paint a cobbler without any practice in
cobbling, so the poet can delineate any art in the colours of language, and give
harmony and rhythm to the cobbler and also to the general; and you know
how mere narration, when deprived of the ornaments of metre, is like a face
which has lost the beauty of youth and never had any other. Once more, the
imitator has no knowledge of reality, but only of appearance. The painter
paints, and the artificer makes a bridle and reins, but neither understands the
use of them — the knowledge of this is confined to the horseman; and so of
other things. Thus we have three arts: one of use, another of invention, a third
of imitation; and the user furnishes the rule to the two others. The flute-player
will know the good and bad flute, and the maker will put faith in him; but the
imitator will neither know nor have faith — neither science nor true opinion
can be ascribed to him. Imitation, then, is devoid of knowledge, being only a
kind of play or sport, and the tragic and epic poets are imitators in the highest
degree.
And now let us enquire, what is the faculty in man which answers to
imitation. Allow me to explain my meaning: Objects are differently seen when
in the water and when out of the water, when near and when at a distance; and
the painter or juggler makes use of this variation to impose upon us. And the
art of measuring and weighing and calculating comes in to save our
bewildered minds from the power of appearance; for, as we were saying, two
contrary opinions of the same about the same and at the same time, cannot
both of them be true. But which of them is true is determined by the art of
calculation; and this is allied to the better faculty in the soul, as the arts of
imitation are to the worse. And the same holds of the ear as well as of the eye,
of poetry as well as painting. The imitation is of actions voluntary or
involuntary, in which there is an expectation of a good or bad result, and
present experience of pleasure and pain. But is a man in harmony with himself
when he is the subject of these conflicting influences? Is there not rather a
contradiction in him? Let me further ask, whether he is more likely to control
sorrow when he is alone or when he is in company. ‘In the latter case.’ Feeling
would lead him to indulge his sorrow, but reason and law control him and
enjoin patience; since he cannot know whether his affliction is good or evil,
and no human thing is of any great consequence, while sorrow is certainly a
hindrance to good counsel. For when we stumble, we should not, like children,
make an uproar; we should take the measures which reason prescribes, not
raising a lament, but finding a cure. And the better part of us is ready to follow
reason, while the irrational principle is full of sorrow and distraction at the
recollection of our troubles. Unfortunately, however, this latter furnishes the
chief materials of the imitative arts. Whereas reason is ever in repose and
cannot easily be displayed, especially to a mixed multitude who have no
experience of her. Thus the poet is like the painter in two ways: first he paints
an inferior degree of truth, and secondly, he is concerned with an inferior part
of the soul. He indulges the feelings, while he enfeebles the reason; and we
refuse to allow him to have authority over the mind of man; for he has no
measure of greater and less, and is a maker of images and very far gone from
truth.
But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment — the
power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear
some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you
know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own
sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly
(Ion). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates
and abominates in himself? Is he not giving way to a sentiment which in his
own case he would control? — he is off his guard because the sorrow is
another’s; and he thinks that he may indulge his feelings without disgrace, and
will be the gainer by the pleasure. But the inevitable consequence is that he
who begins by weeping at the sorrows of others, will end by weeping at his
own. The same is true of comedy — you may often laugh at buffoonery which
you would be ashamed to utter, and the love of coarse merriment on the stage
will at last turn you into a buffoon at home. Poetry feeds and waters the
passions and desires; she lets them rule instead of ruling them. And therefore,
when we hear the encomiasts of Homer affirming that he is the educator of
Hellas, and that all life should be regulated by his precepts, we may allow the
excellence of their intentions, and agree with them in thinking Homer a great
poet and tragedian. But we shall continue to prohibit all poetry which goes
beyond hymns to the Gods and praises of famous men. Not pleasure and pain,
but law and reason shall rule in our State.
These are our grounds for expelling poetry; but lest she should charge us
with discourtesy, let us also make an apology to her. We will remind her that
there is an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy, of which there are
many traces in the writings of the poets, such as the saying of ‘the she-dog,
yelping at her mistress,’ and ‘the philosophers who are ready to circumvent
Zeus,’ and ‘the philosophers who are paupers.’ Nevertheless we bear her no ill-
will, and will gladly allow her to return upon condition that she makes a
defence of herself in verse; and her supporters who are not poets may speak in
prose. We confess her charms; but if she cannot show that she is useful as well
as delightful, like rational lovers, we must renounce our love, though endeared
to us by early associations. Having come to years of discretion, we know that
poetry is not truth, and that a man should be careful how he introduces her to
that state or constitution which he himself is; for there is a mighty issue at
stake — no less than the good or evil of a human soul. And it is not worth while
to forsake justice and virtue for the attractions of poetry, any more than for the
sake of honour or wealth. ‘I agree with you.’
And yet the rewards of virtue are greater far than I have described. ‘And
can we conceive things greater still?’ Not, perhaps, in this brief span of life:
but should an immortal being care about anything short of eternity? ‘I do not
understand what you mean?’ Do you not know that the soul is immortal?
‘Surely you are not prepared to prove that?’ Indeed I am. ‘Then let me hear
this argument, of which you make so light.’
You would admit that everything has an element of good and of evil. In all
things there is an inherent corruption; and if this cannot destroy them,
nothing else will. The soul too has her own corrupting principles, which are
injustice, intemperance, cowardice, and the like. But none of these destroy the
soul in the same sense that disease destroys the body. The soul may be full of
all iniquities, but is not, by reason of them, brought any nearer to death.
Nothing which was not destroyed from within ever perished by external
affection of evil. The body, which is one thing, cannot be destroyed by food,
which is another, unless the badness of the food is communicated to the body.
Neither can the soul, which is one thing, be corrupted by the body, which is
another, unless she herself is infected. And as no bodily evil can infect the
soul, neither can any bodily evil, whether disease or violence, or any other
destroy the soul, unless it can be shown to render her unholy and unjust. But
no one will ever prove that the souls of men become more unjust when they
die. If a person has the audacity to say the contrary, the answer is — Then why
do criminals require the hand of the executioner, and not die of themselves?
‘Truly,’ he said, ‘injustice would not be very terrible if it brought a cessation of
evil; but I rather believe that the injustice which murders others may tend to
quicken and stimulate the life of the unjust.’ You are quite right. If sin which is
her own natural and inherent evil cannot destroy the soul, hardly will anything
else destroy her. But the soul which cannot be destroyed either by internal or
external evil must be immortal and everlasting. And if this be true, souls will
always exist in the same number. They cannot diminish, because they cannot
be destroyed; nor yet increase, for the increase of the immortal must come
from something mortal, and so all would end in immortality. Neither is the
soul variable and diverse; for that which is immortal must be of the fairest and
simplest composition. If we would conceive her truly, and so behold justice
and injustice in their own nature, she must be viewed by the light of reason
pure as at birth, or as she is reflected in philosophy when holding converse
with the divine and immortal and eternal. In her present condition we see her
only like the sea-god Glaucus, bruised and maimed in the sea which is the
world, and covered with shells and stones which are incrusted upon her from
the entertainments of earth.
Thus far, as the argument required, we have said nothing of the rewards
and honours which the poets attribute to justice; we have contented ourselves
with showing that justice in herself is best for the soul in herself, even if a man
should put on a Gyges’ ring and have the helmet of Hades too. And now you
shall repay me what you borrowed; and I will enumerate the rewards of justice
in life and after death. I granted, for the sake of argument, as you will
remember, that evil might perhaps escape the knowledge of Gods and men,
although this was really impossible. And since I have shown that justice has
reality, you must grant me also that she has the palm of appearance. In the
first place, the just man is known to the Gods, and he is therefore the friend of
the Gods, and he will receive at their hands every good, always excepting such
evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins. All things end in good to
him, either in life or after death, even what appears to be evil; for the Gods
have a care of him who desires to be in their likeness. And what shall we say of
men? Is not honesty the best policy? The clever rogue makes a great start at
first, but breaks down before he reaches the goal, and slinks away in
dishonour; whereas the true runner perseveres to the end, and receives the
prize. And you must allow me to repeat all the blessings which you attributed
to the fortunate unjust — they bear rule in the city, they marry and give in
marriage to whom they will; and the evils which you attributed to the
unfortunate just, do really fall in the end on the unjust, although, as you
implied, their sufferings are better veiled in silence.
But all the blessings of this present life are as nothing when compared
with those which await good men after death. ‘I should like to hear about
them.’ Come, then, and I will tell you the story of Er, the son of Armenius, a
valiant man. He was supposed to have died in battle, but ten days afterwards
his body was found untouched by corruption and sent home for burial. On the
twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again,
and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with
a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in
the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above. And
there were judges sitting in the intermediate space, bidding the just ascend by
the heavenly way on the right hand, having the seal of their judgment set upon
them before, while the unjust, having the seal behind, were bidden to descend
by the way on the left hand. Him they told to look and listen, as he was to be
their messenger to men from the world below. And he beheld and saw the
souls departing after judgment at either chasm; some who came from earth,
were worn and travel-stained; others, who came from heaven, were clean and
bright. They seemed glad to meet and rest awhile in the meadow; here they
discoursed with one another of what they had seen in the other world. Those
who came from earth wept at the remembrance of their sorrows, but the
spirits from above spoke of glorious sights and heavenly bliss. He said that for
every evil deed they were punished tenfold — now the journey was of a
thousand years’ duration, because the life of man was reckoned as a hundred
years — and the rewards of virtue were in the same proportion. He added
something hardly worth repeating about infants dying almost as soon as they
were born. Of parricides and other murderers he had tortures still more
terrible to narrate. He was present when one of the spirits asked — Where is
Ardiaeus the Great? (This Ardiaeus was a cruel tyrant, who had murdered his
father, and his elder brother, a thousand years before.) Another spirit
answered, ‘He comes not hither, and will never come. And I myself,’ he added,
‘actually saw this terrible sight. At the entrance of the chasm, as we were about
to reascend, Ardiaeus appeared, and some other sinners — most of whom had
been tyrants, but not all — and just as they fancied that they were returning to
life, the chasm gave a roar, and then wild, fiery-looking men who knew the
meaning of the sound, seized him and several others, and bound them hand
and foot and threw them down, and dragged them along at the side of the
road, lacerating them and carding them like wool, and explaining to the
passers-by, that they were going to be cast into hell.’ The greatest terror of the
pilgrims ascending was lest they should hear the voice, and when there was
silence one by one they passed up with joy. To these sufferings there were
corresponding delights.
On the eighth day the souls of the pilgrims resumed their journey, and in
four days came to a spot whence they looked down upon a line of light, in
colour like a rainbow, only brighter and clearer. One day more brought them
to the place, and they saw that this was the column of light which binds
together the whole universe. The ends of the column were fastened to heaven,
and from them hung the distaff of Necessity, on which all the heavenly bodies
turned — the hook and spindle were of adamant, and the whorl of a mixed
substance. The whorl was in form like a number of boxes fitting into one
another with their edges turned upwards, making together a single whorl
which was pierced by the spindle. The outermost had the rim broadest, and
the inner whorls were smaller and smaller, and had their rims narrower. The
largest (the fixed stars) was spangled — the seventh (the sun) was brightest —
the eighth (the moon) shone by the light of the seventh — the second and fifth
(Saturn and Mercury) were most like one another and yellower than the eighth
— the third (Jupiter) had the whitest light — the fourth (Mars) was red — the
sixth (Venus) was in whiteness second. The whole had one motion, but while
this was revolving in one direction the seven inner circles were moving in the
opposite, with various degrees of swiftness and slowness. The spindle turned
on the knees of Necessity, and a Siren stood hymning upon each circle, while
Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the daughters of Necessity, sat on thrones at
equal intervals, singing of past, present, and future, responsive to the music of
the Sirens; Clotho from time to time guiding the outer circle with a touch of
her right hand; Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner
circles; Lachesis in turn putting forth her hand from time to time to guide both
of them. On their arrival the pilgrims went to Lachesis, and there was an
interpreter who arranged them, and taking from her knees lots, and samples
of lives, got up into a pulpit and said: ‘Mortal souls, hear the words of
Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. A new period of mortal life has begun, and
you may choose what divinity you please; the responsibility of choosing is with
you — God is blameless.’ After speaking thus, he cast the lots among them and
each one took up the lot which fell near him. He then placed on the ground
before them the samples of lives, many more than the souls present; and there
were all sorts of lives, of men and of animals. There were tyrannies ending in
misery and exile, and lives of men and women famous for their different
qualities; and also mixed lives, made up of wealth and poverty, sickness and
health. Here, Glaucon, is the great risk of human life, and therefore the whole
of education should be directed to the acquisition of such a knowledge as will
teach a man to refuse the evil and choose the good. He should know all the
combinations which occur in life — of beauty with poverty or with wealth — of
knowledge with external goods — and at last choose with reference to the
nature of the soul, regarding that only as the better life which makes men
better, and leaving the rest. And a man must take with him an iron sense of
truth and right into the world below, that there too he may remain undazzled
by wealth or the allurements of evil, and be determined to avoid the extremes
and choose the mean. For this, as the messenger reported the interpreter to
have said, is the true happiness of man; and any one, as he proclaimed, may, if
he choose with understanding, have a good lot, even though he come last. ‘Let
not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.’ He spoke; and when
he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see
that he was fated to devour his own children — and when he discovered his
mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and
anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven,
and in his previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had
only habit and no philosophy. Like many another, he made a bad choice,
because he had no experience of life; whereas those who came from earth and
had seen trouble were not in such a hurry to choose. But if a man had followed
philosophy while upon earth, and had been moderately fortunate in his lot, he
might not only be happy here, but his pilgrimage both from and to this world
would be smooth and heavenly. Nothing was more curious than the spectacle
of the choice, at once sad and laughable and wonderful; most of the souls only
seeking to avoid their own condition in a previous life. He saw the soul of
Orpheus changing into a swan because he would not be born of a woman;
there was Thamyras becoming a nightingale; musical birds, like the swan,
choosing to be men; the twentieth soul, which was that of Ajax, preferring the
life of a lion to that of a man, in remembrance of the injustice which was done
to him in the judgment of the arms; and Agamemnon, from a like enmity to
human nature, passing into an eagle. About the middle was the soul of
Atalanta choosing the honours of an athlete, and next to her Epeus taking the
nature of a workwoman; among the last was Thersites, who was changing
himself into a monkey. Thither, the last of all, came Odysseus, and sought the
lot of a private man, which lay neglected and despised, and when he found it
he went away rejoicing, and said that if he had been first instead of last, his
choice would have been the same. Men, too, were seen passing into animals,
and wild and tame animals changing into one another.
When all the souls had chosen they went to Lachesis, who sent with each
of them their genius or attendant to fulfil their lot. He first of all brought them
under the hand of Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of the spindle
impelled by her hand; from her they were carried to Atropos, who made the
threads irreversible; whence, without turning round, they passed beneath the
throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they moved on in scorching
heat to the plain of Forgetfulness and rested at evening by the river
Unmindful, whose water could not be retained in any vessel; of this they had
all to drink a certain quantity — some of them drank more than was required,
and he who drank forgot all things. Er himself was prevented from drinking.
When they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night there were
thunderstorms and earthquakes, and suddenly they were all driven divers
ways, shooting like stars to their birth. Concerning his return to the body, he
only knew that awaking suddenly in the morning he found himself lying on the
pyre.
Thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved, and will be our salvation, if we
believe that the soul is immortal, and hold fast to the heavenly way of Justice
and Knowledge. So shall we pass undefiled over the river of Forgetfulness, and
be dear to ourselves and to the Gods, and have a crown of reward and
happiness both in this world and also in the millennial pilgrimage of the other.
The Tenth Book of the Republic of Plato falls into two divisions: first,
resuming an old thread which has been interrupted, Socrates assails the poets,
who, now that the nature of the soul has been analyzed, are seen to be very far
gone from the truth; and secondly, having shown the reality of the happiness
of the just, he demands that appearance shall be restored to him, and then
proceeds to prove the immortality of the soul. The argument, as in the Phaedo
and Gorgias, is supplemented by the vision of a future life.
Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and
dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the
dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in
verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and
shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry — some
elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he should
have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of
the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the
unfair and prosaic test of utility — are questions which have always been
debated amongst students of Plato. Though unable to give a complete answer
to them, we may show — first, that his views arose naturally out of the
circumstances of his age; and secondly, we may elicit the truth as well as the
error which is contained in them.
He is the enemy of the poets because poetry was declining in his own
lifetime, and a theatrocracy, as he says in the Laws, had taken the place of an
intellectual aristocracy. Euripides exhibited the last phase of the tragic drama,
and in him Plato saw the friend and apologist of tyrants, and the Sophist of
tragedy. The old comedy was almost extinct; the new had not yet arisen.
Dramatic and lyric poetry, like every other branch of Greek literature, was
falling under the power of rhetoric. There was no ‘second or third’ to
Aeschylus and Sophocles in the generation which followed them.
Aristophanes, in one of his later comedies (Frogs), speaks of ‘thousands of
tragedy-making prattlers,’ whose attempts at poetry he compares to the
chirping of swallows; ‘their garrulity went far beyond Euripides,’—‘they
appeared once upon the stage, and there was an end of them.’ To a man of
genius who had a real appreciation of the godlike Aeschylus and the noble and
gentle Sophocles, though disagreeing with some parts of their ‘theology’
(Rep.), these ‘minor poets’ must have been contemptible and intolerable.
There is no feeling stronger in the dialogues of Plato than a sense of the
decline and decay both in literature and in politics which marked his own age.
Nor can he have been expected to look with favour on the licence of
Aristophanes, now at the end of his career, who had begun by satirizing
Socrates in the Clouds, and in a similar spirit forty years afterwards had
satirized the founders of ideal commonwealths in his Eccleziazusae, or Female
Parliament (Laws).
There were other reasons for the antagonism of Plato to poetry. The
profession of an actor was regarded by him as a degradation of human nature,
for ‘one man in his life’ cannot ‘play many parts;’ the characters which the
actor performs seem to destroy his own character, and to leave nothing which
can be truly called himself. Neither can any man live his life and act it. The
actor is the slave of his art, not the master of it. Taking this view Plato is more
decided in his expulsion of the dramatic than of the epic poets, though he
must have known that the Greek tragedians afforded noble lessons and
examples of virtue and patriotism, to which nothing in Homer can be
compared. But great dramatic or even great rhetorical power is hardly
consistent with firmness or strength of mind, and dramatic talent is often
incidentally associated with a weak or dissolute character.
In the Tenth Book Plato introduces a new series of objections. First, he
says that the poet or painter is an imitator, and in the third degree removed
from the truth. His creations are not tested by rule and measure; they are only
appearances. In modern times we should say that art is not merely imitation,
but rather the expression of the ideal in forms of sense. Even adopting the
humble image of Plato, from which his argument derives a colour, we should
maintain that the artist may ennoble the bed which he paints by the folds of
the drapery, or by the feeling of home which he introduces; and there have
been modern painters who have imparted such an ideal interest to a
blacksmith’s or a carpenter’s shop. The eye or mind which feels as well as sees
can give dignity and pathos to a ruined mill, or a straw-built shed
(Rembrandt), to the hull of a vessel ‘going to its last home’ (Turner). Still more
would this apply to the greatest works of art, which seem to be the visible
embodiment of the divine. Had Plato been asked whether the Zeus or Athene
of Pheidias was the imitation of an imitation only, would he not have been
compelled to admit that something more was to be found in them than in the
form of any mortal; and that the rule of proportion to which they conformed
was ‘higher far than any geometry or arithmetic could express?’ (Statesman.)
Again, Plato objects to the imitative arts that they express the emotional
rather than the rational part of human nature. He does not admit Aristotle’s
theory, that tragedy or other serious imitations are a purgation of the passions
by pity and fear; to him they appear only to afford the opportunity of indulging
them. Yet we must acknowledge that we may sometimes cure disordered
emotions by giving expression to them; and that they often gain strength when
pent up within our own breast. It is not every indulgence of the feelings which
is to be condemned. For there may be a gratification of the higher as well as of
the lower — thoughts which are too deep or too sad to be expressed by
ourselves, may find an utterance in the words of poets. Every one would
acknowledge that there have been times when they were consoled and
elevated by beautiful music or by the sublimity of architecture or by the
peacefulness of nature. Plato has himself admitted, in the earlier part of the
Republic, that the arts might have the effect of harmonizing as well as of
enervating the mind; but in the Tenth Book he regards them through a Stoic
or Puritan medium. He asks only ‘What good have they done?’ and is not
satisfied with the reply, that ‘They have given innocent pleasure to mankind.’
He tells us that he rejoices in the banishment of the poets, since he has
found by the analysis of the soul that they are concerned with the inferior
faculties. He means to say that the higher faculties have to do with universals,
the lower with particulars of sense. The poets are on a level with their own age,
but not on a level with Socrates and Plato; and he was well aware that Homer
and Hesiod could not be made a rule of life by any process of legitimate
interpretation; his ironical use of them is in fact a denial of their authority; he
saw, too, that the poets were not critics — as he says in the Apology, ‘Any one
was a better interpreter of their writings than they were themselves. He
himself ceased to be a poet when he became a disciple of Socrates; though, as
he tells us of Solon, ‘he might have been one of the greatest of them, if he had
not been deterred by other pursuits’ (Tim.) Thus from many points of view
there is an antagonism between Plato and the poets, which was foreshadowed
to him in the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The poets, as he says
in the Protagoras, were the Sophists of their day; and his dislike of the one
class is reflected on the other. He regards them both as the enemies of
reasoning and abstraction, though in the case of Euripides more with
reference to his immoral sentiments about tyrants and the like. For Plato is
the prophet who ‘came into the world to convince men’— first of the fallibility
of sense and opinion, and secondly of the reality of abstract ideas. Whatever
strangeness there may be in modern times in opposing philosophy to poetry,
which to us seem to have so many elements in common, the strangeness will
disappear if we conceive of poetry as allied to sense, and of philosophy as
equivalent to thought and abstraction. Unfortunately the very word ‘idea,’
which to Plato is expressive of the most real of all things, is associated in our
minds with an element of subjectiveness and unreality. We may note also how
he differs from Aristotle who declares poetry to be truer than history, for the
opposite reason, because it is concerned with universals, not like history, with
particulars (Poet).
The things which are seen are opposed in Scripture to the things which are
unseen — they are equally opposed in Plato to universals and ideas. To him all
particulars appear to be floating about in a world of sense; they have a taint of
error or even of evil. There is no difficulty in seeing that this is an illusion; for
there is no more error or variation in an individual man, horse, bed, etc., than
in the class man, horse, bed, etc.; nor is the truth which is displayed in
individual instances less certain than that which is conveyed through the
medium of ideas. But Plato, who is deeply impressed with the real importance
of universals as instruments of thought, attributes to them an essential truth
which is imaginary and unreal; for universals may be often false and
particulars true. Had he attained to any clear conception of the individual,
which is the synthesis of the universal and the particular; or had he been able
to distinguish between opinion and sensation, which the ambiguity of the
words (Greek) and the like, tended to confuse, he would not have denied truth
to the particulars of sense.
 But the poets are also the representatives of falsehood and feigning in all
departments of life and knowledge, like the sophists and rhetoricians of the
Gorgias and Phaedrus; they are the false priests, false prophets, lying spirits,
enchanters of the world. There is another count put into the indictment
against them by Plato, that they are the friends of the tyrant, and bask in the
sunshine of his patronage. Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false
ideas and false teachers at its service — in the history of Modern Europe as
well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon
force; without some corruption of literature and morals — some appeal to the
imagination of the masses — some pretence to the favour of heaven — some
element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be
maintained. The Greek tyrants were not insensible to the importance of
awakening in their cause a Pseudo-Hellenic feeling; they were proud of
successes at the Olympic games; they were not devoid of the love of literature
and art. Plato is thinking in the first instance of Greek poets who had graced
the courts of Dionysius or Archelaus: and the old spirit of freedom is roused
within him at their prostitution of the Tragic Muse in the praises of tyranny.
But his prophetic eye extends beyond them to the false teachers of other ages
who are the creatures of the government under which they live. He compares
the corruption of his contemporaries with the idea of a perfect society, and
gathers up into one mass of evil the evils and errors of mankind; to him they
are personified in the rhetoricians, sophists, poets, rulers who deceive and
govern the world.
A further objection which Plato makes to poetry and the imitative arts is
that they excite the emotions. Here the modern reader will be disposed to
introduce a distinction which appears to have escaped him. For the emotions
are neither bad nor good in themselves, and are not most likely to be
controlled by the attempt to eradicate them, but by the moderate indulgence
of them. And the vocation of art is to present thought in the form of feeling, to
enlist the feelings on the side of reason, to inspire even for a moment courage
or resignation; perhaps to suggest a sense of infinity and eternity in a way
which mere language is incapable of attaining. True, the same power which in
the purer age of art embodies gods and heroes only, may be made to express
the voluptuous image of a Corinthian courtezan. But this only shows that art,
like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not
more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul.
All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily
partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed
for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the
representation is sacrificed to the ideal. Still, works of art have a permanent
element; they idealize and detain the passing thought, and are the
intermediates between sense and ideas.
In the present stage of the human mind, poetry and other forms of fiction
may certainly be regarded as a good. But we can also imagine the existence of
an age in which a severer conception of truth has either banished or
transformed them. At any rate we must admit that they hold a different place
at different periods of the world’s history. In the infancy of mankind, poetry,
with the exception of proverbs, is the whole of literature, and the only
instrument of intellectual culture; in modern times she is the shadow or echo
of her former self, and appears to have a precarious existence. Milton in his
day doubted whether an epic poem was any longer possible. At the same time
we must remember, that what Plato would have called the charms of poetry
have been partly transferred to prose; he himself (Statesman) admits rhetoric
to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law
(Laws) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power
seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing
and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings
commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern
poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening
influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy
be some day exhausted? The modern English novel which is the most popular
of all forms of reading is not more than a century or two old: will the tale of
love a hundred years hence, after so many thousand variations of the same
theme, be still received with unabated interest?
Art cannot claim to be on a level with philosophy or religion, and may
often corrupt them. It is possible to conceive a mental state in which all artistic
representations are regarded as a false and imperfect expression, either of the
religious ideal or of the philosophical ideal. The fairest forms may be revolting
in certain moods of mind, as is proved by the fact that the Mahometans, and
many sects of Christians, have renounced the use of pictures and images. The
beginning of a great religion, whether Christian or Gentile, has not been ‘wood
or stone,’ but a spirit moving in the hearts of men. The disciples have met in a
large upper room or in ‘holes and caves of the earth’; in the second or third
generation, they have had mosques, temples, churches, monasteries. And the
revival or reform of religions, like the first revelation of them, has come from
within and has generally disregarded external ceremonies and
accompaniments.
But poetry and art may also be the expression of the highest truth and the
purest sentiment. Plato himself seems to waver between two opposite views —
when, as in the third Book, he insists that youth should be brought up amid
wholesome imagery; and again in Book X, when he banishes the poets from
his Republic. Admitting that the arts, which some of us almost deify, have
fallen short of their higher aim, we must admit on the other hand that to
banish imagination wholly would be suicidal as well as impossible. For nature
too is a form of art; and a breath of the fresh air or a single glance at the
varying landscape would in an instant revive and reillumine the extinguished
spark of poetry in the human breast. In the lower stages of civilization
imagination more than reason distinguishes man from the animals; and to
banish art would be to banish thought, to banish language, to banish the
expression of all truth. No religion is wholly devoid of external forms; even the
Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and images has a temple in
which he worships the Most High, as solemn and beautiful as any Greek or
Christian building. Feeling too and thought are not really opposed; for he who
thinks must feel before he can execute. And the highest thoughts, when they
become familiarized to us, are always tending to pass into the form of feeling.
Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But he
feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against the
degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the want of
serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or extravagance
of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of preachers or
public writers, against the regardlessness of truth which to the eye of the
philosopher seems to characterize the greater part of the world. For we too
have reason to complain that our poets and novelists ‘paint inferior truth’ and
‘are concerned with the inferior part of the soul’; that the readers of them
become what they read and are injuriously affected by them. And we look in
vain for that healthy atmosphere of which Plato speaks — ‘the beauty which
meets the sense like a breeze and imperceptibly draws the soul, even in
childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.’
For there might be a poetry which would be the hymn of divine perfection,
the harmony of goodness and truth among men: a strain which should renew
the youth of the world, and bring back the ages in which the poet was man’s
only teacher and best friend — which would find materials in the living
present as well as in the romance of the past, and might subdue to the fairest
forms of speech and verse the intractable materials of modern civilisation —
which might elicit the simple principles, or, as Plato would have called them,
the essential forms, of truth and justice out of the variety of opinion and the
complexity of modern society — which would preserve all the good of each
generation and leave the bad unsung — which should be based not on vain
longings or faint imaginings, but on a clear insight into the nature of man.
Then the tale of love might begin again in poetry or prose, two in one, united
in the pursuit of knowledge, or the service of God and man; and feelings of
love might still be the incentive to great thoughts and heroic deeds as in the
days of Dante or Petrarch; and many types of manly and womanly beauty
might appear among us, rising above the ordinary level of humanity, and
many lives which were like poems (Laws), be not only written, but lived by us.
A few such strains have been heard among men in the tragedies of Aeschylus
and Sophocles, whom Plato quotes, not, as Homer is quoted by him, in irony,
but with deep and serious approval — in the poetry of Milton and
Wordsworth, and in passages of other English poets — first and above all in
the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. Shakespeare has taught us how great men
should speak and act; he has drawn characters of a wonderful purity and
depth; he has ennobled the human mind, but, like Homer (Rep.), he ‘has left
no way of life.’ The next greatest poet of modern times, Goethe, is concerned
with ‘a lower degree of truth’; he paints the world as a stage on which ‘all the
men and women are merely players’; he cultivates life as an art, but he
furnishes no ideals of truth and action. The poet may rebel against any
attempt to set limits to his fancy; and he may argue truly that moralizing in
verse is not poetry. Possibly, like Mephistopheles in Faust, he may retaliate on
his adversaries. But the philosopher will still be justified in asking, ‘How may
the heavenly gift of poesy be devoted to the good of mankind?’
 Returning to Plato, we may observe that a similar mixture of truth and
error appears in other parts of the argument. He is aware of the absurdity of
mankind framing their whole lives according to Homer; just as in the
Phaedrus he intimates the absurdity of interpreting mythology upon rational
principles; both these were the modern tendencies of his own age, which he
deservedly ridicules. On the other hand, his argument that Homer, if he had
been able to teach mankind anything worth knowing, would not have been
allowed by them to go about begging as a rhapsodist, is both false and contrary
to the spirit of Plato (Rep.). It may be compared with those other paradoxes of
the Gorgias, that ‘No statesman was ever unjustly put to death by the city of
which he was the head’; and that ‘No Sophist was ever defrauded by his pupils’
(Gorg.) . . .
The argument for immortality seems to rest on the absolute dualism of
soul and body. Admitting the existence of the soul, we know of no force which
is able to put an end to her. Vice is her own proper evil; and if she cannot be
destroyed by that, she cannot be destroyed by any other. Yet Plato has
acknowledged that the soul may be so overgrown by the incrustations of earth
as to lose her original form; and in the Timaeus he recognizes more strongly
than in the Republic the influence which the body has over the mind, denying
even the voluntariness of human actions, on the ground that they proceed
from physical states (Tim.). In the Republic, as elsewhere, he wavers between
the original soul which has to be restored, and the character which is
developed by training and education . . .
The vision of another world is ascribed to Er, the son of Armenius, who is
said by Clement of Alexandria to have been Zoroaster. The tale has certainly
an oriental character, and may be compared with the pilgrimages of the soul in
the Zend Avesta (Haug, Avesta). But no trace of acquaintance with Zoroaster
is found elsewhere in Plato’s writings, and there is no reason for giving him
the name of Er the Pamphylian. The philosophy of Heracleitus cannot be
shown to be borrowed from Zoroaster, and still less the myths of Plato.
The local arrangement of the vision is less distinct than that of the
Phaedrus and Phaedo. Astronomy is mingled with symbolism and mythology;
the great sphere of heaven is represented under the symbol of a cylinder or
box, containing the seven orbits of the planets and the fixed stars; this is
suspended from an axis or spindle which turns on the knees of Necessity; the
revolutions of the seven orbits contained in the cylinder are guided by the
fates, and their harmonious motion produces the music of the spheres.
Through the innermost or eighth of these, which is the moon, is passed the
spindle; but it is doubtful whether this is the continuation of the column of
light, from which the pilgrims contemplate the heavens; the words of Plato
imply that they are connected, but not the same. The column itself is clearly
not of adamant. The spindle (which is of adamant) is fastened to the ends of
the chains which extend to the middle of the column of light — this column is
said to hold together the heaven; but whether it hangs from the spindle, or is
at right angles to it, is not explained. The cylinder containing the orbits of the
stars is almost as much a symbol as the figure of Necessity turning the spindle;
— for the outermost rim is the sphere of the fixed stars, and nothing is said
about the intervals of space which divide the paths of the stars in the heavens.
The description is both a picture and an orrery, and therefore is necessarily
inconsistent with itself. The column of light is not the Milky Way — which is
neither straight, nor like a rainbow — but the imaginary axis of the earth. This
is compared to the rainbow in respect not of form but of colour, and not to the
undergirders of a trireme, but to the straight rope running from prow to stern
in which the undergirders meet.
The orrery or picture of the heavens given in the Republic differs in its
mode of representation from the circles of the same and of the other in the
Timaeus. In both the fixed stars are distinguished from the planets, and they
move in orbits without them, although in an opposite direction: in the
Republic as in the Timaeus they are all moving round the axis of the world.
But we are not certain that in the former they are moving round the earth. No
distinct mention is made in the Republic of the circles of the same and other;
although both in the Timaeus and in the Republic the motion of the fixed stars
is supposed to coincide with the motion of the whole. The relative thickness of
the rims is perhaps designed to express the relative distances of the planets.
Plato probably intended to represent the earth, from which Er and his
companions are viewing the heavens, as stationary in place; but whether or
not herself revolving, unless this is implied in the revolution of the axis, is
uncertain (Timaeus). The spectator may be supposed to look at the heavenly
bodies, either from above or below. The earth is a sort of earth and heaven in
one, like the heaven of the Phaedrus, on the back of which the spectator goes
out to take a peep at the stars and is borne round in the revolution. There is no
distinction between the equator and the ecliptic. But Plato is no doubt led to
imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in
order to account for their appearances in the heavens. In the description of the
meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces
of Homer.
The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as
forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the
heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the
Fates. The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them
irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates — Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos,
are obviously derived from their names. The element of chance in human life
is indicated by the order of the lots. But chance, however adverse, may be
overcome by the wisdom of man, if he knows how to choose aright; there is a
worse enemy to man than chance; this enemy is himself. He who was
moderately fortunate in the number of the lot — even the very last comer —
might have a good life if he chose with wisdom. And as Plato does not like to
make an assertion which is unproven, he more than confirms this statement a
few sentences afterwards by the example of Odysseus, who chose last. But the
virtue which is founded on habit is not sufficient to enable a man to choose; he
must add to virtue knowledge, if he is to act rightly when placed in new
circumstances. The routine of good actions and good habits is an inferior sort
of goodness; and, as Coleridge says, ‘Common sense is intolerable which is not
based on metaphysics,’ so Plato would have said, ‘Habit is worthless which is
not based upon philosophy.’
The freedom of the will to refuse the evil and to choose the good is
distinctly asserted. ‘Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he
will have more or less of her.’ The life of man is ‘rounded’ by necessity; there
are circumstances prior to birth which affect him (Pol.). But within the walls of
necessity there is an open space in which he is his own master, and can study
for himself the effects which the variously compounded gifts of nature or
fortune have upon the soul, and act accordingly. All men cannot have the first
choice in everything. But the lot of all men is good enough, if they choose
wisely and will live diligently.
 The verisimilitude which is given to the pilgrimage of a thousand years, by
the intimation that Ardiaeus had lived a thousand years before; the
coincidence of Er coming to life on the twelfth day after he was supposed to
have been dead with the seven days which the pilgrims passed in the meadow,
and the four days during which they journeyed to the column of light; the
precision with which the soul is mentioned who chose the twentieth lot; the
passing remarks that there was no definite character among the souls, and
that the souls which had chosen ill blamed any one rather than themselves; or
that some of the souls drank more than was necessary of the waters of
Forgetfulness, while Er himself was hindered from drinking; the desire of
Odysseus to rest at last, unlike the conception of him in Dante and Tennyson;
the feigned ignorance of how Er returned to the body, when the other souls
went shooting like stars to their birth — add greatly to the probability of the
narrative. They are such touches of nature as the art of Defoe might have
introduced when he wished to win credibility for marvels and apparitions.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK I
OF WEALTH, JUSTICE, MODERATION, AND THEIR OPPOSITES
Persons of the Dialogue

SOCRATES, who is the narrator. CEPHALUS.

GLACON. THRASYMACHUS.
ADEIMANTUS. CLEITOPHON.
POLEMARCHUS.

And others who are mute auditors.

The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole
dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus
Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the
Timaeus.
I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, that I
might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in
what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was
delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was
equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed
the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant
Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, chanced to catch sight of us from a distance
as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us
wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said,
Polemarchus desires you to wait.
I turned round, and asked him where his master was.
There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.
Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus
appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus, the son of
Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.
Polemarchus said to me, I perceive, Socrates, that you and your
companion are already on your way to the city.
You are not far wrong, I said.
But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?
 Of course.
And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain
where you are.
May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us
go?
But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.
Certainly not, replied Glaucon.
Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.
Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in
honor of the goddess which will take place in the evening?
With horses! I replied. That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and
pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Polemarchus; and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at
night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see
this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good
talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.
Glaucon said, I suppose, since you insist, that we must.
Very good, I replied.
Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found
his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the
Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon, the son of
Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus, the father of Polemarchus, whom I had
not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on
a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing
in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a
semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then
he said:
You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still
able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can
hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus.
For, let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the
greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not, then, deny
my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these
young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us.
 I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than
conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a
journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether
the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. And this is a question
which I should like to ask of you, who have arrived at that time which the
poets call the "threshold of old age": Is life harder toward the end, or what
report do you give of it?
I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age
flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our
meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is: I cannot eat, I cannot
drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away; there was a good time
once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the
slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of
how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these
complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were
the cause, I too, being old, and every other old man would have felt as they do.
But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known.
How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the
question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles — are you still the man you
were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you
speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words
have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at
the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm
and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we
are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth
is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to
be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and
tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure
of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a
burden.
I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on
— Yes, Cephalus, I said; but I rather suspect that people in general are not
convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly
upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich,
and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
 You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something
in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them
as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that
he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: "If you
had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been
famous." And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same
reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden,
nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.
May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited
or acquired by you?
Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art
of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for
my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his
patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my
father, Lysanias, reduced the property below what it is at present; and I shall
be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less, but a little more, than I
received.
That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you
are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have
inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of
fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling
the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children,
besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common
to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk
about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said.
Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? — What do you
consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let
me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears
and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world
below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were
once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that
they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now
drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things;
suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and
consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum
of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his
sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is
conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse
of his age:
"Hope," he says, "cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and
holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey — hope
which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man."
How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not
say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive
or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he
departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due
to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the
possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one
thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a
man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest.
Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it? — to
speak the truth and to pay your debts — no more than this? And even to this
are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has
deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind,
ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I
should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always
to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.
You are quite right, he replied.
But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct
definition of justice.
Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus,
interposing.
I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the
sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company.
Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said.
To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.
Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and
according to you, truly say, about justice?
 He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to
me to be right.
I shall be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his
meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he
certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a
deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his
right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.
True.
Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no
means to make the return?
Certainly not.
When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not
mean to include that case?
Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a
friend, and never evil.
You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the
receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt — that is
what you would imagine him to say?
Yes.
And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?
To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them; and an enemy,
as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him — that is to
say, evil.
Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken
darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the
giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.
That must have been his meaning, he said.
By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is
given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would
make to us?
He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to
human bodies.
And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?
 Seasoning to food.
And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?
If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding
instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to
enemies.
That is his meaning, then?
I think so.
And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in
time of sickness?
The physician.
Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?
The pilot.
And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man
most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend?
In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other.
But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a
physician?
No.
And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot?
No.
Then in time of peace justice will be of no use?
I am very far from thinking so.
You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war?
Yes.
Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn?
Yes.
Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes — that is what you mean?
Yes.
And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?
In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use.
And by contracts you mean partnerships?
Exactly.
 But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at
a game of draughts?
The skilful player.
And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or
better partner than the builder?
Quite the reverse.
Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the
harp-player, as in playing the harp the harpplayer is certainly a better partner
than the just man?
In a money partnership.
Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want
a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who
is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?
Certainly.
And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be
better?
True.
Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be
preferred?
When you want a deposit to be kept safely.
You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie?
Precisely.
That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless?
That is the inference.
And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to
the individual and to the State; but when you want to use it, then the art of the
vine-dresser?
Clearly.
And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you
would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of
the soldier or of the musician?
Certainly.
 And so of all other things — justice is useful when they are useless, and
useless when they are useful?
That is the inference.
Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is
not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting
best able to ward off a blow?
Certainly.
And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best
able to create one?
True.
And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon
the enemy?
Certainly.
Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?
That, I suppose, is to be inferred.
Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.
That is implied in the argument.
Then after all, the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a
lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of
Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favorite of his,
affirms that
"He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury."
And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of
theft; to be practised, however, "for the good of friends and for the harm of
enemies"— that was what you were saying?
No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still
stand by the latter words.
Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those
who are so really, or only in seeming?
Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks
good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not
good seem to be so, and conversely?
 That is true.
Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends?
True.
And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the
good?
Clearly.
But the good are just and would not do an injustice?
True.
Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no
wrong?
Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral.
Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the
unjust?
I like that better.
But see the consequence: Many a man who is ignorant of human nature
has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them;
and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be
saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of
Simonides.
Very true, he said; and I think that we had better correct an error into
which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words "friend" and "enemy."
What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.
We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.
And how is the error to be corrected?
We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and
that he who seems only and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend;
and of an enemy the same may be said.
You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?
Yes.
And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to
our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do
good to our friends when they are good, and harm to our enemies when they
are evil?
 Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.
But ought the just to injure anyone at all?
Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his
enemies.
When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated?
The latter.
Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?
Yes, of horses.
And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?
Of course.
And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the
proper virtue of man?
Certainly.
And that human virtue is justice?
To be sure.
Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?
That is the result.
But can the musician by his art make men unmusical?
Certainly not.
Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?
Impossible.
And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can
the good by virtue make them bad?
Assuredly not.
Any more than heat can produce cold?
It cannot.
Or drought moisture?
Clearly not.
Nor can the good harm anyone?
Impossible.
And the just is the good?
Certainly.
 Then to injure a friend or anyone else is not the act of a just man, but of
the opposite, who is the unjust?
I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.
Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that
good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which
he owes to his enemies — to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has
been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just.
I agree with you, said Polemarchus.
Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against anyone who
attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise
man or seer?
I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said.
Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be?
Whose?
I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or
some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power,
was the first to say that justice is "doing good to your friends and harm to your
enemies."
Most true, he said.
Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other
can be offered?
Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an
attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by
the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus
and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his
peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to
devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.
He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken
possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one
another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not
only ask but answer, and you should not seek honor to yourself from the
refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one
who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is
duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will
not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy.
I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without
trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should
have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first,
and was therefore able to reply to him.
Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus
and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure
you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold,
you would not imagine that we were "knocking under to one another," and so
losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a
thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly
yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my
good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we
cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be
angry with us.
How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh; that's your
ironical style! Did I not foresee — have I not already told you, that whatever he
was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in
order that he might avoid answering?
You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you
ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom
you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four
times three, "for this sort of nonsense will not do for me"— then obviously, if
that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose
that he were to retort: " Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these
numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to
say some other number which is not the right one? — is that your meaning?"—
How would you answer him?
Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said.
Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only
appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks,
whether you and I forbid him or not?
I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers?
 I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I
approve of any of them.
But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said,
than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you?
Done to me! — as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise — that
is what I deserve to have done to me.
What, and no payment! A pleasant notion!
I will pay when I have the money, I replied.
But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be
under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for
Socrates.
Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does — refuse to
answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of someone else.
Why, my good friend, I said, how can anyone answer who knows, and says
that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his
own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that
the speaker should be someone like yourself who professes to know and can
tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the
company and of myself?
Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and
Thrasymachus, as anyone might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he
thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at
first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin.
Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes
about learning of others, to whom he never even says, Thank you.
That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I
wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I
have; and how ready I am to praise anyone who appears to me to speak well
you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer
well.
Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the
interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you
won't.
 Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of
the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean
to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and
finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is
therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just
for us?
That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which
is most damaging to the argument.
Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish
that you would be a little clearer.
Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ —
there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies?
Yes, I know.
And the government is the ruling power in each State?
Certainly.
And the different forms of government make laws democratical,
aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws,
which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they
deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a
breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all
States there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the
government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only
reasonable conclusion is that everywhere there is one principle of justice,
which is the interest of the stronger.
Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to
discover. But let me remark that in defining justice you have yourself used the
word "interest," which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your
definition the words "of the stronger" are added.
A small addition, you must allow, he said.
Great or small, never mind about that: we must first inquire whether what
you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of
some sort, but you go on to say "of the stronger"; about this addition I am not
so sure, and must therefore consider further.
Proceed.
 I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey
their rulers?
I do.
But are the rulers of States absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes
liable to err?
To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err?
Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and
sometimes not?
True.
When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest;
when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that?
Yes.
And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects — and
that is what you call justice?
Doubtless.
Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the
interest of the stronger, but the reverse?
What is that you are saying? he asked.
I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider:
Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own
interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not
that been admitted?
Yes.
Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of
the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done
which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which
the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there
any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not
what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?
Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus.
Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness.
 But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus
himself acknowledges that rulers may sometime command what is not for
their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice.
Yes, Polemarchus — Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was
commanded by their rulers is just.
Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger,
and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that
the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not
for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as
the interest of the stronger.
But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the
stronger thought to be his interest — this was what the weaker had to do; and
this was affirmed by him to be justice.
Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus.
Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his
statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the
stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not?
Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the
stronger at the time when he is mistaken?
Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the
ruler was not infallible, but might be sometimes mistaken.
You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he
who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he
who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the
time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say
that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but
this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor
any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name
implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease
to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what
his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the
common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a
lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is
unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own
interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore,
as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger.
Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an
informer?
Certainly, he replied.
And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring
you in the argument?
Nay, he replied, "suppose" is not the word — I know it; but you will be
found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail.
I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any
misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do
you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being
the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute — is he a ruler in the
popular or in the strict sense of the term?
In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer
if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never.
And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat
Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.
Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.
Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a
question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking,
a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now
speaking of the true physician.
A healer of the sick, he replied.
And the pilot — that is to say, the true pilot — is he a captain of sailors or a
mere sailor?
A captain of sailors.
The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account;
neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished
has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority
over the sailors.
Very true, he said.
Now, I said, every art has an interest?
 Certainly.
For which the art has to consider and provide?
Yes, that is the aim of art.
And the interest of any art is the perfection of it — this and nothing else?
What do you mean?
I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body.
Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is selfsufficing or has wants, I
should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require
to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers;
and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I
not right?
Quite right, he replied.
But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality
in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing,
and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and
hearing — has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and
does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests,
and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after
their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?
— having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the
exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the
interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while
remaining true — that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words
in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right.
Yes, clearly.
Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest
of the body?
True, he said.
Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of
horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for
themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject
of their art?
True, he said.
 But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their
own subjects?
To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance.
Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the
stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?
He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally
acquiesced.
Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers
his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true
physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere
money-maker; that has been admitted?
Yes.
And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors,
and not a mere sailor?
That has been admitted.
And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the
sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest?
He gave a reluctant "Yes."
Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he
is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is
for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that
alone he considers in everything which he says and does.
When we had got to this point in the argument, and everyone saw that the
definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of
replying to me, said, Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse?
Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be
answering?
Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not
even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.
What makes you say that? I replied.
Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the
sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or
his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, if they are true
rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying
their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in
your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the
just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and
stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite;
for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his
subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is
very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the
just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private
contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that,
when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the
just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-
tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of
income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and
the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is
the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and
getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by
his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But
all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of
injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most
apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest
form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the
sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable — that is
to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not
little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as
profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected
perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great
disgrace — they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of
temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a
man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them,
then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not
only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the
consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they
may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And
thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more
strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is
the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and
interest.
Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, deluged
our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not
let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I
myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us.
Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks!
And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned
whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life
so small a matter in your eyes — to determine how life may be passed by each
one of us to the greatest advantage?
And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the inquiry?
You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us,
Thrasymachus — whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you
say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep
your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you
confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that
I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than
justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that
there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or
force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice,
and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself.
Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that
we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice.
And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by
what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the
proof bodily into your souls?
Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you
change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark,
Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you
began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a
like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd
as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a
mere diner or banqueter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as
a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the
shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to
provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already insured
whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was
saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler,
considered as a ruler, whether in a State or in private life, could only regard
the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in
States, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority.
Think! Nay, I am sure of it.
Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly
without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not
of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several
arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my
dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little
progress.
Yes, that is the difference, he replied.
And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one —
medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on?
Yes, he said.
And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do
not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be
confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be
improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you? that
navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of
language?
Certainly not.
Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not
say that the art of payment is medicine?
I should not.
Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man
takes fees when he is engaged in healing?
Certainly not.
And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially
confined to the art?
Yes.
 Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be
attributed to something of which they all have the common use?
True, he replied.
And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained
by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him?
He gave a reluctant assent to this.
Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective
arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of
the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay.
The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over
which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless
he were paid as well?
I suppose not.
But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing?
Certainly, he confers a benefit.
Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts
nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before
saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the
weaker and not the stronger — to their good they attend and not to the good of
the superior.
And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now
saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the
reformation of evils which are not his concern, without remuneration. For, in
the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist
does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore
in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three
modes of payment, money, or honor, or a penalty for refusing.
What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of
payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand,
or how a penalty can be a payment.
You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to
the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that
ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace?
Very true.
 And for this reason, I said, money and honor have no attraction for them;
good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so
to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the
public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do
not care about honor. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they
must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine,
is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be
compelled, has been deemed dishonorable. Now the worst part of the
punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is
worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to
take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help — not under
the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but
as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to
anyone who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason
to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office
would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then
we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard
his own interest, but that of his subjects; and everyone who knew this would
choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of
conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is
the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed
at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more
advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a
far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of
life, Glaucon, do you prefer?
I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he
answered.
Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was
rehearsing?
Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me.
Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is
saying what is not true?
Most certainly, he replied.
If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the
advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a
numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and
in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our inquiry as
we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices
of judge and advocate in our own persons.
Very good, he said.
And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said.
That which you propose.
Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and
answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice?
Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons.
And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and
the other vice?
Certainly.
I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice?
What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be
profitable and justice not.
What else then would you say?
The opposite, he replied.
And would you call justice vice?
No, I would rather say sublime simplicity.
Then would you call injustice malignity?
No; I would rather say discretion.
And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?
Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust,
and who have the power of subduing States and nations; but perhaps you
imagine me to be talking of cutpurses.
Even this profession, if undetected, has advantages, though they are not to
be compared with those of which I was just now speaking.
I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I
replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with
wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite.
Certainly I do so class them.
 Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable
ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had
been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might
have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that you will
call injustice honorable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the
qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not
hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue.
You have guessed most infallibly, he replied.
Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the
argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are
speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are
not amusing yourself at our expense.
I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you? — to refute the
argument is your business.
Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as
answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage
over the just?
Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature
which he is.
And would he try to go beyond just action?
He would not.
And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the
unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust?
He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would
not be able.
Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My
question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than
another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust?
Yes, he would.
And what of the unjust — does he claim to have more than the just man
and to do more than is just?
Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men.
And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the just
man or action, in order that he may have more than all?
 True.
We may put the matter thus, I said — the just does not desire more than
his like, but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both
his like and his unlike?
Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement.
And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither?
Good again, he said.
And is not the unjust like the wise and good, and the just unlike them?
Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a
certain nature; he who is not, not.
Each of them, I said, is such as his like is?
Certainly, he replied.
Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you
would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician?
Yes.
And which is wise and which is foolish?
Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish.
And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish?
Yes.
And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician?
Yes.
And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the
lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening
and loosening the strings?
I do not think that he would.
But he would claim to exceed the non-musician?
Of course.
And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks
would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of
medicine?
He would not.
But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician?
 Yes.
And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think
that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying
or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say
or do the same as his like in the same case?
That, I suppose, can hardly be denied.
And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either
the knowing or the ignorant?
I dare say.
And the knowing is wise?
Yes.
And the wise is good?
True.
Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but
more than his unlike and opposite?
I suppose so.
Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both?
Yes.
But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his
like and unlike? Were not these your words?
They were.
And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like, but his unlike?
Yes.
Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and
ignorant?
That is the inference.
And each of them is such as his like is?
That was admitted.
Then the just has turned out to be wise and good, and the unjust evil and
ignorant.
Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them,
but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration
poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before,
Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and
wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point:
Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not
also saying that injustice had strength — do you remember?
Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you
are saying or have no answer; if, however, I were to answer, you would be
quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have
my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer "Very good," as
they say to story-telling old women, and will nod "Yes" and "No."
Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion.
Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else
would you have?
Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you
shall answer.
Proceed.
Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our
examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on
regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful
than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is
easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no
longer be questioned by anyone. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus,
in a different way: You would not deny that a State may be unjust and may be
unjustly attempting to enslave other States, or may have already enslaved
them, and may be holding many of them in subjection?
True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust
State will be most likely to do so.
I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further
consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior State can
exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice.
If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice;
but if I am right, then without justice.
I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and
dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent.
That is out of civility to you, he replied.
 You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform
me, whether you think that a State, or an army, or a band of robbers and
thieves, or any other gang of evildoers could act at all if they injured one
another? No, indeed, he said, they could not.
But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act
together better?
Yes.
And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting,
and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus?
I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.
How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice,
having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or
among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance
and render them incapable of common action?
Certainly.
And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight,
and become enemies to one another and to the just?
They will.
And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say
that she loses or that she retains her natural power?
Let us assume that she retains her power.
Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that
wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or
in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united
action by reason of sedition and distraction? and does it not become its own
enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this
the case?
Yes, certainly.
And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person — in the
first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with
himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the
just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus?
Yes. And, O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just?
 Granted that they are. But, if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods,
and the just will be their friends?
Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not
oppose you, lest I should displease the company. Well, then, proceed with your
answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already
shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and
that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay, more, that to speak as we
did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly
true, for, if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one
another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in
them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have
injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their
enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would
have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the
matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and
happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to
consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but
still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing
less than the rule of human life.
Proceed.
I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has
some end?
I should.
And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not
be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?
I do not understand, he said.
Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye?
Certainly not.
Or hear, except with the ear?
No. These, then, may be truly said to be the ends of these organs?
They may.
But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in
many other ways?
Of course.
 And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose?
True.
May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook?
We may.
Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning
when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which
could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?
I understand your meaning, he said, and assent.
And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask
again whether the eye has an end?
It has.
And has not the eye an excellence?
Yes.
And the ear has an end and an excellence also?
True.
And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and
a special excellence?
That is so.
Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own
proper excellence and have a defect instead?
How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see?
You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight;
but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more
generally, and only inquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil
them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own
defect?
Certainly, he replied.
I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper
excellence they cannot fulfil their end?
True.
And the same observation will apply to all other things?
I agree.
 Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for
example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not
these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any
other?
To no other.
And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul?
Assuredly, he said.
And has not the soul an excellence also?
Yes.
And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that
excellence?
She cannot.
Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent,
and the good soul a good ruler?
Yes, necessarily.
And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and
injustice the defect of the soul?
That has been admitted.
Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will
live ill?
That is what your argument proves.
And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse
of happy?
Certainly.
Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?
So be it.
But happiness, and not misery, is profitable?
Of course.
Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable
than justice.
Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea.
For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle
toward me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well
entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a
taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having
allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject
to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of
justice. I left that inquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue
and wisdom, or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about
the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from
passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know
nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to
know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is
happy or unhappy.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK I
OF WEALTH, JUSTICE, MODERATION, AND THEIR OPPOSITES
Persons of the Dialogue

SOCRATES, who is the narrator. CEPHALUS.

GLACON. THRASYMACHUS.
ADEIMANTUS. CLEITOPHON.
POLEMARCHUS.

And others who are mute auditors.

The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole
dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus
Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the
Timaeus.
I WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, that I
might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in
what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was
delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was
equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed
the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant
Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, chanced to catch sight of us from a distance
as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us
wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said,
Polemarchus desires you to wait.
I turned round, and asked him where his master was.
There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait.
Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus
appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus, the son of
Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession.
Polemarchus said to me, I perceive, Socrates, that you and your
companion are already on your way to the city.
You are not far wrong, I said.
But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are?
 Of course.
And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain
where you are.
May there not be the alternative, I said, that we may persuade you to let us
go?
But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he said.
Certainly not, replied Glaucon.
Then we are not going to listen; of that you may be assured.
Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in
honor of the goddess which will take place in the evening?
With horses! I replied. That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and
pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Polemarchus; and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at
night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see
this festival; there will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good
talk. Stay then, and do not be perverse.
Glaucon said, I suppose, since you insist, that we must.
Very good, I replied.
Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and there we found
his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and with them Thrasymachus the
Chalcedonian, Charmantides the Paeanian, and Cleitophon, the son of
Aristonymus. There too was Cephalus, the father of Polemarchus, whom I had
not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was seated on
a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing
in the court; and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a
semicircle, upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then
he said:
You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought: If I were still
able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me. But at my age I can
hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus.
For, let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the
greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not, then, deny
my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these
young men; we are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us.
 I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than
conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a
journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether
the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. And this is a question
which I should like to ask of you, who have arrived at that time which the
poets call the "threshold of old age": Is life harder toward the end, or what
report do you give of it?
I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age
flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our
meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is: I cannot eat, I cannot
drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away; there was a good time
once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the
slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of
how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these
complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were
the cause, I too, being old, and every other old man would have felt as they do.
But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known.
How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the
question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles — are you still the man you
were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you
speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words
have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at
the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm
and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we
are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth
is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to
be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and
tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure
of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a
burden.
I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that he might go on
— Yes, Cephalus, I said; but I rather suspect that people in general are not
convinced by you when you speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly
upon you, not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich,
and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
 You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and there is something
in what they say; not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them
as Themistocles answered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that
he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: "If you
had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been
famous." And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same
reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden,
nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself.
May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited
or acquired by you?
Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I acquired? In the art
of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather: for
my grandfather, whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his
patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now; but my
father, Lysanias, reduced the property below what it is at present; and I shall
be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less, but a little more, than I
received.
That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because I see that you
are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have
inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of
fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling
the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children,
besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common
to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk
about nothing but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said.
Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? — What do you
consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let
me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears
and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world
below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were
once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that
they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now
drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things;
suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and
consider what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum
of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his
sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is
conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse
of his age:
"Hope," he says, "cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and
holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey — hope
which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man."
How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not
say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive
or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he
departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due
to the gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the
possession of wealth greatly contributes; and therefore I say, that, setting one
thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give, to a
man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest.
Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it? — to
speak the truth and to pay your debts — no more than this? And even to this
are there not exceptions? Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has
deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind,
ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I
should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always
to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.
You are quite right, he replied.
But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct
definition of justice.
Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus,
interposing.
I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look after the
sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polemarchus and the company.
Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said.
To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices.
Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and
according to you, truly say, about justice?
 He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to
me to be right.
I shall be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his
meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he
certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a
deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his
right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.
True.
Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no
means to make the return?
Certainly not.
When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not
mean to include that case?
Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a
friend, and never evil.
You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the
receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt — that is
what you would imagine him to say?
Yes.
And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?
To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them; and an enemy,
as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him — that is to
say, evil.
Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken
darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the
giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.
That must have been his meaning, he said.
By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is
given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would
make to us?
He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to
human bodies.
And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?
 Seasoning to food.
And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?
If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding
instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to
enemies.
That is his meaning, then?
I think so.
And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in
time of sickness?
The physician.
Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?
The pilot.
And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man
most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend?
In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other.
But when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a
physician?
No.
And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot?
No.
Then in time of peace justice will be of no use?
I am very far from thinking so.
You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war?
Yes.
Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn?
Yes.
Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes — that is what you mean?
Yes.
And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?
In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use.
And by contracts you mean partnerships?
Exactly.
 But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at
a game of draughts?
The skilful player.
And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or
better partner than the builder?
Quite the reverse.
Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the
harp-player, as in playing the harp the harpplayer is certainly a better partner
than the just man?
In a money partnership.
Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want
a just man to be your counsellor in the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who
is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?
Certainly.
And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be
better?
True.
Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be
preferred?
When you want a deposit to be kept safely.
You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie?
Precisely.
That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless?
That is the inference.
And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to
the individual and to the State; but when you want to use it, then the art of the
vine-dresser?
Clearly.
And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you
would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of
the soldier or of the musician?
Certainly.
 And so of all other things — justice is useful when they are useless, and
useless when they are useful?
That is the inference.
Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is
not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting
best able to ward off a blow?
Certainly.
And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best
able to create one?
True.
And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon
the enemy?
Certainly.
Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?
That, I suppose, is to be inferred.
Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.
That is implied in the argument.
Then after all, the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a
lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of
Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favorite of his,
affirms that
"He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury."
And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of
theft; to be practised, however, "for the good of friends and for the harm of
enemies"— that was what you were saying?
No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still
stand by the latter words.
Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those
who are so really, or only in seeming?
Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks
good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not
good seem to be so, and conversely?
 That is true.
Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends?
True.
And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the
good?
Clearly.
But the good are just and would not do an injustice?
True.
Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no
wrong?
Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral.
Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the
unjust?
I like that better.
But see the consequence: Many a man who is ignorant of human nature
has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them;
and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be
saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of
Simonides.
Very true, he said; and I think that we had better correct an error into
which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words "friend" and "enemy."
What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.
We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.
And how is the error to be corrected?
We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and
that he who seems only and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend;
and of an enemy the same may be said.
You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?
Yes.
And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to
our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do
good to our friends when they are good, and harm to our enemies when they
are evil?
 Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.
But ought the just to injure anyone at all?
Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his
enemies.
When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated?
The latter.
Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?
Yes, of horses.
And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?
Of course.
And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the
proper virtue of man?
Certainly.
And that human virtue is justice?
To be sure.
Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?
That is the result.
But can the musician by his art make men unmusical?
Certainly not.
Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?
Impossible.
And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can
the good by virtue make them bad?
Assuredly not.
Any more than heat can produce cold?
It cannot.
Or drought moisture?
Clearly not.
Nor can the good harm anyone?
Impossible.
And the just is the good?
Certainly.
 Then to injure a friend or anyone else is not the act of a just man, but of
the opposite, who is the unjust?
I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.
Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that
good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which
he owes to his enemies — to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has
been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just.
I agree with you, said Polemarchus.
Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against anyone who
attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise
man or seer?
I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said.
Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be?
Whose?
I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or
some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power,
was the first to say that justice is "doing good to your friends and harm to your
enemies."
Most true, he said.
Yes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other
can be offered?
Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an
attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by
the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus
and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his
peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to
devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.
He roared out to the whole company: What folly, Socrates, has taken
possession of you all? And why, sillybillies, do you knock under to one
another? I say that if you want really to know what justice is, you should not
only ask but answer, and you should not seek honor to yourself from the
refutation of an opponent, but have your own answer; for there is many a one
who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you say that justice is
duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, for this sort of nonsense will
not do for me; I must have clearness and accuracy.
I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him without
trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my eye upon him, I should
have been struck dumb: but when I saw his fury rising, I looked at him first,
and was therefore able to reply to him.
Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us. Polemarchus
and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument, but I can assure
you that the error was not intentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold,
you would not imagine that we were "knocking under to one another," and so
losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are seeking for justice, a
thing more precious than many pieces of gold, do you say that we are weakly
yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth? Nay, my
good friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact is that we
cannot. And if so, you people who know all things should pity us and not be
angry with us.
How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh; that's your
ironical style! Did I not foresee — have I not already told you, that whatever he
was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in
order that he might avoid answering?
You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you
ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom
you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four
times three, "for this sort of nonsense will not do for me"— then obviously, if
that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose
that he were to retort: " Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these
numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to
say some other number which is not the right one? — is that your meaning?"—
How would you answer him?
Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said.
Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only
appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks,
whether you and I forbid him or not?
I presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers?
 I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I
approve of any of them.
But what if I give you an answer about justice other and better, he said,
than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you?
Done to me! — as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from the wise — that
is what I deserve to have done to me.
What, and no payment! A pleasant notion!
I will pay when I have the money, I replied.
But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon: and you, Thrasymachus, need be
under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for
Socrates.
Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does — refuse to
answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of someone else.
Why, my good friend, I said, how can anyone answer who knows, and says
that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he has some faint notions of his
own, is told by a man of authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that
the speaker should be someone like yourself who professes to know and can
tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for the edification of the
company and of myself?
Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and
Thrasymachus, as anyone might see, was in reality eager to speak; for he
thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at
first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin.
Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes
about learning of others, to whom he never even says, Thank you.
That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I
wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I
have; and how ready I am to praise anyone who appears to me to speak well
you will very soon find out when you answer; for I expect that you will answer
well.
Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the
interest of the stronger. And now why do you not praise me? But of course you
won't.
 Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, is the interest of
the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean
to say that because Polydamas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and
finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef is
therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, and right and just
for us?
That's abominable of you, Socrates; you take the words in the sense which
is most damaging to the argument.
Not at all, my good sir, I said; I am trying to understand them; and I wish
that you would be a little clearer.
Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ —
there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies?
Yes, I know.
And the government is the ruling power in each State?
Certainly.
And the different forms of government make laws democratical,
aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws,
which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they
deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a
breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all
States there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the
government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only
reasonable conclusion is that everywhere there is one principle of justice,
which is the interest of the stronger.
Now I understand you, I said; and whether you are right or not I will try to
discover. But let me remark that in defining justice you have yourself used the
word "interest," which you forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your
definition the words "of the stronger" are added.
A small addition, you must allow, he said.
Great or small, never mind about that: we must first inquire whether what
you are saying is the truth. Now we are both agreed that justice is interest of
some sort, but you go on to say "of the stronger"; about this addition I am not
so sure, and must therefore consider further.
Proceed.
 I will; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey
their rulers?
I do.
But are the rulers of States absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes
liable to err?
To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err?
Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and
sometimes not?
True.
When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest;
when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that?
Yes.
And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects — and
that is what you call justice?
Doubtless.
Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the
interest of the stronger, but the reverse?
What is that you are saying? he asked.
I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider:
Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own
interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not
that been admitted?
Yes.
Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of
the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done
which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which
the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there
any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not
what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger?
Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus.
Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be his witness.
 But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for Thrasymachus
himself acknowledges that rulers may sometime command what is not for
their own interest, and that for subjects to obey them is justice.
Yes, Polemarchus — Thrasymachus said that for subjects to do what was
commanded by their rulers is just.
Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger,
and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that
the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not
for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as
the interest of the stronger.
But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger what the
stronger thought to be his interest — this was what the weaker had to do; and
this was affirmed by him to be justice.
Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus.
Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us accept his
statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you mean by justice what the
stronger thought to be his interest, whether really so or not?
Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who is mistaken the
stronger at the time when he is mistaken?
Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the
ruler was not infallible, but might be sometimes mistaken.
You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for example, that he
who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken? or that he
who errs in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the
time when he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake? True, we say
that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake, but
this is only a way of speaking; for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor
any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name
implies; they none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they cease
to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what
his name implies; though he is commonly said to err, and I adopted the
common mode of speaking. But to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a
lover of accuracy, we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is
unerring, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for his own
interest; and the subject is required to execute his commands; and therefore,
as I said at first and now repeat, justice is the interest of the stronger.
Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to argue like an
informer?
Certainly, he replied.
And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring
you in the argument?
Nay, he replied, "suppose" is not the word — I know it; but you will be
found out, and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail.
I shall not make the attempt, my dear man; but to avoid any
misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, in what sense do
you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest, as you were saying, he being
the superior, it is just that the inferior should execute — is he a ruler in the
popular or in the strict sense of the term?
In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and play the informer
if you can; I ask no quarter at your hands. But you never will be able, never.
And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat
Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.
Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.
Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask you a
question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking,
a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that I am now
speaking of the true physician.
A healer of the sick, he replied.
And the pilot — that is to say, the true pilot — is he a captain of sailors or a
mere sailor?
A captain of sailors.
The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account;
neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished
has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority
over the sailors.
Very true, he said.
Now, I said, every art has an interest?
 Certainly.
For which the art has to consider and provide?
Yes, that is the aim of art.
And the interest of any art is the perfection of it — this and nothing else?
What do you mean?
I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the body.
Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is selfsufficing or has wants, I
should reply: Certainly the body has wants; for the body may be ill and require
to be cured, and has therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers;
and this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will acknowledge. Am I
not right?
Quite right, he replied.
But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality
in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing,
and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and
hearing — has art in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and
does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests,
and that another and another without end? Or have the arts to look only after
their own interests? Or have they no need either of themselves or of another?
— having no faults or defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the
exercise of their own art or of any other; they have only to consider the
interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains pure and faultless while
remaining true — that is to say, while perfect and unimpaired. Take the words
in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right.
Yes, clearly.
Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest
of the body?
True, he said.
Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of
horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for
themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject
of their art?
True, he said.
 But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and rulers of their
own subjects?
To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance.
Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the
stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker?
He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but finally
acquiesced.
Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, considers
his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of his patient; for the true
physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject, and is not a mere
money-maker; that has been admitted?
Yes.
And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a ruler of sailors,
and not a mere sailor?
That has been admitted.
And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the
sailor who is under him, and not for his own or the ruler's interest?
He gave a reluctant "Yes."
Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he
is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is
for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that
alone he considers in everything which he says and does.
When we had got to this point in the argument, and everyone saw that the
definition of justice had been completely upset, Thrasymachus, instead of
replying to me, said, Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse?
Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be
answering?
Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not
even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.
What makes you say that? I replied.
Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the
sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or
his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, if they are true
rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying
their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in
your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the
just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and
stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite;
for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his
subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is
very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the
just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private
contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that,
when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the
just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-
tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of
income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and
the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is
the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and
getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by
his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But
all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of
injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most
apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest
form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the
sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable — that is
to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not
little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as
profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected
perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great
disgrace — they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of
temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a
man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them,
then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not
only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the
consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they
may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And
thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more
strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is
the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and
interest.
Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, deluged
our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not
let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I
myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us.
Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your remarks!
And are you going to run away before you have fairly taught or learned
whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life
so small a matter in your eyes — to determine how life may be passed by each
one of us to the greatest advantage?
And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the inquiry?
You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us,
Thrasymachus — whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you
say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep
your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you
confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that
I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than
justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that
there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or
force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice,
and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself.
Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that
we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice.
And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by
what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the
proof bodily into your souls?
Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you
change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark,
Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you
began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a
like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd
as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a
mere diner or banqueter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as
a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the
shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects; he has only to
provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art is already insured
whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied. And that was what I was
saying just now about the ruler. I conceived that the art of the ruler,
considered as a ruler, whether in a State or in private life, could only regard
the good of his flock or subjects; whereas you seem to think that the rulers in
States, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in authority.
Think! Nay, I am sure of it.
Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly
without payment, unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not
of themselves but of others? Let me ask you a question: Are not the several
arts different, by reason of their each having a separate function? And, my
dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may make a little
progress.
Yes, that is the difference, he replied.
And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one —
medicine, for example, gives us health; navigation, safety at sea, and so on?
Yes, he said.
And the art of payment has the special function of giving pay: but we do
not confuse this with other arts, any more than the art of the pilot is to be
confused with the art of medicine, because the health of the pilot may be
improved by a sea voyage. You would not be inclined to say, would you? that
navigation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your exact use of
language?
Certainly not.
Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not
say that the art of payment is medicine?
I should not.
Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man
takes fees when he is engaged in healing?
Certainly not.
And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is specially
confined to the art?
Yes.
 Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, that is to be
attributed to something of which they all have the common use?
True, he replied.
And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained
by an additional use of the art of pay, which is not the art professed by him?
He gave a reluctant assent to this.
Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective
arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine gives health, and the art of
the builder builds a house, another art attends them which is the art of pay.
The various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over
which they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless
he were paid as well?
I suppose not.
But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing?
Certainly, he confers a benefit.
Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts
nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before
saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the
weaker and not the stronger — to their good they attend and not to the good of
the superior.
And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now
saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the
reformation of evils which are not his concern, without remuneration. For, in
the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist
does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore
in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three
modes of payment, money, or honor, or a penalty for refusing.
What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of
payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty is I do not understand,
or how a penalty can be a payment.
You mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to
the best men is the great inducement to rule? Of course you know that
ambition and avarice are held to be, as indeed they are, a disgrace?
Very true.
 And for this reason, I said, money and honor have no attraction for them;
good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so
to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the
public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do
not care about honor. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they
must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine,
is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be
compelled, has been deemed dishonorable. Now the worst part of the
punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is
worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to
take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help — not under
the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but
as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to
anyone who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason
to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office
would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then
we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard
his own interest, but that of his subjects; and everyone who knew this would
choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of
conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is
the interest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further discussed
at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more
advantageous than that of the just, his new statement appears to me to be of a
far more serious character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort of
life, Glaucon, do you prefer?
I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous, he
answered.
Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was
rehearsing?
Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me.
Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we can, that he is
saying what is not true?
Most certainly, he replied.
If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the
advantages of being just, and he answers and we rejoin, there must be a
numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side, and
in the end we shall want judges to decide; but if we proceed in our inquiry as
we lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite the offices
of judge and advocate in our own persons.
Very good, he said.
And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said.
That which you propose.
Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the beginning and
answer me. You say that perfect injustice is more gainful than perfect justice?
Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons.
And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and
the other vice?
Certainly.
I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice?
What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be
profitable and justice not.
What else then would you say?
The opposite, he replied.
And would you call justice vice?
No, I would rather say sublime simplicity.
Then would you call injustice malignity?
No; I would rather say discretion.
And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?
Yes, he said; at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust,
and who have the power of subduing States and nations; but perhaps you
imagine me to be talking of cutpurses.
Even this profession, if undetected, has advantages, though they are not to
be compared with those of which I was just now speaking.
I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasymachus, I
replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement that you class injustice with
wisdom and virtue, and justice with the opposite.
Certainly I do so class them.
 Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unanswerable
ground; for if the injustice which you were maintaining to be profitable had
been admitted by you as by others to be vice and deformity, an answer might
have been given to you on received principles; but now I perceive that you will
call injustice honorable and strong, and to the unjust you will attribute all the
qualities which were attributed by us before to the just, seeing that you do not
hesitate to rank injustice with wisdom and virtue.
You have guessed most infallibly, he replied.
Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through with the
argument so long as I have reason to think that you, Thrasymachus, are
speaking your real mind; for I do believe that you are now in earnest and are
not amusing yourself at our expense.
I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you? — to refute the
argument is your business.
Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you be so good as
answer yet one more question? Does the just man try to gain any advantage
over the just?
Far otherwise; if he did he would not be the simple amusing creature
which he is.
And would he try to go beyond just action?
He would not.
And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage over the
unjust; would that be considered by him as just or unjust?
He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage; but he would
not be able.
Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the point. My
question is only whether the just man, while refusing to have more than
another just man, would wish and claim to have more than the unjust?
Yes, he would.
And what of the unjust — does he claim to have more than the just man
and to do more than is just?
Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men.
And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the just
man or action, in order that he may have more than all?
 True.
We may put the matter thus, I said — the just does not desire more than
his like, but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both
his like and his unlike?
Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement.
And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither?
Good again, he said.
And is not the unjust like the wise and good, and the just unlike them?
Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are of a
certain nature; he who is not, not.
Each of them, I said, is such as his like is?
Certainly, he replied.
Very good, Thrasymachus, I said; and now to take the case of the arts: you
would admit that one man is a musician and another not a musician?
Yes.
And which is wise and which is foolish?
Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish.
And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as he is foolish?
Yes.
And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician?
Yes.
And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when he adjusts the
lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go beyond a musician in the tightening
and loosening the strings?
I do not think that he would.
But he would claim to exceed the non-musician?
Of course.
And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing meats and drinks
would he wish to go beyond another physician or beyond the practice of
medicine?
He would not.
But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician?
 Yes.
And about knowledge and ignorance in general; see whether you think
that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to have the choice of saying
or doing more than another man who has knowledge. Would he not rather say
or do the same as his like in the same case?
That, I suppose, can hardly be denied.
And what of the ignorant? would he not desire to have more than either
the knowing or the ignorant?
I dare say.
And the knowing is wise?
Yes.
And the wise is good?
True.
Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his like, but
more than his unlike and opposite?
I suppose so.
Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than both?
Yes.
But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes beyond both his
like and unlike? Were not these your words?
They were.
And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like, but his unlike?
Yes.
Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and
ignorant?
That is the inference.
And each of them is such as his like is?
That was admitted.
Then the just has turned out to be wise and good, and the unjust evil and
ignorant.
Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I repeat them,
but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot summer's day, and the perspiration
poured from him in torrents; and then I saw what I had never seen before,
Thrasymachus blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and
wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to another point:
Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled; but were we not
also saying that injustice had strength — do you remember?
Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you
are saying or have no answer; if, however, I were to answer, you would be
quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have
my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer "Very good," as
they say to story-telling old women, and will nod "Yes" and "No."
Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion.
Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me speak. What else
would you have?
Nothing in the world, I said; and if you are so disposed I will ask and you
shall answer.
Proceed.
Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our
examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on
regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful
than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is
easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no
longer be questioned by anyone. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus,
in a different way: You would not deny that a State may be unjust and may be
unjustly attempting to enslave other States, or may have already enslaved
them, and may be holding many of them in subjection?
True, he replied; and I will add that the best and most perfectly unjust
State will be most likely to do so.
I know, I said, that such was your position; but what I would further
consider is, whether this power which is possessed by the superior State can
exist or be exercised without justice or only with justice.
If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then only with justice;
but if I am right, then without justice.
I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and
dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent.
That is out of civility to you, he replied.
 You are very kind, I said; and would you have the goodness also to inform
me, whether you think that a State, or an army, or a band of robbers and
thieves, or any other gang of evildoers could act at all if they injured one
another? No, indeed, he said, they could not.
But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act
together better?
Yes.
And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting,
and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus?
I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.
How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also whether injustice,
having this tendency to arouse hatred, wherever existing, among slaves or
among freemen, will not make them hate one another and set them at variance
and render them incapable of common action?
Certainly.
And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not quarrel and fight,
and become enemies to one another and to the just?
They will.
And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would your wisdom say
that she loses or that she retains her natural power?
Let us assume that she retains her power.
Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a nature that
wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, in an army, in a family, or
in any other body, that body is, to begin with, rendered incapable of united
action by reason of sedition and distraction? and does it not become its own
enemy and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is not this
the case?
Yes, certainly.
And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single person — in the
first place rendering him incapable of action because he is not at unity with
himself, and in the second place making him an enemy to himself and the
just? Is not that true, Thrasymachus?
Yes. And, O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just?
 Granted that they are. But, if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods,
and the just will be their friends?
Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; I will not
oppose you, lest I should displease the company. Well, then, proceed with your
answers, and let me have the remainder of my repast. For we have already
shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and
that the unjust are incapable of common action; nay, more, that to speak as we
did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly
true, for, if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one
another; but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in
them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have
injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half-villains in their
enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would
have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the
matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just have a better and
happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to
consider. I think that they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but
still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing
less than the rule of human life.
Proceed.
I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has
some end?
I should.
And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not
be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?
I do not understand, he said.
Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye?
Certainly not.
Or hear, except with the ear?
No. These, then, may be truly said to be the ends of these organs?
They may.
But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a chisel, and in
many other ways?
Of course.
 And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the purpose?
True.
May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook?
We may.
Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning
when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which
could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?
I understand your meaning, he said, and assent.
And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence? Need I ask
again whether the eye has an end?
It has.
And has not the eye an excellence?
Yes.
And the ear has an end and an excellence also?
True.
And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and
a special excellence?
That is so.
Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in their own
proper excellence and have a defect instead?
How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see?
You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight;
but I have not arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more
generally, and only inquire whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil
them by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own
defect?
Certainly, he replied.
I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper
excellence they cannot fulfil their end?
True.
And the same observation will apply to all other things?
I agree.
 Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil? for
example, to superintend and command and deliberate and the like. Are not
these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any
other?
To no other.
And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul?
Assuredly, he said.
And has not the soul an excellence also?
Yes.
And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived of that
excellence?
She cannot.
Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and superintendent,
and the good soul a good ruler?
Yes, necessarily.
And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and
injustice the defect of the soul?
That has been admitted.
Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will
live ill?
That is what your argument proves.
And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives ill the reverse
of happy?
Certainly.
Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable?
So be it.
But happiness, and not misery, is profitable?
Of course.
Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable
than justice.
Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the Bendidea.
For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle
toward me and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well
entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a
taste of every dish which is successively brought to table, he not having
allowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from one subject
to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of
justice. I left that inquiry and turned away to consider whether justice is virtue
and wisdom, or evil and folly; and when there arose a further question about
the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not refrain from
passing on to that. And the result of the whole discussion has been that I know
nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to
know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is
happy or unhappy.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK II
THE INDIVIDUAL, THE STATE, AND EDUCATION
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)
WITH these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the
discussion; but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning. For Glaucon,
who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus's
retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he said to me: Socrates, do
you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to
be just is always better than to be unjust?
I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could.
Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you now: How would
you arrange goods — are there not some which we welcome for their own
sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless
pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing
follows from them?
I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied.
Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health,
which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?
Certainly, I said.
And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care
of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making —
these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would
choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or
result which flows from them?
There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask?
Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place
justice?
In the highest class, I replied — among those goods which he who would
be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results.
 Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be
reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for
the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and
rather to be avoided.
I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the
thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured
justice and praised injustice. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.
I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see
whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have
been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been; but to my
mind the nature of justice and injustice has not yet been made clear. Setting
aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves,
and how they inwardly work in the soul. If you please, then, I will revive the
argument of Thrasymachus. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of
justice according to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that all
men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a
good. And thirdly, I will argue that there is reason in this view, for the life of
the unjust is after all better far than the life of the just — if what they say is
true, Socrates, since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge
that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus and myriads of
others dinning in my ears; and, on the other hand, I have never yet heard the
superiority of justice to injustice maintained by anyone in a satisfactory way. I
want to hear justice praised in respect of itself; then I shall be satisfied, and
you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to hear this; and
therefore I will praise the unjust life to the utmost of my power, and my
manner of speaking will indicate the manner in which I desire to hear you too
praising justice and censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of
my proposal?
Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a man of sense
would oftener wish to converse.
I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin by speaking,
as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice.
They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil;
but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done
and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid
the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among
themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and
that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they
affirm to be the origin and nature of justice; it is a mean or compromise,
between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the
worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and
justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but
as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of men to do injustice.
For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an
agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the
received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.
Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and because they
have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of
this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they
will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover
in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road,
following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only
diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are
supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power
as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian.
According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the King of
Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the
earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he
descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow
brazen horse, having doors, at which he, stooping and looking in, saw a dead
body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human and having nothing on
but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now
the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their
monthly report about the flocks to the King; into their assembly he came
having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to
turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible
to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no
longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he
turned the collet outward and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring,
and always with the same result — when he turned the collet inward he
became invisible, when outward he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be
chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he
arrived he seduced the Queen, and with her help conspired against the King
and slew him and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such
magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man
can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in
justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could
safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with
anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in
all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions of the just would be as
the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And
this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or
because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity,
for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For
all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the
individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say
that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of
becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was
another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot,
although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up
appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
Enough of this.
Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we
must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be
effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man
entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are to
be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust
be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician,
who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who,
if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his
unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his
injustice (he who is found out is nobody): for the highest reach of injustice is,
to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly
unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no
deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have
acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he
must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if
any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is
required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends.
And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity,
wishing, as AEschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no
seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then
we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of
honor and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no
other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the
former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he
will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by
the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour
of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the
uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment
be given which of them is the happier of the two.
Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up
for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues.
I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they are like there is no
difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. This I will
proceed to describe; but as you may think the description a little too coarse, I
ask you to suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine. Let me
put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: They will tell you that
the just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound — will
have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will
be impaled. Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not to be,
just; the words of AEschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust than of
the just. For the unjust is pursuing a reality; he does not live with a view to
appearances — he wants to be really unjust and not to seem only —
"His mind has a soil deep and fertile, Out of which spring his prudent
counsels."
In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule in the city; he
can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will; also he can
trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he
has no misgivings about injustice; and at every contest, whether in public or
private, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their expense, and is
rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies;
moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly
and magnificently, and can honor the gods or any man whom he wants to
honor in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is likely to be dearer
than they are to the gods. And thus, Socrates, gods and men are said to unite
in making the life of the unjust better than the life of the just.
I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his
brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is
nothing more to be urged?
Why, what else is there? I answered.
The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied.
Well, then, according to the proverb, "Let brother help brother"— if he
fails in any part, do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has
already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of
helping justice.
Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is another
side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of justice and
injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be
his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards
that they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of
character and reputation; in the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed just
some of those offices, marriages, and the like which Glaucon has enumerated
among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice.
More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the
others; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a
shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious; and
this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of
whom says that the gods make the oaks of the just —
"To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle; And the sheep
are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces,"
and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. And Homer
has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one whose fame is
 "As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice; to
whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed
with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish."
Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his son vouchsafe
to the just; they take them down into the world below, where they have the
saints lying on couches at a feast, everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands;
their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed
of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the posterity, as they say, of
the faithful and just shall survive to the third and fourth generation. This is the
style in which they praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain;
they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry water in a sieve;
also while they are yet living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them
the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are
reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their
manner of praising the one and censuring the other.
Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking
about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in
prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice
and virtue are honorable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of
vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and
opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than
dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honor
them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way
influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor,
even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most
extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they
say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good
and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors
and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of
making an atonement for a man's own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or
charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy,
whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations
binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the
authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the
words of Hesiod:
 "Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and
her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil,"
and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the
gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:
"The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them
and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations
and the odor of fat, when they have sinned and trangressed."
And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who
were children of the Moon and the muses — that is what they say — according
to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but
whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices
and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the
living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us
from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us.
He proceeded: And now when the young hear all this said about virtue and
vice, and the way in which gods and men regard them, how are their minds
likely to be affected, my dear Socrates — those of them, I mean, who are quick-
witted, and, like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that they
hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should
be and in what way they should walk if they would make the best of life?
Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar:
"Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which
may be a fortress to me all my days?"
For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just,
profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable.
But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is
promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes
over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will
describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and
exterior of my house; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as
Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear someone exclaiming
that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer,
Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would
be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to
concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And
there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and
assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make
unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods
cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no
gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things — why in either case
should we mind about concealment? And even if there are gods, and they do
care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of
the poets; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced
and turned by "sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings." Let us be
consistent, then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why,
then, we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are
just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains
of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning
and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we
shall not be punished. "But there is a world below in which either we or our
posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds." Yes, my friend, will be the
reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great
power. That is what mighty cities declare; and the children of the gods, who
were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony.
On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the
worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to
appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and
after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing
all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or
rank or wealth, be willing to honor justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing
when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be someone who is
able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best,
still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because
he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless,
peradventure, there be someone whom the divinity within him may have
inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth
— but no other man. He only blames injustice, who, owing to cowardice or age
or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the
fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as
he can be.
 The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the
argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find
that of all the professing panegyrists of justice — beginning with the ancient
heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the
men of our own time — no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice
except with a view to the glories, honors, and benefits which flow from them.
No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true
essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any
human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he
has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil. Had
this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our
youth upward, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another
from doing wrong, but everyone would have been his own watchman, because
afraid, if he did wrong, of harboring in himself the greatest of evils. I dare say
that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have
been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and
injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this
vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I want to hear
from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not only the
superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have on the
possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to
him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations; for
unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the
false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we
shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you
really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and
the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and
interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that
justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired, indeed, for their
results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes — like sight or hearing
or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely
conventional good — I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one
point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work
in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice,
magnifying the rewards and honors of the one and abusing the other; that is a
manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from
you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question,
unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And
therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but
show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the
one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and
men.
I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on
hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious
father, that was not a bad beginning of the elegiac verses which the admirer of
Glaucon made in honor of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the
battle of Megara:
"Sons of Ariston," he sang, "divine offspring of an illustrious hero."
The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being
able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining
unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not
convinced — this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only
from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my
confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am
in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task;
and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied
with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the
superiority which justice has over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help,
while breath and speech remain to me; I am afraid that there would be an
impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a
hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I can.
Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question
drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth,
first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their
relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the inquiry would
be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said,
that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I
may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by
someone to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to someone else
that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the
letters were larger — if they were the same and he could read the larger letters
first, and then proceed to the lesser — this would have been thought a rare
piece of good-fortune.
Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our
inquiry?
I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our inquiry, is, as
you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes
as the virtue of a State.
True, he replied.
And is not a State larger than an individual?
It is.
Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more
easily discernible. I propose therefore that we inquire into the nature of justice
and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual,
proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.
That, he said, is an excellent proposal.
And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice
and injustice of the State in process of creation also.
I dare say.
When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our
search will be more easily discovered.
Yes, far more easily.
But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am
inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.
I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should
proceed.
A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is
self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be
imagined?
There can be no other.
Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply
them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when
these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of
inhabitants is termed a State.
 True, he said.
And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives,
under the idea that the exchange will be for their good.
Very true.
Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true
creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.
Of course, he replied.
Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of
life and existence.
Certainly.
The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.
True.
And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand:
We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, someone
else a weaver — shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other
purveyor to our bodily wants?
Quite right.
The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.
Clearly.
And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labors into a
common stock? — the individual husbandman, for example, producing for
four, and laboring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision
of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have
nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but
provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the
remaining three-fourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat
or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all
his own wants?
Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at
producing everything.
Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say
this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of
natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.
 Very true.
And will you have a work better done when the workman has many
occupations, or when he has only one?
When he has only one.
Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the
right time?
No doubt.
For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at
leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business
his first object.
He must.
And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and
easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to
him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly.
Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will
not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if
they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools — and
he, too, needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker.
True.
Then carpenters and smiths and many other artisans will be sharers in our
little State, which is already beginning to grow?
True.
Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order
that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as
husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and
hides — still our State will not be very large.
That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all
these.
Then, again, there is the situation of the city — to find a place where
nothing need be imported is well-nigh impossible.
Impossible.
Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required
supply from another city?
 There must.
But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require
who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed.
That is certain.
And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for
themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those
from whom their wants are supplied.
Very true.
Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?
They will.
Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?
Yes.
Then we shall want merchants?
We shall.
And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be
needed, and in considerable numbers?
Yes, in considerable numbers.
Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To
secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal
objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.
Clearly they will buy and sell.
Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of
exchange.
Certainly.
Suppose now that a husbandman or an artisan brings some production to
market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him —
is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?
Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the
office of salesmen. In well-ordered States they are commonly those who are
the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other
purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for
goods to those who desire to sell, and to take money from those who desire to
buy.
 This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not
"retailer" the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place
engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to
another are called merchants?
Yes, he said.
And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the
level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labor,
which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, "hire"
being the name which is given to the price of their labor.
True.
Then hirelings will help to make up our population?
Yes.
And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?
I think so.
Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the
State did they spring up?
Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot
imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else.
I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think
the matter out, and not shrink from the inquiry.
Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we
have thus established them. Will they not produce corn and wine and clothes
and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they
will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter
substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of
wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they
will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the
while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will
feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their
heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one
another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means;
having an eye to poverty or war.
But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their
meal.
 True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish — salt
and olives and cheese — and they will boil roots and herbs such as country
people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs and peas and beans; and
they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation.
And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a
good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else
would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life.
People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off
tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me
consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and
possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to
see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy
constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also
to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will
not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas and
tables and other furniture; also dainties and perfumes and incense and
courtesans and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety. We
must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as
houses and clothes and shoes; the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will
have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be
procured.
True, he said.
Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no
longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of
callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of
hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colors;
another will be the votaries of music — poets and their attendant train of
rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of
articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not
tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as
well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed
and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed
now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other
kinds, if people eat them.
Certainly.
And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than
before?
Much greater.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will
be too small now, and not enough?
Quite true.
Then a slice of our neighbors' land will be wanted by us for pasture and
tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the
limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of
wealth?
That, Socrates, will be inevitable.
And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?
Most certainly, he replied. Then, without determining as yet whether war
does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered
war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils
in States, private as well as public.
Undoubtedly.
And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will
be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the
invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we
were describing above.
Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?
No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged
by all of us when we were framing the State. The principle, as you will
remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success.
Very true, he said.
But is not war an art?
Certainly.
And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?
 Quite true.
And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a
weaver, or a builder — in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to
him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by
nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no
other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good
workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier
should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a
warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although
no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took
up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted
himself to this and nothing else?
No tools will make a man a skilled workman or master of defence, nor be
of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never
bestowed any attention upon them. How, then, will he who takes up a shield
or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with
heavyarmed or any other kind of troops?
Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be
beyond price.
And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time and skill
and art and application will be needed by him?
No doubt, he replied.
Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?
Certainly.
Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the
task of guarding the city?
It will.
And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and
do our best.
We must.
Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and
watching?
What do you mean?
 I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake
the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him,
they have to fight with him.
All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?
Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any
other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is
spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be
absolutely fearless and indomitable?
I have.
Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required
in the guardian.
True.
And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?
Yes.
But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and
with everybody else?
A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.
Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle
to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their
enemies to destroy them.
True, he said.
What is to be done, then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which
has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?
True.
He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two
qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and
hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.
I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.
Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded. My
friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of
the image which we had before us.
 What do you mean? he said.
I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite
qualities.
And where do you find them?
Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a
very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their
familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.
Yes, I know.
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our
finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?
Certainly not.
Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature,
need to have the qualities of a philosopher?
I do not apprehend your meaning.
The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog,
and is remarkable in the animal.
What trait?
Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance,
he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the
other any good. Did this never strike you as curious?
The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognize the truth of your
remark.
And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; your dog is a true
philosopher.
Why?
Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by
the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover
of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge
and ignorance?
Most assuredly.
And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?
They are the same, he replied.
 And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be
gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom
and knowledge?
That we may safely affirm.
Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will
require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?
Undoubtedly.
Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found
them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an inquiry which
may be expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our final end —
How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to
omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient
length.
Adeimantus thought that the inquiry would be of great service to us.
Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if
somewhat long.
Certainly not.
Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story
shall be the education of our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the
traditional sort? — and this has two divisions, gymnastics for the body, and
music for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastics afterward?
By all means.
And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not?
I do.
And literature may be either true or false?
Yes.
And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the
false?
I do not understand your meaning, he said.
 You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though
not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are
told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics.
Very true.
That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before
gymnastics.
Quite right, he said.
You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work,
especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which
the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily
taken.
Quite true.
And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which
may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the
most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when
they are grown up?
We cannot.
Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of
fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject
the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the
authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more
fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are
now in use must be discarded.
Of what tales are you speaking? he said.
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are
necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them.
Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the
greater.
Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of
the poets, who have ever been the great storytellers of mankind.
But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with
them?
A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is
more, a bad lie.
 But when is this fault committed?
Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and
heroes — as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a
likeness to the original.
Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what are the
stories which you mean?
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which
the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too — I mean what Hesiod
says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of
Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if
they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless
persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an
absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a
mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some
huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be
very few indeed.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.
Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the
young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far
from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when
he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of
the first and greatest among the gods.
I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite
unfit to be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling
among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them
of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one
another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the
giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about
the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and
relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is
unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between
citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children;
and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose them in a
similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or
how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she
was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer — these tales must
not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an
allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is
allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that
age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most
important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of
virtuous thoughts.
There you are right, he replied; but if anyone asks where are such models
to be found and of what tales are you speaking — how shall we answer him?
I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but
founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general
forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be
observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business.
Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean?
Something of this kind, I replied: God is always to be represented as he
truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric, or tragic, in which the
representation is given.
Right.
And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such?
Certainly.
And no good thing is hurtful?
No, indeed.
And that which is not hurtful hurts not?
Certainly not.
And that which hurts not does no evil?
No.
And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil?
Impossible.
And the good is advantageous?
Yes.
And therefore the cause of well-being?
Yes.
 It follows, therefore, that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the
good only?
Assuredly.
Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert,
but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to
men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the
good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought
elsewhere, and not in him.
That appears to me to be most true, he said.
Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the
folly of saying that two casks
"Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil
lots,"
and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two
"Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;"
but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,
"Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth."
And again —
"Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us."
And if anyone asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was
really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that
the strife and contention of the gods were instigated by Themis and Zeus, he
shall not have our approval; neither will we allow our young men to hear the
words of AEschylus, that
"God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house."
And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe — the subject of the tragedy
in which these iambic verses occur — or of the house of Pelops, or of the
Trojan War or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that
these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some
explanation of them such as we are seeking: he must say that God did what
was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those
who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery —
the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are
miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving
punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to anyone
is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or
prose by anyone whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth.
Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to
which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform — that God is not the
author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask you whether God
is a magician, and of a nature to appear insidiously now in one shape, and now
in another — sometimes himself changing and passing into many forms,
sometimes deceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is he
one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image?
I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must be
effected either by the thing itself or by some other thing?
Most certainly.
And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or
discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is
least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the
fullest vigor also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar
causes.
Of course.
And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by
any external influence?
True.
And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all composite
things — furniture, houses, garments: when good and well made, they are least
altered by time and circumstances.
Very true.
Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is
least liable to suffer change from without?
True.
 But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect?
Of course they are.
Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many
shapes?
He cannot.
But may he not change and transform himself?
Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all.
And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse
and more unsightly?
If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose
him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would anyone, whether God or man,
desire to make himself worse?
Impossible.
Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as
is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains
absolutely and forever in his own form.
That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that
"The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and
down cities in all sorts of forms;"
and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let anyone, either in
tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness
of a priestess asking an alms
"For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;"
— let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have mothers
under the influence of the poets scaring their children with a bad version of
these myths — telling how certain gods, as they say, "Go about by night in the
likeness of so many strangers and in divers forms;" but let them take heed lest
they make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak blasphemy
against the gods.
Heaven forbid, he said.
 But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by witchcraft and
deception they may make us think that they appear in various forms?
Perhaps, he replied.
Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, whether in word
or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself?
I cannot say, he replied.
Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expression may be
allowed, is hated of gods and men?
What do you mean? he said.
I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and
highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above
all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.
Still, he said, I do not comprehend you.
The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound meaning to my
words; but I am only saying that deception, or being deceived or uninformed
about the highest realities in the highest part of themselves, which is the soul,
and in that part of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like;
— that, I say, is what they utterly detest.
There is nothing more hateful to them.
And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul of him who is
deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie in words is only a kind of
imitation and shadowy image of a previous affection of the soul, not pure
unadulterated falsehood. Am I not right?
Perfectly right.
The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men?
Yes.
Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful; in
dealing with enemies — that would be an instance; or again, when those whom
we call our friends in a fit of madness or illusion are going to do some harm,
then it is useful and is a sort of medicine or preventive; also in the tales of
mythology, of which we were just now speaking — because we do not know the
truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much like truth as we can,
and so turn it to account.
Very true, he said.
 But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we suppose that he is
ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse to invention?
That would be ridiculous, he said.
Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God?
I should say not.
Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies?
That is inconceivable.
But he may have friends who are senseless or mad?
But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God.
Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie?
None whatever.
Then the superhuman, and divine, is absolutely incapable of falsehood?
Yes.
Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes
not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.
Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own.
You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in
which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not
magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any
way.
I grant that.
Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying
dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of
AEschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials
"was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and
to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed
of heaven, he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought
that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail.
And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the
banquet, and who said this — he it is who has slain my son."
These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our
anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we
allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning,
as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers
of the gods and like them.
I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my
laws.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK III
THE ARTS IN EDUCATION
(SOCRATES, ADEIMANTUS.)
SUCH, then, I said, are our principles of theology — some tales are to be
told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upward, if
we mean them to honor the gods and their parents, and to value friendship
with one another.
Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.
But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons beside
these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any
man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?
Certainly not, he said.
And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather
than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible?
Impossible.
Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as
well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile, but rather to
commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are
untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors.
That will be our duty, he said.
Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages,
beginning with the verses
"I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than
rule over all the dead who have come to naught."
We must also expunge the verse which tells us how Pluto feared
"Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen
both of mortals and immortals."
And again:
"O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but
no mind at all!"
 Again of Tiresias:
"[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone
should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades."
Again:
"The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamentng her fate,
leaving manhood and youth."
Again:
"And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth."
And,
"As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped
out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another,
so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved."
And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike
out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or
unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of
them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be
free, and who should fear slavery more than death.
Undoubtedly.
Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which
describe the world below — Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and
sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a
shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say
that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a
danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and
effeminate by them.
There is a real danger, he said.
Then we must have no more of them.
True.
Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.
Clearly.
And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous
men?
They will go with the rest.
 But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that
the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his
comrade.
Yes; that is our principle.
And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had
suffered anything terrible?
He will not.
Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own
happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.
True, he said.
And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of
fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.
Assuredly.
And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the
greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him.
Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.
Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men,
and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for
anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us
to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like.
That will be very right.
Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict
Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back,
and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores
of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands and pouring
them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which
Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam, the kinsman of the
gods, as praying and beseeching,
"Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name."
Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the
gods lamenting and saying,
"Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow."
 But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so
completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say —
"O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased
round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful."
Or again:
"Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me,
subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius."
For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy
representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly
will any of them deem that he himself, being but a man, can be dishonored by
similar actions; neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his
mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame or self-control,
he will be always whining and lamenting on slight occasions.
Yes, he said, that is most true.
Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the argument has
just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until it is disproved by a
better.
It ought not to be.
Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter
which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction.
So I believe.
Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented
as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods
be allowed.
Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied.
Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as
that of Homer when he describes how
"Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw
Hephaestus bustling about the mansion."
On your views, we must not admit them.
On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit
them is certain.
 Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless
to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such
medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no
business with them.
Clearly not, he said.
Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State
should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with
their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else
should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this
privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more
heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the
truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a
sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of
the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow-sailors.
Most true, he said.
If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,
"Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter,"
he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive
and destructive of ship or State.
Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out.
In the next place our youth must be temperate?
Certainly.
Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience
to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures?
True.
Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,
"Friend sit still and obey my word,"
and the verses which follow,
"The Greeks marched breathing prowess,"
" . . . in silent awe of their leaders."
and other sentiments of the same kind.
We shall.
What of this line,
 "O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag,"
and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar
impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their
rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken?
They are ill spoken.
They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce
to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young men —
you would agree with me there?
Yes.
And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion
is more glorious than
"When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries
round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups;"
is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such words?
or the verse
"The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger"?
What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and
men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but forgot
them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely overcome at the
sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her
on the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of rapture
before, even when they first met one another,
"Without the knowledge of their parents"
or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a
chain around Ares and Aphrodite?
Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that
sort of thing.
But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these
they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the verses,
"He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart;
far worse hast thou endured!"
Certainly, he said.
 In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of
money.
Certainly not.
Neither must we sing to them of
"Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings."
Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to have
given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take the gifts of
the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he should not lay aside his
anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to have been
such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's gifts, or that when he had
received payment he restored the dead body of Hector, but that without
payment he was unwilling to do so.
Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.
Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these feelings
to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to him, he is guilty of
downright impiety. As little can I believe the narrative of his insolence to
Apollo, where he says,
"Thou hast wronged me, O Far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily I
would be even with thee, if I had only the power;"
or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready to lay
hands; or his offerings to the dead Patroclus of his own hair, which had been
previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius, and that he actually
performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus,
and slaughtered the captives at the pyre; of all this I cannot believe that he was
guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise
Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of
men and third in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at
one time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not
untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and men.
You are quite right, he replied.
And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of
Theseus, son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous, son of Zeus, going forth as they did
to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do
such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day:
and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were done
by them, or that they were not the sons of God; both in the same breath they
shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our
youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than
men — sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we
have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods.
Assuredly not. And, further, they are likely to have a bad effect on those
who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is
convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by
"The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar, the
altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,"
and who have
"the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins."
And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of
morals among the young.
By all means, he replied.
But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to
be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in
which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated
has been already laid down.
Very true.
And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of
our subject.
Clearly so.
But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my
friend.
Why not?
Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men; poets
and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell
us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that
injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss
and another's gain — these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command
them to sing and say the opposite.
To be sure we shall, he replied.
 But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have
implied the principle for which we have been all along contending.
I grant the truth of your inference.
That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which
we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how
naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.
Most true, he said.
Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when
this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely
treated.
I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus.
Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible
if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology
and poetry are a narration of events, either past, present, or to come?
Certainly, he replied.
And narration may be either simple narration or imitation, or a union of
the two? That, again, he said, I do not quite understand.
I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in
making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the
whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning.
You know the first lines of the "Iliad," in which the poet says that Chryses
prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a
passion with him; whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger
of the god against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines,
"And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the
chiefs of the people,"
the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose that
he is anyone else. But in what follows he takes the person of Chryses, and then
he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but
the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire
narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout
the "Odyssey."
Yes.
 And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites
from time to time and in the intermediate passages?
Quite true.
But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he
assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to
speak?
Certainly.
And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or
gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes?
Of course.
Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way
of imitation?
Very true.
Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again
the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However,
in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more
say, "I don't understand," I will show how the change might be effected. If
Homer had said, "The priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands,
supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings;" and then if, instead of
speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the
words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage
would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre): "The
priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might
capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him
back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the
god. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But
Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the
staff and chaplets of the god should be of no avail to him — the daughter of
Chryses should not be released, he said — she should grow old with him in
Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended
to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and silence, and,
when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names,
reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in
building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds
might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the
arrows of the god"— and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple
narrative.
I understand, he said.
Or you may suppose the opposite case — that the intermediate passages
are omitted, and the dialogue only left.
That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in tragedy.
You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you
failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and
mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative — instances of this are supplied
by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet
is the only speaker — of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the
combination of both is found in epic and in several other styles of poetry. Do I
take you with me?
Yes, he said; I see now what you meant.
I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done
with the subject and might proceed to the style.
Yes, I remember.
In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding
about the mimetic art — whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be
allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the
latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited?
You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted
into our State?
Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not
know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go.
And go we will, he said.
Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be
imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid
down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he
attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?
Certainly.
And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things
as well as he would imitate a single one?
 He cannot.
Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and
at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for
even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot
succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy — did you
not just now call them imitations?
Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot
succeed in both.
Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?
True.
Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but
imitations.
They are so.
And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet
smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of
performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.
Quite true, he replied.
If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our
guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves
wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and
engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to
practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate
from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their
profession — the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they
should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness,
lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never
observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life,
at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice,
and mind?
Yes, certainly, he said.
Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of
whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether
young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against
the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or
weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labor.
Very right, he said.
Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices
of slaves?
They must not.
And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the
reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one
another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other manner sin against
themselves and their neighbors in word or deed, as the manner of such is.
Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or
women who are mad or bad; for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to
be practised or imitated.
Very true, he replied.
Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or
boatswains, or the like?
How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to
the callings of any of these?
Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the
murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing?
Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behavior
of madmen.
You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort of
narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has
anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite
character and education.
And which are these two sorts? he asked.
Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration
comes on some saying or action of another good man — I should imagine that
he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation:
he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly
and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or
has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is
unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a
person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is
performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part
which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself
after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest,
to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it.
So I should expect, he replied.
Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of
Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there
will be very little of the former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree?
Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily
take.
But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and, the
worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too bad for him:
and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good
earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt
to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of
wheels, and pulleys, and the various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all
sorts of instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a
cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will
be very little narration.
That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.
These, then, are the two kinds of style?
Yes.
And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has
but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their
simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty
much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony
(for the changes are not great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly
the same rhythm?
That is quite true, he said.
Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms,
if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of
changes.
That is also perfectly true, he replied.
 And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all
poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything
except in one or other of them or in both together.
They include all, he said.
And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the
two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?
I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.
Yes, I said, Adeimantus; but the mixed style is also very charming: and
indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the
most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in
general.
I do not deny it.
But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State,
in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part
only?
Yes; quite unsuitable.
And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find
a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a
husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader
also, and the same throughout?
True, he said.
And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so
clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to
exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet
and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State
such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when
we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we
shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls'
health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style
of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first
when we began the education of our soldiers.
We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.
 Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which
relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished; for the matter
and manner have both been discussed.
I think so too, he said.
Next in order will follow melody and song.
That is obvious. Everyone can see already what we ought to say about
them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves.
I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word "everyone" hardly includes
me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though I may guess.
At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts — the words, the
melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose?
Yes, he said; so much as that you may.
And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words
which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same laws,
and these have been already determined by us?
Yes.
And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words?
Certainly.
We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no
need of lamentation and strains of sorrow?
True.
And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and
can tell me.
The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the
full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like.
These then, I said, must be banished; they are of no use, even to women
who have a character to maintain, and much less to men. Certainly.
In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly
unbecoming the character of our guardians.
Utterly unbecoming.
And which are the soft or drinking harmonies?
The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed "relaxed."
Well, and are these of any military use?
 Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so, the Dorian and the Phrygian are
the only ones which you have left.
I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one
warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of
danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to
wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis
meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure; and
another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there
is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or
man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is
expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition,
and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end,
not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the
circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to
leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the
unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the
strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.
And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I
was just now speaking.
Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and
melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale?
I suppose not.
Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and
complex scales, or the makers of any other manystringed, curiously
harmonized instruments?
Certainly not.
But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit
them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the
flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even the
panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?
Clearly not.
There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the
shepherds may have a pipe in the country.
That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.
 The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his
instruments is not at all strange, I said.
Not at all, he replied.
And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the
State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.
And we have done wisely, he replied.
Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonies,
rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for
we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind,
but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and
harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and
the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody.
To say what these rhythms are will be your duty — you must teach me them, as
you have already taught me the harmonies.
But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some
three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in
sounds there are four notes out of which all the harmonies are composed; that
is an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are
severally the imitations I am unable to say.
Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us
what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other
unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite
feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a
complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in
some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in
the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating; and, unless I am
mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned
to them short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or
censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a
combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These matters,
however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself, for the
analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know?
Rather so, I should say.
 But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace is an
effect of good or bad rhythm.
None at all.
And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad
style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style; for our
principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the
words by them.
Just so, he said, they should follow the words.
And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the
temper of the soul?
Yes.
And everything else on the style?
Yes.
Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on
simplicity — I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind
and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly?
Very true, he replied.
And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these
graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?
They must.
And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive
art are full of them — weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of
manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable — in all of them there is grace
or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion
are nearly allied to ill-words and ill-nature, as grace and harmony are the twin
sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness.
That is quite true, he said.
But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be
required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they
do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the same control to be
extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting
the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in
sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot
conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practising his art in our
State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have
our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious
pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day
by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption
in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the
true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of
health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and
beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a
health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from
earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.
There can be no nobler training than that, he replied.
And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more potent
instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into
the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace,
and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is
ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true
education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in
art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and
receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly
blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to
know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the
friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.
Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be
trained in music and on the grounds which you mention.
Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the
letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and
combinations; not slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space
large or small, but everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking
ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognize them wherever they
are found: True —
Or, as we recognize the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror,
only when we know the letters themselves; the same art and study giving us
the knowledge of both: Exactly —
Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to
educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms
of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as
the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognize them and
their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things
or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study.
Most assuredly.
And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two
are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to
see it?
The fairest indeed.
And the fairest is also the loveliest?
That may be assumed.
And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the
loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul?
That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any
merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the
same.
I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I
agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity
to temperance?
How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his
faculties quite as much as pain.
Or any affinity to virtue in general?
None whatever.
Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance?
Yes, the greatest.
And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love?
No, nor a madder.
Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order — temperate and
harmonious?
Quite true, he said.
Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to approach true
love?
Certainly not.
 Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near
the lover and his beloved; neither of them can have any part in it if their love is
of the right sort?
No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them.
Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a
law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a
father would use to his son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must
first have the other's consent; and this rule is to limit him in all his
intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to
be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste.
I quite agree, he said.
Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what should be the
end of music if not the love of beauty?
I agree, he said.
After music comes gymnastics, in which our youth are next to be trained.
Certainly. Gymnastics as well as music should begin in early years; the
training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my
belief is — and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion
in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is — not that the good body by
any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good
soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible.
What do you say?
Yes, I agree.
Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right in handing
over the more particular care of the body; and in order to avoid prolixity we
will now only give the general outlines of the subject.
Very good.
That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by
us; for of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know
where in the world he is.
Yes, he said; that a guardian should require another guardian to take care
of him is ridiculous indeed.
But next, what shall we say of their food; for the men are in training for
the great contest of all — are they not?
 Yes, he said.
And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them?
Why not?
I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy
sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these
athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if
they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen?
Yes, I do.
Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior
athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost
keenness; amid the many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat
and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign, they
must not be liable to break down in health.
That is my view.
The really excellent gymnastics is twin sister of that simple music which
we were just now describing.
How so?
Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastics which, like our music, is simple
and good; and especially the military gymnastics.
What do you mean?
My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, feeds his heroes
at their feasts, when they are campaigning, on soldiers' fare; they have no fish,
although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed
boiled meats, but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers,
requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving the trouble of
carrying about pots and pans.
True.
And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere
mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular; all
professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition
should take nothing of the kind.
Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not taking them.
Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the refinements of
Sicilian cookery?
 I think not.
Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a
Corinthian girl as his fair friend?
Certainly not.
Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of
Athenian confectionery?
Certainly not.
All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and
song composed in the panharmonic style, and in all the rhythms. Exactly.
There complexity engendered license, and here disease; whereas
simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity in
gymnastics of health in the body.
Most true, he said.
But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice
and medicine are always being opened; and the arts of the doctor and the
lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only
the slaves but the freemen of a city take about them.
Of course.
And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of
education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need
the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess
to have had a liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of the
want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and
physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender
himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over
him?
Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful.
Would you say "most," I replied, when you consider that there is a further
stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-long litigant, passing all his
days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his
bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master
in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of
every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all
for what? — in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not
knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is
a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful?
Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful.
Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to
be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a
habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters
and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of
Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is
not this, too, a disgrace?
Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to
diseases.
Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the
days of Asclepius; and this I infer from the circumstance that the hero
Eurypylus, after he has been wounded in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian
wine well besprinkled with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly
inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan war do not
blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus, who is
treating his case.
Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a
person in his condition.
Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as
is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not
practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate
diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution,
by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first
and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world.
How was that? he said.
By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal disease which he
perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his
entire life as a valetudinarian; he could do nothing but attend upon himself,
and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his
usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old
age.
A rare reward of his skill!
 Yes, I said; a reward which a man might fairly expect who never
understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in
valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of
such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered States
every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore
no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the
artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the
richer sort.
How do you mean? he said.
I mean this: When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and
ready cure; an emetic or a purge or a cautery or the knife — these are his
remedies. And if someone prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells
him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he
replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life
which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary
employment; and therefore bidding good-by to this sort of physician, he
resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his
business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble.
Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of
medicine thus far only.
Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would there be in his life
if he were deprived of his occupation?
Quite true, he said.
But with the rich man this is otherwise; of him we do not say that he has
any specially appointed work which he must perform, if he would live.
He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.
Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as soon as a man
has a livelihood he should practise virtue?
Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner.
Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said; but rather ask
ourselves: Is the practise of virtue obligatory on the rich man, or can he live
without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question,
whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of
the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally stand in
the way of the sentiment of Phocylides?
Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt; such excessive care of the body,
when carried beyond the rules of gymnastics, is most inimical to the practice
of virtue.
Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a
house, an army, or an office of state; and, what is most Important of all,
irreconcileable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection — there is a
constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to
philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher
sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made
ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body.
Yes, likely enough.
And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the
power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution
and habits of life, had a definite ailment; such as these he cured by purges and
operations, and bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the
State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and through he would
not have attempted to cure by gradual processes of evacuation and infusion:
he did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers
begetting weaker sons; — if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he
had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either
to himself, or to the State.
Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman.
Clearly; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they
were heroes in the days of old and practised the medicines of which I am
speaking at the siege of Troy: You will remember how, when Pandarus
wounded Menelaus, they
"Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies,"
but they never prescribed what the patient was afterward to eat or drink in
the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypylus; the remedies, as
they conceived, were enough to heal any man who before he was wounded was
healthy and regular in his habits; and even though he did happen to drink a
posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have
nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no
use either to themselves or others; the art of medicine was not designed for
their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would
have declined to attend them.
They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius.
Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pindar disobeying
our behests, although they acknowledge that Asclepius was the son of Apollo,
say also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of
death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance
with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell
us both; if he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious; or,
if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god.
All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a question to you:
Ought there not to be good physicians in a State, and are not the best those
who have treated the greatest number of constitutions, good and bad? and are
not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of
moral natures?
Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you
know whom I think good?
Will you tell me?
I will, if I can. Let me, however, note that in the same question you join
two things which are not the same.
How so? he asked.
Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful
physicians are those who, from their youth upward, have combined with the
knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease; they had better not
be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own
persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they
cure the body; in that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been
sickly; but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become
and is sick can cure nothing.
That is very true, he said.
But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he
ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have
associated with them from youth upward, and to have gone through the whole
calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others
as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the
honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no
experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason
why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised
upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their
own souls.
Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived.
Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned
to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the
nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal
experience.
Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.
Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your
question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious
nature of which we spoke — he who has committed many crimes, and fancies
himself to be a master in wickedness — when he is among his fellows, is
wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by
himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the
experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable
suspicions; he cannot recognize an honest man, because he has no pattern of
honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the
good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others
thought to be, rather wise than foolish.
Most true, he said.
Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but
the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by
time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not
the vicious, man has wisdom — in my opinion.
And in mine also.
This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which you will
sanction in your State. They will minister to better natures, giving health both
of soul and of body; but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave
to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves.
That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the State.
And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music
which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law.
Clearly.
And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practise
the simple gymnastics, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some
extreme case.
That I quite believe.
The very exercises and toils which he undergoes are intended to stimulate
the spirited element of his nature, and not to increase his strength; he will not,
like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develop his muscles.
Very right, he said.
Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastics really designed, as is
often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training
of the body.
What then is the real object of them?
I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the
improvement of the soul.
How can that be? he asked.
Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive
devotion to gymnastics, or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to
music?
In what way shown? he said.
The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the other of softness
and effeminacy, I replied.
Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a
savage, and that the mere musician IS melted and softened beyond what is
good for him.
Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly
educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become
hard and brutal.
 That I quite think.
On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And
this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated
rightly, will be gentle and moderate.
True.
And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities?
Assuredly.
And both should be in harmony?
Beyond question.
And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous?
Yes.
And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish?
Very true.
And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul
through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy airs of
which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed in warbling and
the delights of song; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which
is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brittle and useless.
But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process, in the next stage he
begins to melt and waste, until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the
sinews of his soul; and he becomes a feeble warrior.
Very true.
If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change is speedily
accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of music weakening
the spirit renders him excitable; on the least provocation he flames up at once,
and is speedily extinguished; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and
passionate and is quite impractical.
Exactly.
And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder,
and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy, at first the high
condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the
man that he was.
Certainly.
 And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no converse with the
muses, does not even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no
taste of any sort of learning or inquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and
dull and blind, his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his
senses not being purged of their mists?
True, he said.
And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using
the weapon of persuasion — he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness,
and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil
conditions, and has no sense of propriety and grace.
That is quite true, he said.
And as there are two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the
other the philosophical, some god, as I should say, has given mankind two arts
answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that
these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or
drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized.
That appears to be the intention.
And he who mingles music with gymnastics in the fairest proportions, and
best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly called the true musician and
harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of the strings.
You are quite right, Socrates.
And such a presiding genius will be always required in our State if the
government is to last.
Yes, he will be absolutely necessary.
Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: Where would be
the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens, or about
their hunting and coursing, their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For
these all follow the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no
difficulty in discovering them.
I dare say that there will be no difficulty.
Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are
to be rulers and who subjects?
Certainly.
There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger.
 Clearly.
And that the best of these must rule.
That is also clear.
Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to
husbandry?
Yes.
And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must they not be
those who have most the character of guardians?
Yes.
And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to have a special
care of the State?
True.
And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves?
To be sure.
And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same
interests with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is supposed
by him at any time most to affect his own?
Very true, he replied.
Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those
who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good
of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her
interests.
Those are the right men.
And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see
whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either
of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State.
How cast off? he said.
I will explain to you, he replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind
either with his will or against his will; with his will when he gets rid of a
falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth.
I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the meaning of the
unwilling I have yet to learn.
 Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good, and
willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth an evil, and to possess the truth a
good? and you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the
truth?
Yes, he replied; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of
truth against their will.
And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or
enchantment?
Still, he replied, I do not understand you.
I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians. I only mean
that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget; argument
steals away the hearts of one class, and time of the other; and this I call theft.
Now you understand me?
Yes.
Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence of some pain or
grief compels to change their opinion.
I understand, he said, and you are quite right.
And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change
their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure, or the sterner
influence of fear?
Yes, he said; everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who are the best
guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State
is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upward,
and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be
deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he
who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way?
Yes.
And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them,
in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities.
Very right, he replied.
And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments — that is the third
sort of test — and see what will be their behavior: like those who take colts
amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our
youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and
prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may
discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble
bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they
have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and
harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to
the State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has
come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and
guardian of the State; he shall be honored in life and death, and shall receive
sepulture and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give. But
him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way
in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak
generally, and not with any pretension to exactness.
And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said.
And perhaps the word "guardian" in the fullest sense ought to be applied
to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain
peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the
others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called
guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the
principles of the rulers.
I agree with you, he said.
How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we
lately spoke — just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be
possible, and at any rate the rest of the city?
What sort of lie? he said.
Nothing new, I replied; only an old Phoenician tale of what has often
occurred before now in other places (as the poets say, and have made the
world believe), though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an
event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did.
How your words seem to hesitate on your lips!
You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard.
Speak, he said, and fear not. Well, then, I will speak, although I really
know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious
fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to
the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a
dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an
appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed
in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and
appurtenances were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth,
their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also
their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against
attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their
own brothers.
You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were
going to tell.
True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half.
Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed
you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the
composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the
greatest honor; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again
who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron;
and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the
same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a
silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers,
and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard,
or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race.
They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of
a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature
orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful
toward the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a
husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an
admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians
or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the
State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making
our citizens believe in it?
Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing
this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons' sons,
and posterity after them.
 I see the difficulty, I replied; yet the fostering of such a belief will make
them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the
fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumor, while we arm our
earth-born heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let
them look round and select a spot whence they can best suppress insurrection,
if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies,
who, like wolves, may come down on the fold from without; there let them
encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper gods
and prepare their dwellings.
Just so, he said.
And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of
winter and the heat of summer.
I suppose that you mean houses, he replied.
Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of
shopkeepers.
What is the difference? he said.
That I will endeavor to explain, I replied. To keep watchdogs, who, from
want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the
sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs, but wolves, would be a foul
and monstrous thing in a shepherd?
Truly monstrous, he said.
And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger
than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage
tyrants instead of friends and allies?
Yes, great care should be taken.
And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard?
But they are well-educated already, he replied.
I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain
that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have
the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one
another, and to those who are under their protection.
Very true, he replied.
And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to
them, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor
tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must
acknowledge that.
He must.
Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize
our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of
his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a
private house or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter; their
provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are
men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens
a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and
they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver
we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them,
and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and
ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that
commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is
undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or
gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them.
And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State. But
should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will
become good housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies
and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated,
plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much
greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both
to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which
reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these
shall be the regulations appointed by us for our guardians concerning their
houses and all other matters?
Yes, said Glaucon.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK IV
WEALTH, POVERTY, AND VIRTUE
(ADEIMANTUS, SOCRATES.)
HERE Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer,
Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people
miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in
fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men
acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything
handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account,
and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have
gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favorites of fortune; but our
poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and
are always mounting guard?
Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in
addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if they
would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on a mistress
or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be
happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added.
But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge.
You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer?
Yes.
If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the
answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very
likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not
the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of
the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good
of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered
State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the
two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not
piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and
by and by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we
were painting a statue, and someone came up to us and said: Why do you not
put the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the body — the
eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black — to him we might
fairly answer: Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a
degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this
and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And
so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness
which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our
husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid
them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might
be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the
wine-cup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery
only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy — and
then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea
into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a
husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the
character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much
consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you
are not, are confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of
the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they
turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power
of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true
saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking
of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who
are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is
speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider
whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest
happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather
reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians
and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or
induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will
grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of
happiness which nature assigns to them.
I think that you are quite right.
I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me.
 What may that be?
There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts.
What are they?
Wealth, I said, and poverty.
How do they act?
The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you,
any longer take the same pains with his art?
Certainly not.
He will grow more and more indolent and careless?
Very true.
And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?
Yes; he greatly deteriorates.
But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself
with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he
teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well.
Certainly not.
Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and
their work are equally liable to degenerate?
That is evident.
Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians
will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved.
What evils?
Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence,
and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how
our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and
powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war.
There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one
such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them.
How so? he asked.
In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side will be trained
warriors fighting against an army of rich men.
That is true, he said.
 And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer who was perfect
in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who
were not boxers?
Hardly, if they came upon him at once.
What, not, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at
the one who first came up? And supposing he were to do this several times
under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn
more than one stout personage?
Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that.
And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and
practise of boxing than they have in military qualities.
Likely enough.
Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or
three times their own number?
I agree with you, for I think you right.
And suppose that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of
the two cities, telling them what is the truth: Silver and gold we neither have
nor are permitted to have, but you may; do you therefore come and help us in
war, and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on hearing these words, would
choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather than, with the dogs on their side,
against fat and tender sheep?
That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the
wealth of many States were to be gathered into one.
But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own!
Why so?
You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them
is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however
small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich;
these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller
divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all
as a single State. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or
power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many
friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has
now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, I
do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though
she number not more than 1,000 defenders. A single State which is her equal
you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that
appear to be as great and many times greater.
That is most true, he said.
And what, I said, will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are
considering the size of the State and the amount of territory which they are to
include, and beyond which they will not go?
What limit would you propose?
I would allow the State to increase so far as is consistent with unity; that, I
think, is the proper limit.
Very good, he said.
Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our
guardians: Let our city be accounted neither large nor small, but one and self-
sufficing.
And surely, said he, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon
them.
And the other, said I, of which we were speaking before is lighter still — I
mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior, and
of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes, when
naturally superior. The intention was, that, in the case of the citizens
generally, each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended
him, one to one work, and then every man would do his own business, and be
one and not many; and so the whole city would be one and not many.
Yes, he said; that is not so difficult.
The regulations which we are prescribing, my good Adeimantus, are not,
as might be supposed, a number of great principles, but trifles all, if care be
taken, as the saying is, of the one great thing — a thing, however, which I
would rather call, not, great, but sufficient for our purpose.
What may that be? he asked.
Education, I said, and nurture: If our citizens are well educated, and grow
into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these, as well as
other matters which I omit; such, for example, as marriage, the possession of
women and the procreation of children, which will all follow the general
principle that friends have all things in common, as the proverb says.
That will be the best way of settling them.
Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force
like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and
these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and
more, and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals.
Very possibly, he said.
Then to sum up: This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our
rulers should be directed — that music and gymnastics be preserved in their
original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to
maintain them intact. And when anyone says that mankind most regard
"The newest song which the singers have,"
they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind
of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of
the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and
ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him; he
says that when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State
always change with them.
Yes, said Adeimantus; and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your
own.
Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in
music?
Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in.
Yes, I replied, in the form of amusement; and at first sight it appears
harmless.
Why, yes, he said, and there is no harm; were it not that little by little this
spirit of license, finding a home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and
customs; whence, issuing with greater force, it invades contracts between man
and man, and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions, in utter
recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all rights, private as
well as public.
Is that true? I said.
That is my belief, he replied.
 Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a
stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves
become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous
citizens.
Very true, he said.
And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by the help of
music have gained the habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a
manner how unlike the lawless play of the others! will accompany them in all
their actions and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any fallen
places [a] [principle] in the State will raise them up again.
Very true, he said.
Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their
predecessors have altogether neglected.
What do you mean?
I mean such things as these:— when the young are to be silent before their
elders; how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit;
what honor is due to parents; what garments or shoes are to be worn; the
mode of dressing the hair; deportment and manners in general. You would
agree with me?
Yes.
But there is, I think, small wisdom in legislating about such matters — I
doubt if it is ever done; nor are any precise written enactments about them
likely to be lasting.
Impossible.
It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a
man, will determine his future life. Does not like always attract like?
To be sure.
Until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good, and
may be the reverse of good?
That is not to be denied.
And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about
them.
Naturally enough, he replied.
 Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordinary dealings
between man and man, or again about agreements with artisans; about insult
and injury, or the commencement of actions, and the appointment of juries,
what would you say? there may also arise questions about any impositions and
exactions of market and harbor dues which may be required, and in general
about the regulations of markets, police, harbors, and the like.. But, O
heavens! shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars?
I think, he said, that there is no need to impose laws about them on good
men; what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for
themselves.
Yes, I said, my friend, if God will only preserve to them the laws which we
have given them.
And without divine help, said Adeimantus, they will go on forever making
and mending the laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection.
You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-
restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance?
Exactly.
Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! they are always doctoring
and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they
will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try.
Such cases are very common, he said, with invalids of this sort.
Yes, I replied; and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst
enemy who tells them the truth, which is simply that, unless they give up
eating and drinking and wenching and idling, nether drug nor cautery nor
spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail.
Charming! he replied. I see nothing in going into a passion with a man
who tells you what is right.
These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces.
Assuredly not.
Nor would you praise the behavior of States which act like the men whom
I was just now describing. For are there not ill-ordered States in which the
citizens are forbidden under pain of death to alter the constitution; and yet he
who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them
and fawns upon them and is skilful in anticipating and gratifying their humors
is held to be a great and good statesman — do not these States resemble the
persons whom I was describing?
Yes, he said; the States are as bad as the men; and I am very far from
praising them.
But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready
ministers of political corruption?
Yes, he said, I do; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the
applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really
statesmen, and these are not much to be admired.
What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a
man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare
that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say?
Nay, he said, certainly not in that case.
Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play,
trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always
fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and
the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in
reality cutting off the heads of a hydra?
Yes, he said; that is just what they are doing.
I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this
class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an
ill-ordered or in a wellordered State; for in the former they are quite useless,
and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them
will naturally flow out of our previous regulations.
What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation?
Nothing to us, I replied; but to Apollo, the god of Delphi, there remains
the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all.
Which are they? he said.
The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of gods,
demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and
the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the
inhabitants of the world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant
ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to
any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the centre, on
the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind.
You are right, and we will do as you propose.
But where, amid all this, is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Now
that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your
brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see
where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ
from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should
have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.
Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search yourself, saying
that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety?
I do not deny that I said so; and as you remind me, I will be as good as my
word; but you must join.
We will, he replied.
Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with
the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect.
That is most certain.
And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just.
That is likewise clear.
And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not
found will be the residue?
Very good.
If there were four things, and we were searching for one of them, wherever
it might be, the one sought for might be known to us from the first, and there
would be no further trouble; or we might know the other three first, and then
the fourth would clearly be the one left.
Very true, he said.
And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are
also four in number?
Clearly.
First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes into view, and
in this I detect a certain peculiarity.
What is that?
 The State which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good
in counsel?
Very true.
And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but
by knowledge, do men counsel well?
Clearly.
And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse?
Of course.
There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the sort of knowledge
which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel?
Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in
carpentering.
Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which
counsels for the best about wooden implements?
Certainly not.
Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots, he said,
nor as possessing any other similar knowledge?
Not by reason of any of them, he said.
Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth; that would
give the city the name of agricultural?
Yes.
Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently founded State
among any of the citizens which advises, not about any particular thing in the
State, but about the whole, and considers how a State can best deal with itself
and with other States?
There certainly is.
And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? I asked.
It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is found among those
whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians.
And what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this
sort of knowledge?
The name of good in counsel and truly wise.
And will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths?
 The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous.
Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a
name from the profession of some kind of knowledge?
Much the smallest.
And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which
resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself, the whole State, being thus
constituted according to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only
knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of
all classes the least.
Most true.
Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one of the four
virtues have somehow or other been discovered.
And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, he replied.
Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage, and in
what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the State.
How do you mean?
Why, I said, everyone who calls any State courageous or cowardly, will be
thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the State's behalf.
No one, he replied, would ever think of any other.
The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly, but their
courage or cowardice will not, as I conceive, have the effect of making the city
either the one or the other.
Certainly not.
The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which
preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to
be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them; and this
is what you term courage.
I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for I do not think that
I perfectly understand you.
I mean that courage is a kind of salvation.
Salvation of what?
Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they are and of what
nature, which the law implants through education; and I mean by the words
"under all circumstances" to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the
influence of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this opinion.
Shall I give you an illustration?
If you please.
You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool for making the
true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white color first; this they prepare and
dress with much care and pains, in order that the white ground may take the
purple hue in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever is dyed
in this manner becomes a fast color, and no washing either with lyes or
without them can take away the bloom. But, when the ground has not been
duly prepared, you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of
any other color.
Yes, he said; I know that they have a washed-out and ridiculous
appearance.
Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was in selecting our
soldiers, and educating them in music and gymnastics; we were contriving
influences which would prepare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection,
and the color of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to
be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, not to be washed away by such
potent lyes as pleasure — mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda
or lye; or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other solvents. And
this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law
about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage, unless you
disagree.
But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere
uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave — this, in your
opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another
name.
Most certainly.
Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe?
Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words "of a citizen," you will
not be far wrong — hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further,
but at present we are seeking, not for courage, but justice; and for the purpose
of our inquiry we have said enough.
 You are right, he replied.
Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State — first, temperance, and
then justice, which is the end of our search.
Very true.
Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance?
I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that
justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I
wish that you would do me the favor of considering temperance first.
Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request.
Then consider, he said.
Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of
temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the
preceding.
How so? he asked.
Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures
and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of "a man being his
own master;" and other traces of the same notion may be found in language.
No doubt, he said.
There is something ridiculous in the expression "master of himself;" for
the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these
modes of speaking the same person is denoted.
Certainly.
The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also
a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a
man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when,
owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the
smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse — in this case he is
blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled.
Yes, there is reason in that.
And now, I said, look at our newly created State, and there you will find
one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge,
may be justly called master of itself, if the words "temperance" and "self-
mastery" truly express the rule of the better part over the worse.
 Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true.
Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires
and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the
freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class.
Certainly, he said.
Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are
under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few,
and those the best born and best educated.
Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and
the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and
wisdom of the few.
That I perceive, he said.
Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own
pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation?
Certainly, he replied.
It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons?
Yes.
And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to
the question who are to rule, that again will be our State?
Undoubtedly.
And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in which class will
temperance be found — in the rulers or in the subjects?
In both, as I should imagine, he replied.
Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance
was a sort of harmony?
Why so?
Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which
resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant; not
so temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of
the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the
middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom,
or power, or numbers, or wealth, or anything else. Most truly then may we
deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior,
as to the right to rule of either, both in States and individuals.
I entirely agree with you.
And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been
discovered in our State. The last of those qualities which make a State virtuous
must be justice, if we only knew what that was.
The inference is obvious.
The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should
surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass
out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this
country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her
first, let me know.
Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as a follower who has
just eyes enough to see what you show him — that is about as much as I am
good for.
Offer up a prayer with me and follow.
I will, but you must show me the way.
Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing; still we must
push on.
Let us push on.
Here I saw something: Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I
believe that the quarry will not escape.
Good news, he said.
Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows.
Why so?
Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our inquiry, ages ago, there was
Justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her; nothing could be more
ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands
— that was the way with us — we looked not at what we were seeking, but at
what was far off in the distance; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her.
What do you mean?
I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of
Justice, and have failed to recognize her.
 I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. Well, then, tell me, I said,
whether I am right or not: You remember the original principle which we were
always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should
practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted; now
justice is this principle or a part of it.
Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.
Further, we affirmed that Justice was doing one's own business, and not
being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the
same to us.
Yes, we said so.
Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be
justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference?
I cannot, but I should like to be told.
Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State
when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted;
and, that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of
them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and we were
saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth, or
remaining one.
That follows of necessity.
If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence
contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of
rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the
law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in
the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in
children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject — the quality, I
mean, of everyone doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim
the palm — the question is not so easily answered.
Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying which.
Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears
to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage.
Yes, he said.
And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice?
Exactly.
 Let us look at the question from another point of view: Are not the rulers
in a State those to whom you would intrust the office of determining suits-at-
law?
Certainly.
And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither
take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own?
Yes; that is their principle.
Which is a just principle?
Yes.
Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing
what is a man's own, and belongs to him?
Very true.
Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a
carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter;
and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same
person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think
that any great harm would result to the State?
Not much.
But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a
trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his
followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of
warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is
unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when
one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree
with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another
is the ruin of the State.
Most true. Seeing, then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any
meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the
greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing?
Precisely.
And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would be termed by
you injustice?
 Certainly. This, then, is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader,
the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and
will make the city just.
I agree with you.
We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet; but if, on trial, this conception
of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the State, there will be no
longer any room for doubt; if it be not verified, we must have a fresh inquiry.
First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember,
under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger
scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That
larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as
good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be
found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual — if
they agree, we shall be satisfied; or, if there be a difference in the individual,
we will come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. The
friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which
justice will shine forth, and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our
souls.
That will be in regular course; let us do as you say.
I proceeded to ask: When two things, a greater and less, are called by the
same name, are they like or unlike in so far as they are called the same?
Like, he replied.
The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, will be like the just
State?
He will.
And a State was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the State
severally did their own business; and also thought to be temperate and valiant
and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same
classes?
True, he said.
And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three
principles in his own soul which are found in the State; and he may be rightly
described in the same terms, because he is affected in the same manner?
Certainly, he said.
 Once more, then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an easy question —
whether the soul has these three principles or not?
An easy question! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds that hard is the
good.
Very true, I said; and I do not think that the method which we are
employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question; the true
method is another and a longer one. Still we may arrive at a solution not below
the level of the previous inquiry.
May we not be satisfied with that? he said; under the circumstances, I am
quite content. I, too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied.
Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said.
Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same
principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual
they pass into the State? — how else can they come there? Take the quality of
passion or spirit; it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when
found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to
possess it, e.g., the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the Northern nations;
and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special
characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may,
with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians.
Exactly so, he said.
There is no difficulty in understanding this.
None whatever.
But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether
these principles are three or one; whether, that is to say, we learn with one
part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the
satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into
play in each sort of action — to determine that is the difficulty.
Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty.
Then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different.
How can we? he asked.
I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in
the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary
ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently
the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different.
Good.
For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the
same time in the same part?
Impossible.
Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should
hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the case of a man who is standing and
also moving his hands and his head, and suppose a person to say that one and
the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment — to such a
mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that one part of him is
in motion while another is at rest.
Very true.
And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw the nice
distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, when they spin round
with their pegs fixed on the spot, are at rest and in motion at the same time
(and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his
objection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases things are not at
rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves; we should rather say that
they have both an axis and a circumference; and that the axis stands still, for
there is no deviation from the perpendicular; and that the circumference goes
round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines either to the right or left,
forward or backward, then in no point of view can they be at rest.
That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied.
Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline us to believe that
the same thing at the same time, in the same part or in relation to the same
thing, can act or be acted upon in contrary ways.
Certainly not, according to my way of thinking.
Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections,
and prove at length that they are untrue, let us assume their absurdity, and go
forward on the understanding that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be
untrue, all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn.
Yes, he said, that will be the best way.
 Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and
aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are
regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their
opposition)?
Yes, he said, they are opposites.
Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in general, and again
willing and wishing — all these you would refer to the classes already
mentioned. You would say — would you not? — that the soul of him who
desires is seeking after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to himself
the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants anything
to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire, intimates
his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a question?
Very true.
And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of
desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and
rejection?
Certainly.
Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular
class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are
termed, which are the most obvious of them?
Let us take that class, he said.
The object of one is food, and of the other drink?
Yes.
And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of
drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example,
warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but
if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if
accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then
the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of
drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and
simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger?
Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple
object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object.
 But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an
opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good
drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire,
and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the
same is true of every other desire.
Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say.
Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality
attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their
correlatives simple.
I do not know what you mean.
Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less?
Certainly.
And the much greater to the much less?
Yes.
And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the greater that is to
be to the less that is to be?
Certainly, he said.
And so of more or less, and of other correlative terms, such as the double
and the half, or, again, the heavier and the lighter, the swifter and the slower;
and of hot and cold, and of any other relatives; is not this true of all of them?
Yes.
And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The object of
science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true definition), but the object
of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge; I mean, for example,
that the science of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and
distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture.
Certainly.
Because it has a particular quality which no other has?
Yes.
And it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular
kind; and this is true of the other arts and sciences?
Yes.
 Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will understand my original
meaning in what I said about relatives. My meaning was, that if one term of a
relation is taken alone, the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the
other is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may not be
disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or of disease necessarily
diseased, or that the sciences of good and evil are therefore good and evil; but
only that, when the term "science" is no longer used absolutely, but has a
qualified object which in this case is the nature of health and disease, it
becomes defined, and is hence called not merely science, but the science of
medicine.
I quite understand, and, I think, as you do.
Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms,
having clearly a relation —
Yes, thirst is relative to drink.
And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink; but thirst
taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any
particular kind of drink, but of drink only?
Certainly.
Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, desires only
drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it?
That is plain.
And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul away from drink,
that must be different from the thirsty principle which draws him like a beast
to drink; for, as we were saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with
the same part of itself act in contrary ways about the same.
Impossible.
No more than you can say that the hands of the archer push and pull the
bow at the same time, but what you say is that one hand pushes and the other
pulls.
Exactly so, he replied.
And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink?
Yes, he said, it constantly happens.
 And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not say that there was
something in the soul bidding a man to drink, and something else forbidding
him, which is other and stronger than the principle which bids him?
I should say so.
And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and that which bids
and attracts proceeds from passion and disease?
Clearly.
Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one
another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle
of the soul; the other, with which he loves, and hungers, and thirsts, and feels
the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive,
the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions?
Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different.
Then let us finally determine that there are two principles existing in the
soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it a third, or akin to one of the
preceding?
I should be inclined to say — akin to desire.
Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which
I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day
from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead
bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see
them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and
covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing
them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your
fill of the fair sight.
I have heard the story myself, he said.
The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as
though they were two distinct things.
Yes; that is the meaning, he said.
And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a
man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry
at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle
of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason; but for the
passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason
decides that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which I believe that
you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in anyone
else?
Certainly not.
Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he
is, the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold,
or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him — these he
deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them.
True, he said.
But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and
chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he
suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to
persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays
or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding
his dog bark no more.
The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying,
the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are
their shepherds.
I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a
further point which I wish you to consider.
What point?
You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a kind of
desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the conflict of the soul
spirit is arrayed on the side of the rational principle.
Most assuredly.
But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only
a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul,
there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the
State was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may
there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit,
and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason?
Yes, he said, there must be a third.
Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different
from desire, turn out also to be different from reason.
 But that is easily proved: We may observe even in young children that they
are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never
seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough.
Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which
is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more
appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us,
"He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul;" for in this verse Homer
has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to
be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it.
Very true, he said.
And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed
that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual,
and that they are three in number.
Exactly.
Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in
virtue of the same quality which makes the State wise?
Certainly.
Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the State
constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the State and the
individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues?
Assuredly.
And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way
in which the State is just?
That follows of course.
We cannot but remember that the justice of the State consisted in each of
the three classes doing the work of its own class?
We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said.
We must recollect that the individual in whom the several qualities of his
nature do their own work will be just, and will do his own work?
Yes, he said, we must remember that too.
And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the
whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject
and ally?
 Certainly.
And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and gymnastics will
bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining the reason with noble words
and lessons, and moderating and soothing and civilizing the wildness of
passion by harmony and rhythm?
Quite true, he said.
And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having learned truly to
know their own functions, will rule over the concupiscent, which in each of us
is the largest part of the soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this
they will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness of bodily
pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, no longer confined to her
own sphere, should attempt to enslave and rule those who are not her natural-
born subjects, and overturn the whole life of man?
Very true, he said.
Both together will they not be the best defenders of the whole soul and the
whole body against attacks from without; the one counselling, and the other
fighting under his leader, and courageously executing his commands and
counsels?
True.
And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in
pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear?
Right, he replied.
And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and
which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a
knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the
whole?
Assuredly.
And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements
in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two
subject ones of spirit and desire, are equally agreed that reason ought to rule,
and do not rebel?
Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the
State or individual.
 And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of
what quality a man will be just.
That is very certain.
And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she
the same which we found her to be in the State?
There is no difference, in my opinion, he said.
Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace
instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying.
What sort of instances do you mean?
If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the man
who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less likely than the
unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver? Would anyone deny this?
No one, he replied.
Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery
either to his friends or to his country?
Never.
Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or
agreements.
Impossible.
No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonor his father and
mother, or to fail in his religious duties?
No one.
And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether
in ruling or being ruled?
Exactly so.
Are you satisfied, then, that the quality which makes such men and such
States is justice, or do you hope to discover some other?
Not I, indeed.
Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we
entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some divine
power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been
verified?
Yes, certainly.
 And the division of labor which required the carpenter and the shoemaker
and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not
another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use?
Clearly.
But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned,
however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self
and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several
elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the
work of others — he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and
his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the
three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and
middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals — when he has bound
all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely
temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to
act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in
some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that
which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition just and
good action, and the knowledge which presides over it wisdom, and that which
at any time impairs this condition he will call unjust action, and the opinion
which presides over it ignorance.
You have said the exact truth, Socrates.
Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man
and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be
telling a falsehood?
Most certainly not.
May we say so, then?
Let us say so.
And now, I said, injustice has to be considered.
Clearly.
Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles — a
meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against
the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious
subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal — what is all
this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance, and cowardice,
and ignorance, and every form of vice?
Exactly so.
And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of
acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be
perfectly clear?
What do you mean? he said.
Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what
disease and health are in the body.
How so? he said.
Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is
unhealthy causes disease.
Yes.
And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice?
That is certain.
And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and
government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of
disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural
order?
True.
And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and
government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of
injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order?
Exactly so, he said.
Then virtue is the health, and beauty, and well-being of the soul, and vice
the disease, and weakness, and deformity, of the same?
True.
And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice?
Assuredly.
Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice
has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly
and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust
and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed?
 In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We
know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable,
though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth
and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital
principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if
only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is
not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice;
assuming them both to be such as we have described?
Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, as we are near the
spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes,
let us not faint by the way.
Certainly not, he replied.
Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, those of
them, I mean, which are worth looking at.
I am following you, he replied: proceed.
I said: The argument seems to have reached a height from which, as from
some tower of speculation, a man may look down and see that virtue is one,
but that the forms of vice are innumerable; there being four special ones which
are deserving of note.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of the soul as
there are distinct forms of the State.
How many?
There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said.
What are they?
The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and which may be
said to have two names, monarchy and aristocracy, according as rule is
exercised by one distinguished man or by many.
True, he replied.
But I regard the two names as describing one form only; for whether the
government is in the hands of one or many, if the governors have been trained
in the manner which we have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will
be maintained.
That is true, he replied.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK V
ON MATRIMONY AND PHILOSOPHY
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON, ADEIMANTUS.)
SUCH is the good and true City or State, and the good and true man is of
the same pattern; and if this is right every other is wrong; and the evil is one
which affects not only the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the
individual soul, and is exhibited in four forms.
What are they? he said.
I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil forms appeared to
me to succeed one another, when Polemarchus, who was sitting a little way
off, just beyond Adeimantus, began to whisper to him: stretching forth his
hand, he took hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew him
toward him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close and saying
something in his ear, of which I only caught the words, "Shall we let him off, or
what shall we do?"
Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice.
Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off?
You, he said.
I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off?
Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a
whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that
we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to
everybody, that in the matter of women and children "friends have all things
in common."
And was I not right, Adeimantus?
Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else,
requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please,
therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long
expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your
citizens — how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when
they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of
women and children — for we are of opinion that the right or wrong
management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the
State for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined,
and you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you heard, not
to let you go until you give an account of all this.
To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying: Agreed.
And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be
equally agreed.
I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an
argument are you raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished,
and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting
how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to
begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words
you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it.
For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said
Thrasymachus — to look for gold, or to hear discourse?
Yes, but discourse should have a limit.
Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only limit which
wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. But never mind about us;
take heart yourself and answer the question in your own way: What sort of
community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our
guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education,
which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be.
Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy; many more
doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions. For the
practicability of what is said may be doubted; and looked at in another point of
view, whether the scheme, if ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also
doubtful. Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our aspiration,
my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only.
Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon you; they are
not sceptical or hostile.
I said: My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encourage me by these
words.
Yes, he said.
 Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse; the
encouragement which you offer would have been all very well had I myself
believed that I knew what I was talking about. To declare the truth about
matters of high interest which a man honors and loves, among wise men who
love him, need occasion no fear or faltering in his mind; but to carry on an
argument when you are yourself only a hesitating inquirer, which is my
condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger is not that I shall
be laughed at (of which the fear would be childish), but that I shall miss the
truth where I have most need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends
after me in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words which I
am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is
a less crime than to be a deceiver about beauty, or goodness, or justice, in the
matter of laws. And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies
than among friends; and therefore you do well to encourage me.
Glaucon laughed and said: Well, then, Socrates, in case you and your
argument do us any serious injury you shall be acquitted beforehand of the
homicide, and shall not be held to be a deceiver; take courage then and speak.
Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he is free from guilt,
and what holds at law may hold in argument.
Then why should you mind?
Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I
perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has
been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of
them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you.
For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion,
of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and
children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that
the men were to be the guardians and watch-dogs of the herd.
True.
Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject
to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result
accords with our design.
What do you mean?
 What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs
divided into he's and she's, or do they both share equally in hunting and in
keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we intrust to the males
the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home,
under the idea that the bearing and the suckling of their puppies are labor
enough for them?
No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the
males are stronger and the females weaker.
But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are
bred and fed in the same way?
You cannot.
Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the
same nurture and education?
Yes.
The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastics.
Yes.
Then women must be taught music and gymnastics and also the art of
war, which they must practise like the men?
That is the inference, I suppose.
I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are
carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous.
No doubt of it.
Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked
in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer
young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the
enthusiastic old men who, in spite of wrinkles and ugliness, continue to
frequent the gymnasia.
Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be
thought ridiculous.
But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not
fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation;
how they will talk of women's attainments, both in music and gymnastics, and
above all about their wearing armor and riding upon horseback!
 Very true, he replied. Yet, having begun, we must go forward to the rough
places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their
life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of
the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the
sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans,
and then the Lacedaemonians, introduced the custom, the wits of that day
might equally have ridiculed the innovation.
No doubt.
But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far
better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye had
vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was
perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight
but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any
other standard but that of the good.
Very true, he replied.
First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us
come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of
sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is
the art of war one of those arts in which she can or cannot share? That will be
the best way of commencing the inquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest
conclusion.
That will be much the best way.
Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves?
in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended.
Why not? he said.
Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say:
"Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at
the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to
do the one work suited to his own nature." And certainly, if I am not mistaken,
such an admission was made by us. "And do not the natures of men and
women differ very much indeed?" And we shall reply, Of course they do. Then
we shall be asked, "Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should
not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?"
Certainly they should. "But if so, have you not fallen into a serious
inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely
different, ought to perform the same actions?" What defence will you make for
us, my good sir, against anyone who offers these objections?
That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall
and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side.
These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like
kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in
hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children.
By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why, yes, I
said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen
into a little swimming-bath or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same.
Very true.
And must not we swim and try to reach the shore — we will hope that
Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us?
I suppose so, he said. Well, then, let us see if any way of escape can be
found. We acknowledged — did we not? — that different natures ought to have
different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now
what are we saying? — that different natures ought to have the same pursuits
— this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us.
Precisely.
Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction!
Why do you say so?
Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will.
When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he
cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he
will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of
fair discussion.
Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us
and our argument?
A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally
into a verbal opposition.
In what way? Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal
truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never
considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or
why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different
natures and the same to the same natures.
Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us.
I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question
whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men;
and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid
the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely?
That would be a jest, he said.
Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed
the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but
only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is
engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is
in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature.
True.
Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures?
Certainly.
And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for
any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned
to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women
bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a
woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should
receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and
their wives ought to have the same pursuits.
Very true, he said.
Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any of the pursuits or
arts of civic life, the nature of a woman differs from that of a man?
That will be quite fair.
And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a sufficient answer on
the instant is not easy; but after a little reflection there is no difficulty.
Yes, perhaps.
Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and
then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the
constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of the
State.
 By all means.
Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question: When you
spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say that
one man will acquire a thing easily, another with difficulty; a little learning
will lead the one to discover a great deal, whereas the other, after much study
and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean, that
the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the body of the
other is a hinderance to him? — would not these be the sort of differences
which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted?
No one will deny that.
And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has
not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the female? Need I
waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the management of pancakes
and preserves, in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in
which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd?
You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general inferiority of the
female sex: although many women are in many things superior to many men,
yet on the whole what you say is true.
And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of administration in
a State which a woman has because she is a woman, or which a man has by
virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are alike diffused in both; all the
pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is
inferior to a man.
Very true.
Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them on
women?
That will never do.
One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and
another has no music in her nature?
Very true.
And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and
another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics?
Certainly.
 And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of philosophy;
one has spirit, and another is without spirit?
That is also true.
Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another not.
Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by differences of this
sort?
Yes.
Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian; they
differ only in their comparative strength or weakness.
Obviously.
And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the
companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom they
resemble in capacity and in character?
Very true.
And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits?
They ought.
Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in assigning
music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians — to that point we come
round again.
Certainly not.
The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore not
an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice, which prevails
at present, is in reality a violation of nature.
That appears to be true.
We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible, and
secondly whether they were the most beneficial?
Yes.
And the possibility has been acknowledged?
Yes.
The very great benefit has next to be established?
Quite so.
 You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good
guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the
same?
Yes.
I should like to ask you a question.
What is it?
Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better
than another?
The latter.
And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the
guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect
men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling?
What a ridiculous question!
You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that
our guardians are the best of our citizens?
By far the best.
And will not their wives be the best women?
Yes, by far the best.
And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the
men and women of a State should be as good as possible?
There can be nothing better.
And this is what the arts of music and gymnastics, when present in such a
manner as we have described, will accomplish?
Certainly.
Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest
degree beneficial to the State?
True.
Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe,
and let them share in the toils of war and the defence of their country; only in
the distribution of labors the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are
the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And
as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the
best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking
 "A fruit of unripe wisdom,"
and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about;
for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, "that the useful is the noble,
and the hurtful is the base."
Very true.
Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say
that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting
that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to
the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the
argument with itself bears witness.
Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped.
Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when
you see the next.
Go on; let me see.
The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is
to the following effect, "that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and
their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor
any child his parent."
Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the
possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable.
I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great
utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another
matter, and will be very much disputed.
I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both.
You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I
meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should
escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility.
But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a
defence of both.
Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favor: let me feast my
mind with the dream as day-dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves
when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of
effecting their wishes — that is a matter which never troubles them — they
would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming
that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan,
and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true
— that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which
was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I
should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at
present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now
proceed to inquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I
shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to
the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will
endeavor with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and
hereafter the question of possibility.
I have no objection; proceed.
First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the
name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the
power of command in the other; the guardians themselves must obey the laws,
and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are intrusted
to their care.
That is right, he said.
You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now
select the women and give them to them; they must be as far as possible of like
natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at
common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they
will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at
gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures
to have intercourse with each other — necessity is not too strong a word, I
think?
Yes, he said; necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity
which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the
mass of mankind.
True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an
orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing
which the rulers will forbid.
Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted.
 Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the
highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred?
Exactly.
And how can marriages be made most beneficial? that is a question which
I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler
sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended
to their pairing and breeding?
In what particulars?
Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some
better than others?
True.
And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed
from the best only?
From the best.
And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age?
I choose only those of ripe age.
And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would
greatly deteriorate?
Certainly.
And the same of horses and of animals in general?
Undoubtedly.
Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our
rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!
Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any
particular skill?
Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the body
corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require
medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of
practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given,
then the doctor should be more of a man.
That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?
 I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood
and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use
of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage.
And we were very right.
And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the
regulations of marriages and births.
How so?
Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of
either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the
inferior as seldom, as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the
one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-
rate condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only
know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be
termed, breaking out into rebellion.
Very true.
Had we better not appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together
the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable
hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter
which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve
the average of population? There are many other things which they will have
to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies,
in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too
large or too small.
Certainly, he replied.
We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy
may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will
accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.
To be sure, he said.
And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honors
and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given
them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many
sons as possible.
True.
 And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to
be held by women as well as by men — Yes —
The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or
fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a
separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they
chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place,
as they should be.
Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept
pure.
They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold
when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother
recognizes her own child; and other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are
required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be
protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other
trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants.
You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when
they are having children.
Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme.
We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life?
Very true.
And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about
twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty years in a man's?
Which years do you mean to include?
A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the
State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-
twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest,
and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five.
Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of
physical as well as of intellectual vigor. Anyone above or below the prescribed
ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an
unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals
into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and
prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priests and the whole city will
offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good
and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and
strange lust.
Very true, he replied.
And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age
who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the
sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the
State, uncertified and unconsecrated.
Very true, he replied.
This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after
that we will allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his
daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother;
and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or
fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we
grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any
embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a
way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such a
union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.
That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know
who are fathers and daughters, and so on?
They will never know. The way will be this: dating from the day of the
hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children
who are born in the seventh and the tenth month afterward his sons, and the
female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call
their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation
grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their
fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters,
and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is
not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers
and sisters; if the lot favors them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian
oracle, the law will allow them.
Quite right, he replied.
Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our
State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would
have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our
polity, and also that nothing can be better — would you not?
Yes, certainly.
Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to
be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a
State — what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then
consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the
evil?
By all means.
Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality
where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity?
There cannot.
And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains —
where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and
sorrow?
No doubt.
Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is
disorganized — when you have one-half of the world triumphing and the other
plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens?
Certainly.
Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of
the terms "mine" and "not mine," "his" and "not his."
Exactly so.
And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of
persons apply the terms "mine" and "not mine" in the same way to the same
thing?
Quite true.
Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the
individual — as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole
frame, drawn toward the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the
ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part
affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same
expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of
pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering.
 Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the bestordered State
there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe.
Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole
State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him?
Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State.
It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether
this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental
principles.
Very good.
Our State, like every other, has rulers and subjects?
True.
All of whom will call one another citizens?
Of course.
But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other
States?
Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call
them rulers.
And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people
give the rulers?
They are called saviours and helpers, he replied.
And what do the rulers call the people?
Their maintainers and foster-fathers.
And what do they call them in other States?
Slaves.
And what do the rulers call one another in other States?
Fellow-rulers.
And what in ours?
Fellow-guardians.
Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would
speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his
friend?
Yes, very often.
 And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an
interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest?
Exactly.
But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a
stranger?
Certainly he would not; for everyone whom they meet will be regarded by
them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or
as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him.
Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in
name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example,
in the use of the word "father," would the care of a father be implied and the
filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and
is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous
person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of
man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear
repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them
to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk?
These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for
them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the
spirit of them?
Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often
heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when anyone is well or ill,
the universal word will be "with me it is well" or "it is ill."
Most true.
And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying
that they will have their pleasures and pains in common?
Yes, and so they will.
And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will
alike call "my own," and having this common interest they will have a common
feeling of pleasure and pain?
Yes, far more so than in other States.
And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the
State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and
children?
 That will be the chief reason.
And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was
implied in our comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body
and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain?
That we acknowledged, and very rightly.
Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly
the source of the greatest good to the State?
Certainly.
And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming — that
the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their
pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens,
and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve
their true character of guardians.
Right, he replied.
Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am
saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in
pieces by differing about "mine" and "not mine;" each man dragging any
acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has
a separate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but all will be
affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all
of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all
tend toward a common end.
Certainly, he replied.
And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own,
suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be
delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are
the occasion.
Of course they will.
Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur among them.
For that equals should defend themselves against equals we shall maintain to
be honorable and right; we shall make the protection of the person a matter of
necessity.
That is good, he said.
 Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz., that if a man has a quarrel
with another he will satisfy his resentment then and there, and not proceed to
more dangerous lengths.
Certainly.
To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the
younger.
Clearly.
Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do any other
violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him; nor will he slight
him in any way. For there are two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to
prevent him: shame, which makes men refrain from laying hands on those
who are to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one will be
succored by the others who are his brothers, sons, fathers.
That is true, he replied.
Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the peace with
one another?
Yes, there will be no want of peace.
And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there will be no
danger of the rest of the city being divided either against them or against one
another.
None whatever.
I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they will be
rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the flattery of the rich by
the poor, and all the pains and pangs which men experience in bringing up a
family, and in finding money to buy necessaries for their household,
borrowing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving the money
into the hands of women and slaves to keep — the many evils of so many kinds
which people suffer in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not
worth speaking of.
Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that.
And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be blessed
as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed.
How so?
 The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of the
blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more glorious
victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public cost. For the
victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the crown
with which they and their children are crowned is the fulness of all that life
needs; they receive rewards from the hands of their country while living, and
after death have an honorable burial.
Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion
someone who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians unhappy
— they had nothing and might have possessed all things — to whom we replied
that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question,
but that, as at present divided, we would make our guardians truly guardians,
and that we were fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness,
not of any particular class, but of the whole?
Yes, I remember.
And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to be
far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors — is the life of shoemakers,
or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with it?
Certainly not.
At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if
any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that he will cease
to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which,
in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but, infatuated by some youthful
conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the
whole State to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke,
when he said, "half is more than the whole."
If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when
you have the offer of such a life.
You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of
life such as we have described — common education, common children; and
they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the city or
going out to war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together like
dogs; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, women are to share
with the men? And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate,
but preserve, the natural relation of the sexes.
 I agree with you, he replied.
The inquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community will be
found possible — as among other animals, so also among men — and if
possible, in what way possible?
You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest.
There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on by them.
How?
Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take with
them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the manner of
the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they will have to do
when they are grown up; and besides looking on they will have to help and be
of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. Did you never
observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on and help, long before they
touch the wheel?
Yes, I have.
And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in giving
them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than our guardians
will be?
The idea is ridiculous, he said.
There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other animals,
the presence of their young ones will be the greatest incentive to valor.
That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which may often
happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be lost as well as
their parents, and the State will never recover.
True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk?
I am far from saying that.
Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on some
occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better for it?
Clearly.
Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of their youth
is a very important matter, for the sake of which some risk may fairly be
incurred.
Yes, very important.
 This then must be our first step — to make our children spectators of war;
but we must also contrive that they shall be secured against danger; then all
will be well.
True.
Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war, but to
know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are safe and what
dangerous?
That may be assumed.
And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious about the
dangerous ones?
True.
And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who
will be their leaders and teachers?
Very properly.
Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good deal of
chance about them?
True.
Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with
wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and
when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses
must not be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest
that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter
to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their
elder leaders and escape.
I believe that you are right, he said.
Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to one another
and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that the soldier who
leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is guilty of any other act of
cowardice, should be degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan.
What do you think?
By all means, I should say.
 And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a
present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do what they
like with him.
Certainly.
But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to him? In
the first place, he shall receive honor in the army from his youthful comrades;
every one of them in succession shall crown him. What do you say?
I approve.
And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship?
To that too, I agree.
But you will hardly agree to my next proposal.
What is your proposal?
That he should kiss and be kissed by them.
Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let no one
whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the expedition
lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his love be youth or
maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of valor.
Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than others has
been already determined: and he is to have first choices in such matters more
than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible?
Agreed.
Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave
youths should be honored; for he tells how Ajax, after he had distinguished
himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines, which seems to be a
compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a
tribute of honor but also a very strengthening thing.
Most true, he said.
Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices
and on the like occasions, will honor the brave according to the measure of
their valor, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions
which we were mentioning; also with
"seats of precedence, and meats and full cups;"
and in honoring them, we shall be at the same time training them.
 That, he replied, is excellent.
Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the
first place, that he is of the golden race?
To be sure.
Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are
dead
"They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the
guardians of speech-gifted men"?
Yes; and we accept his authority.
We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine and
heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction; and we must do
as he bids?
By all means.
And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before their
sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who are
deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age or in any other way,
shall be admitted to the same honors.
That is very right, he said.
Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this?
In what respect do you mean?
First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that Hellenes should
enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave them, if they can help?
Should not their custom be to spare them, considering the danger which there
is that the whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians?
To spare them is infinitely better.
Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule which
they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe.
Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the barbarians
and will keep their hands off one another.
Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything but
their armor? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy afford an excuse for
not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are
fulfilling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost from this love of
plunder.
Very true.
And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a
degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body
when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him
— is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with
the stones which strike him instead?
Very like a dog, he said.
Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their burial?
Yes, he replied, we most certainly must.
Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least of all the
arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling with other Hellenes; and,
indeed, we have reason to fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen
may be a pollution unless commanded by the god himself?
Very true.
Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of houses,
what is to be the practice?
May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion?
Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual
produce and no more. Shall I tell you why?
Pray do.
Why, you see, there is a difference in the names "discord" and "war," and I
imagine that there is also a difference in their natures; the one is expressive of
what is internal and domestic, the other of what is external and foreign; and
the first of the two is termed discord, and only the second, war.
That is a very proper distinction, he replied.
And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is all
united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and strange to the
barbarians?
Very good, he said.
And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians, and barbarians with
Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when they fight, and by
nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism should be called war; but when
Hellenes fight with one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of
disorder and discord, they being by nature friends; and such enmity is to be
called discord.
I agree.
Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be
discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the lands and burn
the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of
his country would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother:
There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the conquered of their
harvest, but still they would have the idea of peace in their hearts, and would
not mean to go on fighting forever.
Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other.
And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city?
It ought to be, he replied.
Then will not the citizens be good and civilized?
Yes, very civilized.
And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as their own
land, and share in the common temples?
Most certainly.
And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by them as
discord only — a quarrel among friends, which is not to be called a war?
Certainly not.
Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be reconciled?
Certainly.
They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy their
opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies?
Just so.
And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor
will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city —
men, women, and children — are equally their enemies, for they know that the
guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their
friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands
and raze their houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many
innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction?
I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic
enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another.
Then let us enact this law also for our guardians: that they are neither to
devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses.
Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous
enactments, are very good.
But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way
you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this
discussion you thrust aside: Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at
all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if
only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have
omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave
their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other
father, brother, son; and if you suppose the women to join their armies,
whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as
auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible;
and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and
which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these advantages and as
many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into
existence, we need say no more about them; assuming then the existence of
the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means —
the rest may be left.
If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said, and
have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves, and you
seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the third, which is
the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I
think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that some fear and
hesitation were natural respecting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I
have now to state and investigate.
The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more
determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible: speak out
and at once.
 Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search
after justice and injustice.
True, he replied; but what of that?
I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to
require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice; or may we
be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher
degree of justice than is to be found in other men?
The approximation will be enough.
We were inquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the
character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that
we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge
of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they
exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view
of showing that they could exist in fact.
True, he said.
Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with
consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show
that any such man could ever have existed?
He would be none the worse.
Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State?
To be sure.
And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove the
possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described?
Surely not, he replied.
That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try and show how
and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I must ask you, having
this in view, to repeat your former admissions.
What admissions?
I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in language? Does
not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual, whatever a
man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do
you say?
I agree.
 Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in every
respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover how a city may
be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit that we have discovered the
possibility which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I should
be contented — will not you?
Yes, I will.
Let me next endeavor to show what is that fault in States which is the
cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least change which
will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and let the change, if possible,
be of one thing only, or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few
and slight as possible.
Certainly, he replied.
I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change
were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one.
What is it? he said.
Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of the
waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break and drown
me in laughter and dishonor; and do you mark my words.
Proceed.
I said: "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world
have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom
meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion
of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their
evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State
have a possibility of life and behold the light of day." Such was the thought, my
dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too
extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness
private or public is indeed a hard thing.
Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word
which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very
respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and
seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before
you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don't
prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be "pared by their fine
wits," and no mistake.
You got me into the scrape, I said.
And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out of it; but I
can only give you good-will and good advice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit
answers to your questions better than another — that is all. And now, having
such an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers that you are
right.
I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable assistance. And I
think that, if there is to be a chance of our escaping, we must explain to them
whom we mean when we say that philosophers are to rule in the State; then
we shall be able to defend ourselves: There will be discovered to be some
natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and
others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers
rather than leaders.
Then now for a definition, he said.
Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be able to
give you a satisfactory explanation.
Proceed.
I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a
lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part
of that which he loves, but to the whole.
I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my memory.
Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of pleasure
like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of youth do somehow
or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to
be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which you have with the
fair: one has a snub nose, and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of
another has, you say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked
has the grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of the
gods; and as to the sweet "honey-pale," as they are called, what is the very
name but the invention of a lover who talks in diminutives, and is not averse
to paleness if appearing on the cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse
which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to
lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth.
If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of the
argument, I assent.
And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the
same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine.
Very good.
And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an army,
they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honored by really
great and important persons, they are glad to be honored by lesser and
meaner people — but honor of some kind they must have.
Exactly.
Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the
whole class or a part only?
The whole.
And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of
wisdom only, but of the whole?
Yes, of the whole.
And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of
judging what is good and what is not, such a one we maintain not to be a
philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not
hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?
Very true, he said.
Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious
to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not
right?
Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a
strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a
delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are
a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons
in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if
they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had
let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or
country — that makes no difference — they are there. Now are we to maintain
that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite
minor arts, are philosophers?
Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.
He said: Who then are the true philosophers?
Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.
That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean?
To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure
that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make.
What is the proposition?
That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two?
Certainly.
And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one?
True again.
And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same
remark holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various
combinations of them with actions and things and with one another, they are
seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very true.
And this is the distinction which I draw between the sightloving, art-
loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone
worthy of the name of philosophers.
How do you distinguish them? he said.
The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine
tones and colors and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of
them, but their minds are incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.
True, he replied.
Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this.
Very true.
And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute
beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to
follow — of such a one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the
dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the
copy in the place of the real object?
I should certainly say that such a one was dreaming.
 But take the case of the other, who recognizes the existence of absolute
beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in
the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the
place of the objects — is he a dreamer, or is he awake?
He is wide awake.
And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge,
and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion?
Certainly.
But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our
statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without
revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits?
We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied.
Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by
assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and
that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question:
Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer
for him).
I answer that he knows something.
Something that is or is not?
Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known?
And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view,
that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-
existent is utterly unknown?
Nothing can be more certain.
Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to
be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute
negation of being?
Yes, between them.
And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to
not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be
discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if
there be such?
Certainly.
 Do we admit the existence of opinion?
Undoubtedly.
As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?
Another faculty.
Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter
corresponding to this difference of faculties?
Yes.
And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed
further I will make a division.
What division?
I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in
us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for
example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I
mean?
Yes, I quite understand.
Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore
the distinctions of figure, color, and the like, which enable me to discern the
differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I
think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and
the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and
another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking?
Yes.
And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you
say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it?
Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties.
And is opinion also a faculty?
Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an
opinion.
And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not
the same as opinion?
Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which
is infallible with that which errs?
 An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a
distinction between them.
Yes.
Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct
spheres or subject-matters?
That is certain.
Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to
know the nature of being?
Yes.
And opinion is to have an opinion?
Yes.
And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the
same as the subject-matter of knowledge?
Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty
implies difference in the sphere or subject- matter, and if, as we were saying,
opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge
and of opinion cannot be the same.
Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be
the subject-matter of opinion?
Yes, something else. Well, then, is not-being the subject-matter of
opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being?
Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something?
Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?
Impossible.
He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing?
Yes.
And not-being is not one thing, but, properly speaking, nothing?
True.
Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of
being, knowledge?
True, he said.
Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?
Not with either.
 And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?
That seems to be true.
But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater
clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance?
In neither.
Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge,
but lighter than ignorance?
Both; and in no small degree.
And also to be within and between them?
Yes.
Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?
No question.
But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort
which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie
in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the
corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in
the interval between them?
True.
And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we
call opinion?
There has.
Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally
of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure
and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the
subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty — the extremes to
the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean.
True.
This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that
there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty — in whose opinion the
beautiful is the manifold — he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot
bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is
one — to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us
whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found
ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will
not also be unholy?
No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and
the same is true of the rest.
And may not the many which are doubles be also halves? — doubles, that
is, of one thing, and halves of another?
Quite true.
And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be
denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?
True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them.
And can any one of those many things which are called by particular
names be said to be this rather than not to be this?
He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or
the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat, with what he hit him,
as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual
objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor
can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or
neither.
Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than
between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or
negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being.
That is quite true, he said.
Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the
multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing
about in some region which is halfway between pure being and pure not-
being?
We have.
Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might
find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge;
being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate
faculty.
Quite true.
Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute
beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the
many just, and not absolute justice, and the like — such persons may be said to
have opinion but not knowledge?
That is certain.
But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to
know, and not to have opinion only?
Neither can that be denied.
The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of
opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who
listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colors, but would not tolerate the
existence of absolute beauty.
Yes, I remember.
Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of
opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for
thus describing them?
I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true.
But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of
wisdom and not lovers of opinion.
Assuredly.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VI
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOVERNMENT
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)
AND thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true
and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.
I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.
I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better
view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one
subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who
desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust
must consider.
And what is the next question? he asked.
Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as
philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those
who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I
must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State?
And how can we rightly answer that question?
Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of
our State — let them be our guardians.
Very good.
Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep
anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?
There can be no question of that.
And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of
the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and
are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the absolute truth and to that
original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the
laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to
guard and preserve the order of them — are not such persons, I ask, simply
blind?
 Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.
And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being
their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue,
also know the very truth of each thing?
There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest
of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in
some other respect. Suppose, then, I said, that we determine how far they can
unite this and the other excellences.
By all means.
In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher
has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding about him, and,
when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge
that such a union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are
united, and those only, should be rulers in the State.
What do you mean?
Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort
which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and
corruption.
Agreed.
And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there
is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honorable, which they are
willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition.
True.
And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality
which they should also possess?
What quality?
Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their minds
falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth.
Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.
"May be." my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather, "must be
affirmed:" for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all
that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections.
Right, he said.
 And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?
How can there be?
Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood?
Never.
The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in
him lies, desire all truth?
Assuredly.
But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in
one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which
has been drawn off into another channel.
True.
He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be
absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure — I
mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.
That is most certain.
Such a one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the
motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no
place in his character.
Very true.
Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered.
What is that?
There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more
antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of
things both divine and human.
Most true, he replied.
Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all
time and all existence, think much of human life?
He cannot.
Or can such a one account death fearful? No, indeed.
Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?
Certainly not.
 Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or
mean, or a boaster, or a coward — can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his
dealings?
Impossible.
Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and
unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the
philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.
True.
There is another point which should be remarked.
What point?
Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that
which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress.
Certainly not.
And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he
not be an empty vessel?
That is certain. Laboring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his
fruitless occupation? Yes.
Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic
natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory?
Certainly.
And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to
disproportion?
Undoubtedly.
And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion?
To proportion.
Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-
proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously toward the
true being of everything.
Certainly.
Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go
together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a
full and perfect participation of being?
They are absolutely necessary, he replied.
 And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has
the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn — noble, gracious, the friend
of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?
The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study.
And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to
these only you will intrust the State.
Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no
one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes
over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at
each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and
answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion
they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former
notions appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of draughts
are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move,
so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this
new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the
right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any
one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each
step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when
they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the
pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to
say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are
made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.
Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong?
I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your opinion.
Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right.
Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil
until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to
be of no use to them?
You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable.
Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all
accustomed, I suppose.
I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into
such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still
more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which
the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing
on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must
have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things,
like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures.
Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and
stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity
in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are
quarrelling with one another about the steering — everyone is of opinion that
he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and
cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it
cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces anyone who says the
contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit
the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are
preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having
first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug,
they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores;
thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as
might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them
in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own
whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor,
pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-
for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons
and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends
to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be
the steerer, whether other people like or not — the possibility of this union of
authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts
or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of
mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded?
Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?
Of course, said Adeimantus.
Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure,
which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you
understand already.
Certainly.
 Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised
at finding that philosophers have no honor in their cities; explain it to him and
try to convince him that their having honor would be far more extraordinary.
I will.
Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless
to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their
uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves.
The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him — that is
not the order of nature; neither are "the wise to go to the doors of the rich"—
the ingenious author of this saying told a lie — but the truth is, that, when a
man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who
wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for
anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present
governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to
the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them
goodfor-nothings and star-gazers.
Precisely so, he said.
For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest
pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite
faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her
opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you
suppose the accuser to say that the greater number of them are arrant rogues,
and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed.
Yes.
And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained?
True.
Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also
unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any
more than the other?
By all means.
And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the
gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom
he followed always and in all things; failing in this, he was an impostor, and
had no part or lot in true philosophy.
 Yes, that was said.
Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly at variance
with present notions of him?
Certainly, he said.
And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover of
knowledge is always striving after being — that is his nature; he will not rest in
the multiplicity of individuals which is an appearance only, but will go on —
the keen edge will not be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he
have attained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a
sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power drawing near
and mingling and becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten
mind and truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and then,
and not till then, will he cease from his travail.
Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him.
And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature? Will he not
utterly hate a lie?
He will.
And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the band
which he leads?
Impossible.
Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance will
follow after?
True, he replied.
Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the
philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage,
magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you objected
that, although no one could deny what I then said, still, if you leave words and
look at facts, the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly
useless, and the greater number utterly depraved, we were then led to inquire
into the grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of
asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought us back
to the examination and definition of the true philosopher.
Exactly.
 And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philosophic nature,
why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling — I am speaking of those
who were said to be useless but not wicked — and, when we have done with
them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are
they who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are
unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy
and upon all philosophers that universal reprobation of which we speak.
What are these corruptions? he said.
I will see if I can explain them to you. Everyone will admit that a nature
having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a philosopher is a
rare plant which is seldom seen among men?
Rare indeed.
And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare
natures!
What causes?
In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, temperance,
and the rest of them, every one of which praiseworthy qualities (and this is a
most singular circumstance) destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul
which is the possessor of them.
That is very singular, he replied.
Then there are all the ordinary goods of life — beauty, wealth, strength,
rank, and great connections in the State — you understand the sort of things —
these also have a corrupting and distracting effect.
I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean
about them.
Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will then have
no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and they will no longer
appear strange to you.
And how am I to do so? he asked.
Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or animal,
when they fail to meet with proper nutriment, or climate, or soil, in proportion
to their vigor, are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment,
for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not.
Very true.
 There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under alien
conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the contrast is
greater.
Certainly.
And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they
are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the
spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather
than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any
very great good or very great evil?
There I think that you are right.
And our philosopher follows the same analogy — he is like a plant which,
having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but,
if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds,
unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so
often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of
the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who
say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to
perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their
own hearts?
When is this accomplished? he said.
When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a
court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there
is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done,
and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping
their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are
assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame — at such a time will
not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private
training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular
opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the
notions of good and evil which the public in general have — he will do as they
do, and as they are, such will he be?
Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him.
And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not been
mentioned.
 What is that?
The gentle force of attainder, or confiscation, or death, which, as you are
aware, these new Sophists and educators, who are the public, apply when their
words are powerless.
Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.
Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can be
expected to overcome in such an unequal contest?
None, he replied.
No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of folly; there
neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any different type of character
which has had no other training in virtue but that which is supplied by public
opinion — I speak, my friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human,
as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that, in
the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and comes to good is
saved by the power of God, as we may truly say.
I quite assent, he replied.
Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation.
What are you going to say?
Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists
and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the
opinion of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is
their wisdom. I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers
and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him — he would learn how
to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is
dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by
what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you
may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has
become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a
system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of
what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls
this honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in
accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he
pronounces to be that in which the beast delights, and evil to be that which he
dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and
noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of
explaining to others, the nature of either, or the difference between them,
which is immense. By heaven, would not such a one be a rare educator?
Indeed, he would.
And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of
the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or in
music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing?
For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or
other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his
judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige
him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous
which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honorable and
good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not?
No, nor am I likely to hear.
You recognize the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me ask you to
consider further whether the world will ever be induced to believe in the
existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many beautiful, or of the
absolute in each kind rather than of the many in each kind?
Certainly not.
Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?
Impossible.
And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the
world?
They must.
And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?
That is evident.
Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved in his
calling to the end? — and remember what we were saying of him, that he was
to have quickness and memory and courage and magnificence — these were
admitted by us to be the true philosopher's gifts.
Yes.
Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first among
us all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental ones?
Certainly, he said.
 And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he gets older
for their own purposes?
No question.
Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him honor and
flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now the power which he
will one day possess.
That often happens, he said.
And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such
circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a
tall, proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless aspirations, and fancy
himself able to manage the affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having
got such notions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the
fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride?
To be sure he will.
Now, when he is in this state of mind, if someone gently comes to him and
tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding, which can only be got
by slaving for it, do you think that, under such adverse circumstances, he will
be easily induced to listen?
Far otherwise.
And even if there be someone who through inherent goodness or natural
reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled and taken
captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they think that they
are likely to lose the advantage which they were hoping to reap from his
companionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him from
yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this
end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions?
There can be no doubt of it.
And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher?
Impossible.
Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a
man a philosopher, may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no
less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of
life?
We were quite right.
 Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which
I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits;
they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class
out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States
and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in
that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to
individuals or to States.
That is most true, he said.
And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for
her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false
and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen
to be her protectors, enter in and dishonor her; and fasten upon her the
reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries
that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the
severest punishment.
That is certainly what people say.
Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny
creatures who, seeing this land open to them — a land well stocked with fair
names and showy titles — like prisoners running out of prison into a
sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so
being probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For,
although philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her
which is not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose
natures are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their
meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this
unavoidable?
Yes.
Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance
and come into a fortune — he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is
decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master's daughter, who is left
poor and desolate?
A most exact parallel.
What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile and
bastard?
 There can be no question of it.
And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy
and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above them, what sort of ideas
and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be sophisms captivating
to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true
wisdom?
No doubt, he said.
Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a
small remnant: perchance some noble and welleducated person, detained by
exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains
devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he
contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts,
which they justly despise, and come to her; or peradventure there are some
who are restrained by our friend Theages's bridle; for everything in the life of
Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away
from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth mentioning, for
rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to any other man. Those who
belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession
philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and
they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at
whose side they may fight and be saved. Such a one may be compared to a
man who has fallen among wild beasts — he will not join in the wickedness of
his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and
therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and
reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good
either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like
one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along,
retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of
wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil
or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.
Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs.
A great work — yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to
him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be
the saviour of his country, as well as of himself.
 The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been
sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has been shown
— is there anything more which you wish to say?
Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to know which
of the governments now existing is in your opinion the one adapted to her.
Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation which I bring
against them — not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature, and hence
that nature is warped and estranged; as the exotic seed which is sown in a
foreign land becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to
lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of
persisting, degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever
finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that
she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or
institutions, are but human; and now, I know that you are going to ask, What
that State is:
No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question
— whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some
other?
Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my saying
before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having
the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you
were laying down the laws.
That was said, he replied.
Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by interposing
objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and
difficult; and what still remains is the reverse of easy.
What is there remaining?
The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be
the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk; "hard is the
good," as men say.
Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the inquiry will then be
complete.
I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want
of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and please to remark in what I
am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should
pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit.
In what manner?
At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning
when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from
money-making and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them
who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within
sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off.
In after life, when invited by someone else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a
lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered
by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases
they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus's sun, inasmuch as they
never light up again.
But what ought to be their course?
Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what
philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this
period while they are growing up toward manhood, the chief and special care
should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of
philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them
increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails
and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in
no serious labor, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life
with a similar happiness in another.
How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet
most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in
their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of
all.
Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have
recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies; for I shall
go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do
something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and
hold the like discourse in another state of existence.
You are speaking of a time which is not very near.
 Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with
eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe; for
they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized; they have
seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words
artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. But
a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be,
into the proportion and likeness of virtue — such a man ruling in a city which
bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them
— do you think that they ever did?
No indeed.
No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble
sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every means in
their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge, while they look
coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife,
whether they meet with them in the courts of law or in society.
They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak.
And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth forced us
to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither cities nor States nor
individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers
whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled,
whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be
laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings
or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That
either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if
they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries.
Am I not right?
Quite right.
If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some
foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfected philosopher
is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the
charge of the State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our
constitution has been, and is — yea, and will be whenever the muse of
philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a
difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves.
My opinion agrees with yours, he said.
 But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the multitude?
I should imagine not, he replied.
O my friends, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change their
minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with the view of soothing
them and removing their dislike of over-education, you show them your
philosophers as they really are and describe as you were just now doing their
character and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom you are
speaking is not such as they supposed — if they view him in this new light,
they will surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who
can be at enmity with one who loves him, who that is himself gentle and free
from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? Nay, let me
answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may be found, but not in the
majority of mankind.
I quite agree with you, he said.
And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the many
entertain toward philosophy originates in the pretenders, who rush in
uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with them, who
make persons instead of things the theme of their conversation? and nothing
can be more unbecoming in philosophers than this.
It is most unbecoming.
For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has surely no
time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled with malice and
envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed toward things fixed and
immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all
in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as
far as he can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he
holds reverential converse?
Impossible.
And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, becomes
orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but like everyone else,
he will suffer from detraction.
Of course.
And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself, but
human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into that which he
beholds elsewhere, will be, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice,
temperance, and every civil virtue?
Anything but unskilful.
And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth,
will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them
that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the
heavenly pattern?
They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will they draw
out the plan of which you are speaking?
They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which,
as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface. This is
no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein will lie the difference between
them and every other legislator — they will have nothing to do either with
individual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or
themselves made, a clean surface.
They will be very right, he said.
Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the
constitution?
No doubt.
And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will often turn
their eyes upward and downward: I mean that they will first look at absolute
justice and beauty and temperance, and again at the human copy; and will
mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and
this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing
among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God.
Very true, he said.
And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they
have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of God?
Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture.
And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described
as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is such
a one as we were praising; at whom they were so very indignant because to his
hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at what
they have just heard?
 Much calmer, if there is any sense in them.
Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they doubt
that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being?
They would not be so unreasonable.
Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the highest
good?
Neither can they doubt this.
But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under favorable
circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any ever was? Or will they
prefer those whom we have rejected?
Surely not.
Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philosophers bear
rule, States and individuals will have no rest from evil, nor will this our
imaginary State ever be realized?
I think that they will be less angry.
Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite gentle, and that
they have been converted and for very shame, if for no other reason, cannot
refuse to come to terms?
By all means, he said.
Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. Will anyone
deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by
nature philosophers?
Surely no man, he said.
And when they have come into being will anyone say that they must of
necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied even by us;
but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them can escape — who
will venture to affirm this?
Who indeed!
But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to
his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the
world is so incredulous.
Yes, one is enough.
 The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been
describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them?
Certainly.
And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or
impossibility?
I think not.
But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this, if only
possible, is assuredly for the best.
We have.
And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted, would be
for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though difficult, is not
impossible.
Very good.
And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject, but
more remains to be discussed; how and by what studies and pursuits will the
saviours of the constitution be created, and at what ages are they to apply
themselves to their several studies?
Certainly.
I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and the
procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers, because I knew
that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy and was difficult of
attainment; but that piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I
had to discuss them all the same. The women and children are now disposed
of, but the other question of the rulers must be investigated from the very
beginning. We were saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers
of their country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in
hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to lose their
patriotism — he was to be rejected who failed, but he who always came forth
pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was to be made a ruler, and to receive
honors and rewards in life and after death. This was the sort of thing which
was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not
liking to stir the question which has now arisen.
I perfectly remember, he said.
 Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold word;
but now let me dare to say — that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher.
Yes, he said, let that be affirmed.
And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts which
were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found
in shreds and patches.
What do you mean? he said.
You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity,
cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and that persons
who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous
are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled
manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes
out of them.
Very true, he said.
On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended
upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally
immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid
state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil.
Quite true.
And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those to
whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share in any
office or command.
Certainly, he said.
And will they be a class which is rarely found?
Yes, indeed.
Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labors and dangers and
pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is another kind of probation
which we did not mention — he must be exercised also in many kinds of
knowledge, to see whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or
will faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises.
Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing them. But what do you mean by
the highest of all knowledge?
 You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts; and
distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage, and
wisdom?
Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear more.
And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the discussion
of them?
To what do you refer?
We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them in
their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of
which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular exposition of
them on a level with the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that
such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the inquiry was continued
in what to me seemed to be a very inaccurate manner; whether you were
satisfied or not, it is for you to say.
Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a fair
measure of truth.
But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in any degree falls
short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the
measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think
that they need search no further.
Not an uncommon case when people are indolent.
Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of the State
and of the laws.
True.
The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer circuit, and
toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will never reach the highest
knowledge of all which, as we were just now saying, is his proper calling.
What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this — higher than
justice and the other virtues?
Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the outline
merely, as at present — nothing short of the most finished picture should
satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order
that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous
that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest
accuracy!
A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from
asking you what is this highest knowledge?
Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer
many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think,
you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have often been told that the idea
of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and
advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I
was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we
know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any
kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things
is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other
things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness?
Assuredly not.
You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but
the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge?
Yes.
And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they mean by
knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the good?
How ridiculous!
Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of
the good, and then presume our knowledge of it — for the good they define to
be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the
term "good" — this is of course ridiculous.
Most true, he said.
And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they
are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good.
Certainly.
And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?
True.
There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this
question is involved.
There can be none.
 Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to
be what is just and honorable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with
the appearance of good — the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good,
appearance is despised by everyone.
Very true, he said.
Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his
actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating
because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as
of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things —
of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to
whom everything is intrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?
Certainly not, he said.
I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beautiful and the just
are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no
one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them.
That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.
And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge, our State will be
perfectly ordered?
Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you
conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or
different from either?
Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not
be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters.
True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime
in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of
others, and never telling his own.
Well, but has anyone a right to say positively what he does not know?
Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do
that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion.
And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best
of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true notion
without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road?
Very true.
 And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when
others will tell you of brightness and beauty?
Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn away just as
you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such an explanation of the good
as you have already given of justice and temperance and the other virtues, we
shall be satisfied.
Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I cannot help
fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet zeal will bring ridicule upon me.
No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask what is the actual nature of the good,
for to reach what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for me.
But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be
sure that you wished to hear — otherwise, not.
By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain in our
debt for the account of the parent.
I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, the account
of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only; take, however, this latter
by way of interest, and at the same time have a care that I do not render a false
account, although I have no intention of deceiving you.
Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed.
Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and
remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this discussion, and at
many other times.
What?
The old story, that there is many a beautiful and many a good, and so of
other things which we describe and define; to all of them the term "many" is
implied.
True, he said.
And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other things
to which the term "many" is applied there is an absolute; for they may be
brought under a single idea, which is called the essence of each.
Very true.
The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known but
not seen.
Exactly.
 And what is the organ with which we see the visible things?
The sight, he said.
And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses perceive
the other objects of sense?
True.
But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and complex
piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever contrived?
No, I never have, he said.
Then reflect: has the ear or voice need of any third or additional nature in
order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be heard?
Nothing of the sort.
No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the other
senses — you would not say that any of them requires such an addition?
Certainly not.
But you see that without the addition of some other nature there is no
seeing or being seen?
How do you mean?
Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting to see;
color being also present in them, still unless there be a third nature specially
adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colors
will be invisible.
Of what nature are you speaking?
Of that which you term light, I replied.
True, he said.
Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visibility, and great
beyond other bonds by no small difference of nature; for light is their bond,
and light is no ignoble thing?
Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.
And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the lord of this
element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see perfectly and the
visible to appear?
You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say.
May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows?
 How?
Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun?
No.
Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun?
By far the most like.
And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which is
dispensed from the sun?
Exactly.
Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognized by
sight?
True, he said.
And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good begat in
his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things
of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the
things of mind:
Will you be a little more explicit? he said.
Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them toward
objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars
only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision
in them?
Very true.
But when they are directed toward objects on which the sun shines, they
see clearly and there is sight in them?
Certainly.
And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and
being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with
intelligence; but when turned toward the twilight of becoming and perishing,
then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion
and then of another, and seems to have no intelligence?
Just so.
Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to
the knower is what I would have you term the idea of good, and this you will
deem to be the cause of science, and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the
subject of knowledge; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will
be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as
in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun,
and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be
deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the good has a place of honor yet
higher.
What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author of
science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely cannot
mean to say that pleasure is the good?
God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in another
point of view?
In what point of view?
You would say, would you not? that the sun is not only the author of
visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth,
though he himself is not generation?
Certainly.
In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of
knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the
good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.
Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of heaven, how
amazing!
Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you made me
utter my fancies.
And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is anything
more to be said about the similitude of the sun.
Yes, I said, there is a great deal more.
Then omit nothing, however slight.
I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will have to be
omitted. I hope not, he said.
You have to Imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one
of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible. I do not
say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am playing upon the name (ovpavos,
opatos). May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and
intelligible fixed in your mind?
 I have.
Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide
each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the two main
divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to the intelligible, and
then compare the subdivisions in respect of their clearness and want of
clearness, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible
consists of images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in
the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies
and the like: Do you understand?
Yes, I understand.
Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the resemblance, to
include the animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made.
Very good.
Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have different
degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is
to the sphere of knowledge?
Most undoubtedly.
Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the
intellectual is to be divided.
In what manner?
Thus: There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the soul uses the
figures given by the former division as images; the inquiry can only be
hypothetical, and instead of going upward to a principle descends to the other
end; in the higher of the two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to
a principle which is above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the
former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves.
I do not quite understand your meaning, he said.
Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have made
some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of geometry,
arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd, and the even, and the
figures, and three kinds of angles, and the like, in their several branches of
science; these are their hypotheses, which they and everybody are supposed to
know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account of them either to
themselves or others; but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at
last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion?
Yes, he said, I know.
And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms
and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which
they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square
and the absolute diameter, and so on — the forms which they draw or make,
and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted
by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things
themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind?
That is true.
And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it
the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle,
because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the
objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images,
they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater
distinctness, and therefore a higher value.
I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of geometry
and the sister arts.
And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will
understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself
attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles,
but only as hypotheses — that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a
world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to
the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which
depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any
sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.
I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to be
describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I understand
you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic
contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed,
which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the
understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses
and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you
not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is
added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which
is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would
term understanding, and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion
and reason.
You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to
these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul — reason answering
to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third,
and perception of shadows to the last — and let there be a scale of them, and
let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that
their objects have truth.
I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your
arrangement.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VII
ON SHADOWS AND REALITIES IN EDUCATION
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)
AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened
or unenlightened: Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which
has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they
have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that
they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the
chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is
blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised
way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the
screen which marionette-players have in front of them, over which they show
the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of
vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and
various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking,
others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the
shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the
cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were
never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only
see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not
suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
 And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the
other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke
that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the
images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are
released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated
and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and
look toward the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him,
and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had
seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw
before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being
and his eye is turned toward more real existence, he has a clearer vision —
what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is
pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them — will he
not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw
are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer.
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain
in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of
vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than
the things which are now being shown to him?
True, he said.
And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and
rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun
himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the
light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of
what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And
first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects
in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light
of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and
the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in
the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and
he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly.
He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the
years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain
way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to
behold?
Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den
and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself
on the change, and pity him?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on
those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which
of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and
who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think
that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of
them? Would he not say with Homer,
"Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,"
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their
manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain
these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out of the sun to
be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of
darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the
shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his
sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time
which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very
considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he
went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to
think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the
light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the
previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire
is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey
upward to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my
poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed — whether rightly or
wrongly, God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the
world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with
an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all
things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible
world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and
that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public
or private life must have his eye fixed.
I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this
beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are
ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire
of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine
contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous
manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed
to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in
other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is
endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen
absolute justice?
Anything but surprising, he replied. Anyone who has common-sense will
remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from
two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light,
which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who
remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will
not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come
out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark,
or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he
will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity
the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below
into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets
him who returns from above out of the light into the den.
That, he said, is a very just distinction.
But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong
when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there
before, like sight into blind eyes.
They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning
exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from
darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge
can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of
becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being,
and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, of the good.
Very true.
And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest
and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists
already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from
the truth?
Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to
bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be
implanted later by habit and exercise, the virtue of wisdom more than
anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this
conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful
and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the
keen eye of a clever rogue — how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees
the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced
into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?
 Very true, he said.
But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of
their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as
eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their
birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the
things that are below — if, I say, they had been released from these
impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in
them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are
turned to now.
Very likely.
Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or rather a necessary
inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and
uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their
education, will be able ministers of the State; not the former, because they
have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well
as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon
compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the
blessed.
Very true, he replied.
Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to
compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown
to be the greatest of all — they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the
good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them
to do as they do now.
What do you mean?
I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed;
they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den, and
partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not.
But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when
they might have a better?
You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator,
who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the
happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by
persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore
benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please
themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
True, he said, I had forgotten.
Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our
philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them
that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of
politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and
the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be
expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received.
But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of
yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and
more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share
in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go
down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the
dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times
better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several
images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and
just and good in their truth. And thus our State, which is also yours, will be a
reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that
of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and
are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good.
Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to
govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which
they are most eager, the worst.
Quite true, he replied.
And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the
toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time
with one another in the heavenly light?
Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which
we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them
will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present
rulers of State.
Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your
future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may
have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule
who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are
the true blessings of life. Whereas, if they go to the administration of public
affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that
hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will
be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will
be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.
Most true, he replied.
And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is
that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Indeed, I do not, he said.
And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are,
there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
No question. Who, then, are those whom we shall compel to be guardians?
Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom
the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honors
and another and a better life than that of politics?
They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced,
and how they are to be brought from darkness to light — as some are said to
have ascended from the world below to the gods?
By all means, he replied.
The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oystershell, but the
turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to
the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true
philosophy?
Quite so.
And should we not inquire what sort of knowledge has the power of
effecting such a change?
Certainly.
What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from
becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You
will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes?
Yes, that was said.
Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality?
 What quality?
Usefulness in war.
Yes, if possible.
There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there not?
Just so.
There was gymnastics, which presided over the growth and decay of the
body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with generation and
corruption?
True.
Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No.
But what do you say of music, what also entered to a certain extent into
our former scheme?
Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of gymnastics,
and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by harmony making them
harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving them science; and the
words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and
harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tended to that good
which you are now seeking.
You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly
was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear
Glaucon, which is of the desired nature; since all the useful arts were reckoned
mean by us?
Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastics are excluded, and the arts
are also excluded, what remains?
Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and then we
shall have to take something which is not special, but of the universal
application.
What may that be?
A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in common,
and which everyone first has to learn among the elements of education.
What is that?
 The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three — in a word,
number and calculation: do not all arts and sciences necessarily partake of
them?
Yes.
Then the art of war partakes of them?
To be sure.
Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon
ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he declares that
he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and set in array the
ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they had never been numbered
before, and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been incapable of
counting his own fleet — how could he if he was ignorant of number? And if
that is true, what sort of general must he have been?
I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say.
Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic?
Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understanding of military
tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man at all.
I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of
this study?
What is your notion?
It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and which
leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly used; for the true
use of it is simply to draw the soul toward being.
Will you explain your meaning? he said.
I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the inquiry with me, and say
"yes" or "no" when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what branches of
knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may have clearer proof
that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them.
Explain, he said.
I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do not
invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while in the
case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further inquiry is
imperatively demanded.
 You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses are
imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade.
No, I said, that is not at all my meaning.
Then what is your meaning?
When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from
one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter
case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no
more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration
will make my meaning clearer: here are three fingers — a little finger, a second
finger, and a middle finger.
Very good.
You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the point.
What is it?
Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or at
the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin — it makes no
difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is not
compelled to ask of thought the question, What is a finger? for the sight never
intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger.
True.
And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which
invites or excites intelligence.
There is not, he said.
But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers? Can
sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the
circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and the other at the
extremity? And in like manner does the touch adequately perceive the
qualities of thickness or thinness, of softness or hardness? And so of the other
senses; do they give perfect intimations of such matters? Is not their mode of
operation on this wise — the sense which is concerned with the quality of
hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only
intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be both hard and soft?
You are quite right, he said.
 And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which the sense
gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is the meaning of light and
heavy, if that which is light is also heavy, and that which is heavy, light?
Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are very curious
and require to be explained.
Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally summons to her aid
calculation and intelligence, that she may see whether the several objects
announced to her are one or two.
True.
And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and different?
Certainly.
And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the two as in a state
of division, for if they were undivided they could only be conceived of as one?
True.
The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in a confused
manner; they were not distinguished.
Yes.
Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, was
compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and great as separate and
not confused.
Very true.
Was not this the beginning of the inquiry, "What is great?" and "What is
small?"
Exactly so.
And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intelligible.
Most true.
This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which invited the
intellect, or the reverse — those which are simultaneous with opposite
impressions, invite thought; those which are not simultaneous do not.
I understand, he said, and agree with you.
And to which class do unity and number belong?
I do not know, he replied.
 Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will supply the
answer; for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by
any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would
be nothing to attract toward being; but when there is some contradiction
always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of
plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed
and wanting to arrive at a decision asks, "What is absolute unity?" This is the
way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the
mind to the contemplation of true being.
And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the
same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude?
Yes, I said; and this being true of one must be equally true of all number?
Certainly.
And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number?
Yes.
And they appear to lead the mind toward truth?
Yes, in a very remarkable manner.
Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a
double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn the art
of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the philosopher
also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being,
and therefore he must be an arithmetician.
That is true.
And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher?
Certainly.
Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly prescribe; and
we must endeavor to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our
State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the
study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; nor again, like
merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of
their military use, and of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest
way for her to pass from becoming to truth and being.
That is excellent, he said.
 Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how charming the
science is! and in how many ways it conduces to our desired end, if pursued in
the spirit of a philosopher, and not of a shopkeeper!
How do you mean?
I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and elevating
effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling
against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument. You
know how steadily the masters of the art repel and ridicule anyone who
attempts to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you divide,
they multiply, taking care that one shall continue one and not become lost in
fractions.
That is very true.
Now, suppose a person were to say to them: O my friends, what are these
wonderful numbers about which you are reasoning, in which, as you say, there
is a unity such as you demand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible —
what would they answer?
They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were speaking of those
numbers which can only be realized in thought.
Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called necessary,
necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelligence in the
attainment of pure truth?
Yes; that is a marked characteristic of it.
And have you further observed that those who have a natural talent for
calculation are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge; and even the
dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no
other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would
otherwise have been?
Very true, he said.
And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, and not many
as difficult.
You will not.
And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the
best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.
I agree.
 Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And next, shall we
inquire whether the kindred science also concerns us?
You mean geometry?
Exactly so.
Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates
to war; for in pitching a camp or taking up a position or closing or extending
the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle
or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a
geometrician.
Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geometry or
calculation will be enough; the question relates rather to the greater and more
advanced part of geometry — whether that tends in any degree to make more
easy the vision of the idea of good; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend
which compel the soul to turn her gaze toward that place, where is the full
perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold.
True, he said.
Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming
only, it does not concern us?
Yes, that is what we assert.
Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny
that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary
language of geometricians.
How so?
They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and
ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like —
they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas
knowledge is the real object of the whole science.
Certainly, he said.
Then must not a further admission be made?
What admission?
That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal,
and not of aught perishing and transient.
That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true.
 Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul toward truth, and
create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily
allowed to fall down.
Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect.
Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants
of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. Moreover, the science has
indirect effects, which are not small.
Of what kind? he said.
There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said; and in all
departments of knowledge, as experience proves, anyone who has studied
geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes,
indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them.
Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our
youth will study?
Let us do so, he replied.
And suppose we make astronomy the third — what do you say?
I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of
months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor.
I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard
against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the
difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when
by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and reillumined; and is
more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen.
Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with
you and will take your words as a revelation; another class to whom they will
be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for
they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you
had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue.
You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the
argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to
others any benefit which they may receive.
I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own
behalf.
 Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the
sciences.
What was the mistake? he said.
After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution,
instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas after the second dimension,
the third, which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to
have followed.
That is true, Socrates; but so little seems to be known as yet about these
subjects.
Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons: in the first place, no government
patronizes them; this leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they
are difficult; in the second place, students cannot learn them unless they have
a director. But then a director can hardly be found, and, even if he could, as
matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would not attend to
him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole State became the director
of these studies and gave honor to them; then disciples would want to come,
and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be
made; since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of
their fair proportions, and although none of their votaries can tell the use of
them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely,
if they had the help of the State, they would some day emerge into light.
Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do not clearly
understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plane
surfaces?
Yes, I said.
And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward?
Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry; the ludicrous state of solid
geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over
this branch and go on to astronomy, or motion of solids.
True, he said.
Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence if
encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, which will be fourth.
The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you rebuked the vulgar
manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your
own spirit. For everyone, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul
to look upward and leads us from this world to another. Everyone but myself, I
said; to everyone else this may be clear, but not to me.
And what, then, would you say?
I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy
appear to me to make us look downward, and not upward.
What do you mean? he asked.
You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our
knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if a person were to throw
his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind
was the percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may
be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and
of the unseen can make the soul look upward, and whether a man gapes at the
heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I
would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his
soul is looking downward, not upward, whether his way to knowledge is by
water or by land, whether he floats or only lies on his back.
I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to
ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to
that knowledge of which we are speaking?
I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon
a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible
things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute
swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry
with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every
true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but
not by sight.
True, he replied.
The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that
higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures
excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which
we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate
the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking
that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any
other proportion.
No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous.
And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the
movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in
heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he
will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the
month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another,
and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and
subject to no deviation — that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to
take so much pains in investigating their exact truth.
I quite agree, though I never thought of this before.
Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems,
and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way
and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use.
That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers.
Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a
similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can
you tell me of any other suitable study?
No, he said, not without thinking.
Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of them are obvious
enough even to wits no better than ours; and there are others, as I imagine,
which may be left to wiser persons.
But where are the two?
There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already
named.
And what may that be?
The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is
to the eyes; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars,
so are the ears to hear harmonious motions; and these are sister sciences — as
the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them?
Yes, he replied.
But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and
learn of them; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of
these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher
object.
What is that?
There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our
pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they
did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the
same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and
consonances which are heard only, and their labor, like that of the
astronomers, is in vain.
Yes, by heaven! he said; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking
about their condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears close
alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbor's
wall — one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note
and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement;
the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same — either
party setting their ears before their understanding.
You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and
rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and
speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make
accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to
sound; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are
not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just
now proposing to inquire about harmony. For they too are in error, like the
astronomers; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard,
but they never attain to problems — that is to say, they never reach the natural
harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and
others not.
That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge.
A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful; that is, if sought after
with a view to the beautiful and good; but if pursued in any other spirit,
useless. Very true, he said.
Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommunion and
connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual
affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value
for our objects; otherwise there is no profit in them.
 I suspect so; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work.
What do you mean? I said; the prelude, or what? Do you not know that all
this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you
surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician?
Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who
was capable of reasoning.
But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will
have the knowledge which we require of them?
Neither can this be supposed.
And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic.
This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight
will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was
imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of
all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the
discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any
assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the
perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the
intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.
Exactly, he said.
Then this is the progress which you call dialectic?
True.
But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the
shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground
den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals
and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their
weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of
true existence (not shadows of images cast by a light of fire, which compared
with the sun is only an image)— this power of elevating the highest principle
in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which
we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body
to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world — this
power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which
have been described.
 I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe,
yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a
theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and
again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this,
and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain, and
describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the
divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither; for these
paths will also lead to our final rest.
Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I
would do my best, and you should behold not an image only, but the absolute
truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not
have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen
something like reality; of that I am confident.
Doubtless, he replied.
But I must also remind you that the power of dialectic alone can reveal
this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences.
Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last.
And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of
comprehending by any regular process all true existence, or of ascertaining
what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with
the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and
construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions;
and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some
apprehension of true being — geometry and the like — they only dream about
being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the
hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of
them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the
conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not
what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become
science?
Impossible, he said.
Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and
is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her
ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish
slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upward; and she uses as handmaids and
helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing.
Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name,
implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and
this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we
dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider?
Why, indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of
the mind with clearness?
At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions; two for
intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second
understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion
being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a
proportion:
"As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is
to opinion, so is science to belief, and understand ing to the perception of
shadows."
But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of
opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long inquiry, many times longer than
this has been.
As far as I understand, he said, I agree.
And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who
attains a conception of the essence of each thing? And he who does not possess
and is therefore unable to impart this conception, in whatever degree he fails,
may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much?
Yes, he said; how can I deny it?
And you would say the same of the conception of the good?
Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good,
and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove
them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any
step of the argument — unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows
neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if
anything at all, which is given by opinion, and not by science; dreaming and
slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world
below, and has his final quietus.
In all that I should most certainly agree with you.
 And surely you would not have the children of your ideal State, whom you
are nurturing and educating — if the ideal ever becomes a reality — you would
not allow the future rulers to be like posts, having no reason in them, and yet
to be set in authority over the highest matters?
Certainly not.
Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will
enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions?
Yes, he said, you and I together will make it.
Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is
set over them; no other science can be placed higher — the nature of
knowledge can no further go?
I agree, he said.
But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be
assigned, are questions which remain to be considered.
Yes, clearly.
You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before?
Certainly, he said.
The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to
the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble
and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will
facilitate their education.
And what are these?
Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more
often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics:
the toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body.
Very true, he replied.
Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be
an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labor in any line; or he will never be
able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise and to go through all the
intellectual discipline and study which we require of him.
Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts.
 The mistake at present is that those who study philosophy have no
vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into
disrepute: her true sons should take her by the hand, and not bastards.
What do you mean?
In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry — I
mean, that he should not be half industrious and half idle: as, for example,
when a man is a lover of gymnastics and hunting, and all other bodily
exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labor of learning or listening or
inquiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an
opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness.
Certainly, he said.
And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame
which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely indignant at herself and
others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not
mind wallowing like a swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no
shame at being detected?
To be sure.
And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every
other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the
bastard? for where there is no discernment of such qualities, States and
individuals unconsciously err; and the State makes a ruler, and the individual
a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame
or a bastard.
That is very true, he said.
All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us; and if
only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training
are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us,
and we shall be the saviours of the constitution and of the State; but, if our
pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a
still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present.
That would not be creditable.
Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest I
am equally ridiculous.
In what respect?
 I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much
excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled under foot
of men I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her
disgrace: and my anger made me too vehement.
Indeed! I was listening, and did not think so.
But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let me remind you
that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in
this. Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old
may learn many things — for he can no more learn much than he can run
much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil.
Of course.
And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other elements of
instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the
mind in childhood; not, however, under any notion of forcing our system of
education.
Why not?
Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge
of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but
knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Very true.
Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early
education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the
natural bent.
That is a very rational notion, he said.
Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle
on horseback; and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close
up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them?
Yes, I remember.
The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things — labors,
lessons, dangers — and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be
enrolled in a select number.
At what age?
At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the period, whether of
two or three years, which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other
purpose; for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial of
who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which
our youth are subjected.
Certainly, he replied.
After that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years old
will be promoted to higher honor, and the sciences which they learned without
any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will
be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true
being.
Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root.
Yes, I said; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of
dialectical talent: the comprehensive mind is always the dialectical.
I agree with you, he said.
These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and those who have
most of this comprehension, and who are most steadfast in their learning, and
in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age
of thirty will have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to
higher honor; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order
to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses,
and in company with truth to attain absolute being: And here, my friend, great
caution is required.
Why great caution?
Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has
introduced?
What evil? he said.
The students of the art are filled with lawlessness.
Quite true, he said.
Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in
their case? or will you make allowance for them?
In what way make allowance?
I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who
is brought up in great wealth; he is one of a great and numerous family, and
has many flatterers. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged
are not his real parents; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can you
guess how he will be likely to behave toward his flatterers and his supposed
parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation,
and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you?
If you please.
Then I should say that while he is ignorant of the truth he will be likely to
honor his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the
flatterers; he will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say
anything against them; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any
important matter.
He will.
But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would
diminish his honor and regard for them, and would become more devoted to
the flatterers; their influence over him would greatly increase; he would now
live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an
unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his
supposed parents or other relations.
Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image applicable to the
disciples of philosophy?
In this way: you know that there are certain principles about justice and
honor, which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority
we have been brought up, obeying and honoring them.
That is true.
There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and
attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right,
and they continue to obey and honor the maxims of their fathers.
True.
Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is
fair or honorable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then
arguments many and diverse refute his words, until he is driven into believing
that nothing is honorable any more than dishonorable, or just and good any
more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you
think that he will still honor and obey them as before?
Impossible.
 And when he ceases to think them honorable and natural as heretofore,
and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other
than that which flatters his desires?
He cannot.
And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it?
Unquestionably.
Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have
described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable.
Yes, he said; and, I may add, pitiable.
Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens
who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them
to dialectic.
Certainly.
There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early; for
youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their
mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting
others in imitation of those who refute them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice in
pulling and tearing at all who come near them.
Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better.
And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the
hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing
anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy
and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world.
Too true, he said.
But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such
insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the
eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater
moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honor of
the pursuit.
Very true, he said.
And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the
disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any
chance aspirant or intruder?
Very true.
 Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics
and to be continued diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the
number of years which were passed in bodily exercise — will that be enough?
Would you say six or four years? he asked.
Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they must be sent down
again into the den and compelled to hold any military or other office which
young men are qualified to hold: in this way they will get their experience of
life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn
all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch.
And how long is this stage of their lives to last?
Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty years of age,
then let those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every
action of their lives, and in every branch of knowledge, come at last to their
consummation: the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of
the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the
absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the
State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also;
making philosophy their chief pursuit, but, when their turn comes, toiling also
at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though they were performing
some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have
brought up in each generation others like themselves and left them in their
place to be governors of the State, then they will depart to the Islands of the
Blessed and dwell there; and the city will give them public memorials and
sacrifices and honor them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if
not, as in any case blessed and divine.
You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors
faultless in beauty.
Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you must not suppose
that what I have been saying applies to men only and not to women as far as
their natures can go.
There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all
things like the men.
Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that what has been
said about the State and the government is not a mere dream, and although
difficult, not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been
supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher-kings are born in a State,
one or more of them, despising the honors of this present world which they
deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honor that
springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of
all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by
them when they set in order their own city?
How will they proceed?
They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the
city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their
children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will
train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given
them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking
will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a
constitution will gain most.
Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very
well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being.
Enough, then, of the perfect State, and of the man who bears its image — there
is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him.
There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that
nothing more need be said.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK VIII
FOUR FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)
AND so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect
State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education and the
pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers
and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?
That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.
Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when
appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such
as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private,
or individual; and about their property, you remember what we agreed?
Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions
of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving from the
other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their maintenance, and they
were to take care of themselves and of the whole State.
True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find
the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path.
There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you had
finished the description of the State: you said that such a State was good, and
that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had
more excellent things to relate both of State and man. And you said further,
that if this was the true form, then the others were false; and of the false
forms, you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that
their defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were
worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as
to who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider
whether the best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable.
I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and
then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again,
and have found your way to the point at which we have now arrived.
 Your recollection, I said, is most exact.
Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same
position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me the same
answer which you were about to give me then.
Yes, if I can, I will, I said.
I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which
you were speaking.
That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of which I
spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are first, those of Crete and Sparta,
which are generally applauded; what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is
not equally approved, and is a form of government which teems with evils:
thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different:
and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and
is the fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other
constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are lordships
and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate
forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be found equally
among Hellenes and among barbarians.
Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government
which exist among them.
Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men
vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For
we cannot suppose that States are made of "oak and rock," and not out of the
human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and
draw other things after them?
Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human
characters.
Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of individual
minds will also be five?
Certainly.
Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good,
we have already described.
We have.
 Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the
contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also the
oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the
side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the
relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or
pure injustice. The inquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether
we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with
the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice.
Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.
Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of
taking the State first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with the
government of honor? — I know of no name for such a government other than
timocracy or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in
the individual; and, after that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man;
and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical
man; and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a
look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision.
That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable.
First, then, I said, let us inquire how timocracy (the government of honor)
arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political
changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government
which is united, however small, cannot be moved.
Very true, he said.
In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two
classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one
another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the muses to tell us "how
discord first arose"? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and
jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein,
making believe to be in earnest?
How would they address us?
After this manner: A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken;
but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a
constitution such as yours will not last forever, but will in time be dissolved.
And this is the dissolution: In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in
animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body
occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in
short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a
long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the
wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate
them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but
will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought
not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a
perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number
in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed)
obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning
numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another.
The base of these (3) with a third added (4), when combined with five (20) and
raised to the third power, furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is
100 times as great (400 = 4 x 100), and the other a figure having one side
equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of 100 numbers squared upon
rational diameters of a square (i.e., omitting fractions), the side of which is
five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect
square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by two perfect squares of
irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and
100 cubes of three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number
represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of
births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite
bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or
fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their
predecessor, still they will be unworthy to hold their father's places, and when
they come into power as guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking
care of us, the muses, first by undervaluing music; which neglect will soon
extend to gymnastics; and hence the young men of your State will be less
cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost
the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like
Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled
with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and
inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred
and war. This the muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung,
wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.
 Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.
Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the muses speak
falsely?
And what do the muses say next?
When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the
iron and brass fell to acquiring money, and land, and houses, and gold, and
silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money, but having the true
riches in their own nature, inclined toward virtue and the ancient order of
things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute
their land and houses among individual owners; and they enslaved their
friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition
of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves
were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them.
I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change.
And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate
between oligarchy and aristocracy?
Very true.
Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will
they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy and
the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have
some peculiarities.
True, he said.
In the honor given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warriorclass from
agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common
meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training — in all
these respects this State will resemble the former.
True.
But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no
longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements; and
in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by
nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by them upon
military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars —
this State will be for the most part peculiar.
Yes.
 Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like those
who live in oligarchies; they will have a fierce secret longing after gold and
silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries
of their own for the deposit and concealment of them; also castles which are
just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their
wives, or on any others whom they please.
That is most true, he said.
And they are miserly because they have no means of openly acquiring the
money which they prize; they will spend that which is another man's on the
gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures and running away like
children from the law, their father: they have been schooled not by gentle
influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true muse, the
companion of reason and philosophy, and have honored gymnastics more
than music.
Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a
mixture of good and evil.
Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing only, is
predominantly seen — the spirit of contention and ambition; and these are
due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element.
Assuredly, he said.
Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has been
described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not required, for a
sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly
unjust; and to go through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting
none of them, would be an interminable labor.
Very true, he replied.
Now what man answers to this form of government — how did he come
into being, and what is he like?
I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention which
characterizes him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon.
Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point; but there are other
respects in which he is very different.
In what respects?
 He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated and yet a
friend of culture; and he should be a good listener but no speaker. Such a
person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man, who is too
proud for that; and he will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably
obedient to authority; he is a lover of power and a lover of honor; claiming to
be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of that sort, but
because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms; he is also a lover of
gymnastic exercises and of the chase.
Yes, that is the type of character that answers to timocracy.
Such a one will despise riches only when he is young; but as he gets older
he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the
avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded toward virtue, having lost
his best guardian.
Who was that? said Adeimantus.
Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her
abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life.
Good, he said.
Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timocratical State.
Exactly.
His origin is as follows: He is often the young son of a brave father, who
dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he declines the honors and offices, and
will not go to law, or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights
in order that he may escape trouble.
And how does the son come into being?
The character of the son begins to develop when he hears his mother
complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which the
consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further,
when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of
battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to
him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts always centre in himself,
while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and
says to her son that his father is only half a man and far too easy-going: adding
all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond
of rehearsing.
 Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints
are so like themselves.
And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to be
attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same strain to
the son; and if they see anyone who owes money to his father, or is wronging
him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when
he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man
than his father. He has only to walk abroad and he hears and sees the same
sort of thing: those who do their own business in the city are called
simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busy-bodies are honored and
applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these
things — hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his
way of life, and making comparisons of him and others — is drawn opposite
ways: while his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his
soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being
not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought
by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is
within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and
becomes arrogant and ambitious.
You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly.
Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second
type of character?
We have.
Next, let us look at another man who, as AEschylus says,
"Is set over against another State;"
or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State.
By all means.
I believe that oligarchy follows next in order.
And what manner of government do you term oligarchy?
A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have
power and the poor man is deprived of it.
I understand, he replied.
Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from timocracy to
oligarchy arises?
 Yes.
Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into
the other.
How?
The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin
of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or
their wives care about the law?
Yes, indeed.
And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the
great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.
Likely enough.
And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a
fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed
together in the scales of the balance the one always rises as the other falls.
True.
And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the State, virtue
and the virtuous are dishonored.
Clearly.
And what is honored is cultivated, and that which has no honor is
neglected.
That is obvious.
And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers
of trade and money; they honor and look up to the rich man, and make a ruler
of him, and dishonor the poor man.
They do so.
They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the
qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one place and lower in
another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive; and they allow no one
whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the
government. These changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if
intimidation has not already done their work.
Very true.
And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established.
 Yes, he said; but what are the characteristics of this form of government,
and what are the defects of which we were speaking?
First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification Just think what
would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a
poor man were refused permission to steer, even though he were a better
pilot?
You mean that they would shipwreck?
Yes; and is not this true of the government of anything?
I should imagine so.
Except a city? — or would you include a city?
Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule
of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all.
This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy?
Clearly.
And here is another defect which is quite as bad.
What defect?
The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two States, the one of
poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always
conspiring against one another.
That, surely, is at least as bad.
Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they are incapable
of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more
afraid of them than of the enemy; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of
battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the
same time their fondness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.
How discreditable!
And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have
too many callings — they are husbandmen, tradesmen, warriors, all in one.
Does that look well?
Anything but well.
There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which
this State first begins to be liable.
What evil?
 A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property; yet
after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being
neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor,
helpless creature.
Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State.
The evil is certainly not prevented there; for oligarchies have both the
extremes of great wealth and utter poverty.
True.
But think again: In his wealthy days, while he was spending his money,
was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State for the purposes of
citizenship? Or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although
in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift?
As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift.
May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in
the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city as the other is of the
hive?
Just so, Socrates.
And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all without stings,
whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings, but others
have dreadful stings; of the stingless class are those who in their old age end as
paupers; of the stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed.
Most true, he said.
Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in that
neighborhood there are hidden away thieves and cut-purses and robbers of
temples, and all sorts of malefactors.
Clearly.
Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find paupers?
Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler.
And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to
be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are
careful to restrain by force?
Certainly, we may be so bold.
 The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill-
training, and an evil constitution of the State?
True.
Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy; and there may
be many other evils.
Very likely.
Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected
for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the
nature and origin of the individual who answers to this State.
By all means.
Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on this wise?
How?
A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a son: at first he
begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he
sees him of a sudden foundering against the State as upon a sunken reef, and
he and all that he has are lost; he may have been a general or some other high
officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and
either put to death or exiled or deprived of the privileges of a citizen, and all
his property taken from him.
Nothing more likely.
And the son has seen and known all this — he is a ruined man, and his fear
has taught him to knock ambition and passion headforemost from his bosom's
throne; humbled by poverty he takes to money-making, and by mean and
miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such a one likely
to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to
suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and
scimitar?
Most true, he replied.
And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the ground
obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught them to know their
place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into
larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but
riches and rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition
of wealth and the means of acquiring it.
 Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the
conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one.
And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth?
Yes, he said; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the
State out of which oligarchy came.
Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them.
Very good.
First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon
wealth?
Certainly.
Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual only satisfies
his necessary appetites, and confines his expenditure to them; his other
desires he subdues, under the idea that they are unprofitable.
True.
He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything and makes a
purse for himself; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he
not a true image of the State which he represents?
He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly valued by him as
well as by the State.
You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said.
I imagine not, he said; had he been educated he would never have made a
blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honor.
Excellent! I said. Yet consider: Must we not further admit that owing to
this want of cultivation there will be found in him drone-like desires as of
pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life?
True.
Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his
rogueries?
Where must I look?
You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting
dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.
Aye.
 It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a
reputation for honesty, he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue; not
making them see that they are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by
necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his
possessions.
To be sure.
Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of
the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what
is not his own.
Yes, and they will be strong in him, too.
The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not
one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior
ones.
True.
For these reasons such a one will be more respectable than most people;
yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and
never come near him.
I should expect so.
And surely the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State
for any prize of victory, or other object of honorable ambition; he will not
spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his
expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true
oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the
result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.
Very true.
Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and moneymaker answers
to the oligarchical State?
There can be no doubt.
Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be
considered by us; and then we will inquire into the ways of the democratic
man, and bring him up for judgment.
That, he said, is our method.
 Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy
arise? Is it not on this wise: the good at which such a State aims is to become
as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable?
What then?
The rulers being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to
curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by
their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus
increase their own wealth and importance?
To be sure.
There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation
cannot exist together in citizens of the same State to any considerable extent;
one or the other will be disregarded.
That is tolerably clear.
And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and
extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary?
Yes, often.
And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and fully
armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their citizenship; a
third class are in both predicaments; and they hate and conspire against those
who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for
revolution.
That is true.
On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and
pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their
sting — that is, their money — into someone else who is not on his guard
against them, and recover the parent sum many times over multiplied into a
family of children: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the State.
Yes, he said, there are plenty of them — that is certain.
The evil blazes up like a fire; and they will not extinguish it either by
restricting a man's use of his own property, or by another remedy.
What other?
One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the
citizens to look to their characters: Let there be a general rule that everyone
shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of
this scandalous moneymaking, and the evils of which we were speaking will be
greatly lessened in the State.
Yes, they will be greatly lessened.
At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named,
treat their subjects badly; while they and their adherents, especially the young
men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness
both of body and mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either
pleasure or pain.
Very true.
They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the
pauper to the cultivation of virtue.
Yes, quite as indifferent.
Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And often rulers
and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on
some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers
or fellowsailors; aye, and they may observe the behavior of each other in the
very moment of danger — for where danger is, there is no fear that the poor
will be despised by the rich — and very likely the wiry, sunburnt poor man
may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his
complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh — when he sees such a one
puffing and at his wits'-end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that
men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them?
And when they meet in private will not people be saying to one another, "Our
warriors are not good for much"?
Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking.
And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without
may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external
provocation, a commotion may arise within — in the same way wherever there
is weakness in the State there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion
may be very slight, the one party introducing from without their oligarchical,
the other their democratical allies, and then the State falls sick, and is at war
with herself; and may be at times distracted, even when there is no external
cause.
Yes, surely.
 And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their
opponents, slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder
they give an equal share of freedom and power; and this is the form of
government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot.
Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has
been effected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to
withdraw.
And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have
they? for as the government is, such will be the man.
Clearly, he said.
In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full of freedom and
frankness — a man may say and do what he likes?
'Tis said so, he replied.
And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself
his own life as he pleases?
Clearly.
Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human
natures?
There will.
This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being like an
embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as
women and children think a variety of colors to be of all things most charming,
so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the
manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States.
Yes.
Yes, my good sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a
government.
Why?
Because of the liberty which reigns there — they have a complete
assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to establish a State, as we
have been doing, must go to a democracy as he would to a bazaar at which
they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him; then, when he has made
his choice, he may found his State.
He will be sure to have patterns enough.
 And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this State, even if
you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or to go to war when
the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so
disposed — there being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to
hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold office or be a dicast, if you
have a fancy — is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely
delightful?
For the moment, yes.
And is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite
charming? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons,
although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are
and walk about the world — the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody
sees or cares?
Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See, too, I said, the forgiving spirit
of democracy, and the "don't care" about trifles, and the disregard which she
shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation
of the city — as when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted
nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been
used to play amid things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study — how
grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never
giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statesman, and promoting to
honor anyone who professes to be the people's friend.
Yes, she is of a noble spirit.
These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is
a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a
sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
We know her well.
Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather
consider, as in the case of the State, how he comes into being.
Very good, he said.
Is not this the way — he is the son of the miserly and oligarchical father
who has trained him in his own habits?
Exactly.
 And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures which are of the
spending and not of the getting sort, being those which are called
unnecessary?
Obviously.
Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the
necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures?
I should.
Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which
the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we
are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary,
and cannot help it.
True.
We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary?
We are not.
And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his
youth upward — of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some
cases the reverse of good — shall we not be right in saying that all these are
unnecessary?
Yes, certainly.
Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a
general notion of them?
Very good.
Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so
far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class?
That is what I should suppose.
The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is
essential to the continuance of life?
Yes.
But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for
health?
Certainly.
And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other
luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in
youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of
wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary?
Very true.
May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money
because they conduce to production?
Certainly.
And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the same holds good?
True.
And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was surfeited in pleasures
and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas
he who was subject to the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical?
Very true.
Again, let us see how the democratical man goes out of the oligarchical:
the following, as I suspect, is commonly the process.
What is the process?
When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now
describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has
come to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for
him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure — then, as you may
imagine, the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the
democratical?
Inevitably.
And as in the city like was helping like, and the change was effected by an
alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young
man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires
within him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which is akin and
alike?
Certainly.
And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical principle within him,
whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then
there arise in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war
with himself.
It must be so.
 And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the
oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished; a spirit of
reverence enters into the young man's soul, and order is restored.
Yes, he said, that sometimes happens.
And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, fresh ones
spring up, which are akin to them, and because he their father does not know
how to educate them, wax fierce and numerous.
Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way.
They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with
them, breed and multiply in him.
Very true.
At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they
perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words,
which make their abode in the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are
their best guardians and sentinels.
None better.
False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upward and take their
place.
They are certain to do so.
And so the young man returns into the country of the lotuseaters, and
takes up his dwelling there, in the face of all men; and if any help be sent by
his friends to the oligarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the
gate of the King's fastness; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to
enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they
listen to them or receive them. There is a battle and they gain the day, and
then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by
them, and temperance, which they nick-name unmanliness, is trampled in the
mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation and orderly
expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, by the help of a rabble of evil
appetites, they drive them beyond the border.
Yes, with a will.
And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now
in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next
thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and
impudence in bright array, having garlands on their heads, and a great
company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names;
insolence they term "breeding," and anarchy "liberty," and waste
"magnificence," and impudence " courage." And so the young man passes out
of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the
freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures.
Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough.
After this he lives on, spending his money and labor and time on
unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary ones; but if he be
fortunate, and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have
elapsed, and the heyday of passion is over — supposing that he then readmits
into the city some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give himself
up to their successors — in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a
sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the
one which comes first and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that,
then into the hands of another; he despises none of them, but encourages
them all equally.
Very true, he said.
Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of
advice; if anyone says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good
and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and
honor some, and chastise and master the others — whenever this is repeated
to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as
good as another.
Yes, he said; that is the way with him.
Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and
sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a
water-drinker, and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics;
sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a
philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and
does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a
warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that.
His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy
and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on.
Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality.
 Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of
many; he answers to the State which we described as fair and spangled. And
many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a
constitution and many an example of manners are contained in him.
Just so.
Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly be called the
democratic man.
Let that be his place, he said.
Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny
and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.
Quite true, he said.
Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise? — that it has a
democratic origin is evident.
Clearly.
And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as
democracy from oligarchy — I mean, after a sort?
How?
The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was
maintained was excess of wealth — am I not right?
Yes.
And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for
the sake of money-getting were also the ruin of oligarchy?
True.
And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings
her to dissolution?
What good?
Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy, is the glory of
the State — and that therefore in a democracy alone will the freeman of nature
deign to dwell.
Yes; the saying is in everybody's mouth.
I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of
other things introduce the change in democracy, which occasions a demand
for tyranny.
 How so?
When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers
presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong wine of
freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful
draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are
cursed oligarchs.
Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence.
Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by her "slaves" who
hug their chains, and men of naught; she would have subjects who are like
rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own heart,
whom she praises and honors both in private and public. Now, in such a State,
can liberty have any limit?
Certainly not.
By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and ends by
getting among the animals and infecting them.
How do you mean?
I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his
sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no
respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom; and the
metic is equal with the citizen, and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger
is quite as good as either.
Yes, he said, that is the way.
And these are not the only evils, I said — there are several lesser ones: In
such a state of society the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the
scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the
young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word
or deed; and old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and
gayety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore
they adopt the manners of the young.
Quite true, he said.
The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money,
whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I
forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each
other.
 Why not, as AEschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?
That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does
not know would believe how much greater is the liberty which the animals
who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other
State: for, truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-
mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the
rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at anybody who comes in
their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just
ready to burst with liberty.
When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe.
You and I have dreamed the same thing.
And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens
become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length,
as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they
will have no one over them.
Yes, he said, I know it too well.
Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which
springs tyranny.
Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?
The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease magnified
and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy — the truth being that the
excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite
direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and
animal life, but above all in forms of government.
True.
The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass
into excess of slavery.
Yes, the natural order.
And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most
aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of
liberty?
As we might expect.
 That, however, was not, as I believe, your question — you rather desired to
know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and
democracy, and is the ruin of both?
Just so, he replied.
Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the
more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same
whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings.
A very just comparison.
These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated,
being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good physician and
lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a
distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have
anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as
speedily as possible.
Yes, by all means, he said.
Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine
democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes; for in the first place
freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the
oligarchical State.
That is true.
And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.
How so?
Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from
office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in a
democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener sort
speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word
to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost everything is
managed by the drones.
Very true, he said.
Then there is another class which is always being severed from the mass.
What is that?
They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the
richest.
Naturally so.
 They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of
honey to the drones.
Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little.
And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.
That is pretty much the case, he said.
The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own
hands; they are not politicians, and have not much to live upon. This, when
assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy.
True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate
unless they get a little honey.
And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their
estates and distribute them among the people; at the same time taking care to
reserve the larger part for themselves?
Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share.
And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to
defend themselves before the people as they best can?
What else can they do?
And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge
them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy? True.
And the end is that when they see the people, not of their own accord, but
through ignorance, and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do
them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do
not wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and breeds
revolution in them.
That is exactly the truth.
Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another.
True.
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and
nurse into greatness.
Yes, that is their way. This, and no other, is the root from which a tyrant
springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector.
 Yes, that is quite clear. How, then, does a protector begin to change into a
tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale of the
Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus.
What tale?
The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim
minced up with the entrails of other victims is destined to become a wolf. Did
you never hear it?
Oh, yes.
And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his
disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the
favorite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders
them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips
tasting the blood of his fellow-citizens; some he kills and others he banishes,
at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and
after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of
his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf — that is, a tyrant?
Inevitably.
This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich?
The same.
After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a
tyrant full grown.
That is clear.
And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a
public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him.
Yes, he said, that is their usual way.
Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which is the device of all
those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career —"Let not the people's
friend," as they say, "be lost to them."
Exactly.
The people readily assent; all their fears are for him — they have none for
themselves.
Very true.
 And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of
the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Croesus,
"By pebbly Hermus's shore he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to
be a coward."
And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed
again.
But if he is caught he dies.
Of course.
And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not "larding the
plain" with his bulk, but himself the overthrower of many, standing up in the
chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant
absolute.
No doubt, he said.
And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the State in
which a creature like him is generated.
Yes, he said, let us consider that.
At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes
everyone whom he meets; he to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in
public and also in private! liberating debtors, and distributing land to the
people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to everyone!
Of course, he said.
But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and
there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or
other, in order that the people may require a leader.
To be sure.
Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by
payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily
wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly.
And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and
of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them
by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant
must be always getting up a war.
He must.
 Now he begins to grow unpopular.
A necessary result.
Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are in power,
speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of
them cast in his teeth what is being done.
Yes, that may be expected.
And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; he cannot stop
while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.
He cannot.
And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-
minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of them all,
and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made
a purgation of the State.
Yes, he said, and a rare purgation.
Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the
body; for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the
reverse.
If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself.
What a blessed alternative, I said: to be compelled to dwell only with the
many bad, and to be by them hated, or not to live at all!
Yes, that is the alternative.
And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the more satellites
and the greater devotion in them will he require?
Certainly.
And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them?
They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he pays them.
By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort and from every
land.
Yes, he said, there are.
But will he not desire to get them on the spot?
How do you mean?
He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enrol
them in his body-guard.
 To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best of all.
What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he has put to death
the others and has these for his trusted friends.
Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort.
Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into
existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and
avoid him.
Of course.
Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great tragedian.
Why so?
Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying,
"Tyrants are wise by living with the wise;"
and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes
his companions.
Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and many other things
of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets.
And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will forgive us and
any others who live after our manner, if we do not receive them into our State,
because they are the eulogists of tyranny.
Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us.
But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire
voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and
democracies.
Very true.
Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honor — the greatest honor,
as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies;
but the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation
fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed farther.
True.
But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore return and
inquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair, and numerous, and various, and
ever-changing army of his.
 If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and
spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he
will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose
upon the people.
And when these fail?
Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or
female, will be maintained out of his father's estate.
You mean to say that the people, from whom he has derived his being, will
maintain him and his companions?
Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves.
But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a grown-up son
ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be
supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in
life, in order that when his son became a man he should himself be the servant
of his own servants and should support him and his rabble of slaves and
companions; but that his son should protect him, and that by his help he
might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic, as
they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any
other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable
associates.
By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a monster he has
been fostering in his bosom; and, when he wants to drive him out, he will find
that he is weak and his son strong.
Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What! beat
his father if he opposes him?
Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.
Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged parent; and this is
real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake: as the saying is,
the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has
fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all
order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.
True, he said.
 Very well; and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed
the nature of tyranny, and the manner of the transition from democracy to
tyranny?
Yes, quite enough, he said.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK IX
ON WRONG OR RIGHT GOVERNMENT, AND THE PLEASURES OF
EACH
(SOCRATES, ADEIMANTUS.)
LAST of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to
ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in
happiness or in misery?
Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining.
There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered.
What question?
I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number
of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the inquiry will always be
confused.
Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission.
Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand:
Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful;
everyone appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the
laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them — either they are
wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they
are stronger, and there are more of them.
Which appetites do you mean?
I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling
power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink,
starts up and, having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and
there is no conceivable folly or crime — not excepting incest or any other
unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food — which at such
a time, when he has parted company with all shame and sense, a man may not
be ready to commit.
Most true, he said.
 But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when before going
to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and fed them on noble thoughts
and inquiries, collecting himself in meditation; after having first indulged his
appetites neither too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep,
and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from interfering with the
higher principle — which he leaves in the solitude of pure abstraction, free to
contemplate and aspire to the knowledge of the unknown, whether in past,
present, or future: when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has
a quarrel against anyone — I say, when, after pacifying the two irrational
principles, he rouses up the third, which is reason, before he takes his rest,
then, as you know, he attains truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the
sport of fantastic and lawless visions.
I quite agree.
In saying this I have been running into a digression; but the point which I
desire to note is that in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-
beast nature, which peers out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and
you agree with me.
Yes, I agree.
And now remember the character which we attributed to the democratic
man. He was supposed from his youth upward to have been trained under a
miserly parent, who encouraged the saving appetites in him, but
discountenanced the unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and
ornament?
True.
And then he got into the company of a more refined, licentious sort of
people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme
from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than
his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and
led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of what he deemed moderate
indulgence in various pleasures. After this manner the democrat was
generated out of the oligarch?
Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still.
And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you must conceive this
man, such as he is, to have a son, who is brought up in his father's principles.
 I can imagine him.
Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which
has already happened to the father: he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life,
which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty; and his father and friends take
part with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the opposite
ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrantmakers find that they are
losing their hold on him, they contrive to implant in him a master-passion, to
be lord over his idle and spendthrift lusts — a sort of monstrous winged drone
— that is the only image which will adequately describe him.
Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him.
And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and perfumes and
garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dissolute life, now let loose,
come buzzing around him, nourishing to the utmost the sting of desire which
they implant in his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, having
Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a frenzy; and if he finds
in himself any good opinions or appetites in process of formation, and there is
in him any sense of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an
end, and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and brought
in madness to the full.
Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man is generated.
And is not this the reason why, of old, love has been called a tyrant?
I should not wonder.
Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of a tyrant?
He has.
And you know that a man who is deranged, and not right in his mind, will
fancy that he is able to rule, not only over men, but also over the gods?
That he will.
And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes into being
when, either under the influence of nature or habit, or both, he becomes
drunken, lustful, passionate? O my friend, is not that so?
Assuredly.
Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how does he live?
Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me.
 I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there will be feasts
and carousals and revellings and courtesans, and all that sort of thing; Love is
the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul.
That is certain.
Yes; and every day and every night desires grow up many and formidable,
and their demands are many.
They are indeed, he said.
His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent.
True.
Then come debt and the cutting down of his property.
Of course.
When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding in the nest like
young ravens, be crying aloud for food; and he, goaded on by them, and
especially by love himself, who is in a manner the captain of them, is in a
frenzy, and would fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his
property, in order that he may gratify them?
Yes, that is sure to be the case.
He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape horrid pains and
pangs.
He must.
And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and the new got the
better of the old and took away their rights, so he being younger will claim to
have more than his father and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of
the property, he will take a slice of theirs.
No doubt he will.
And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first of all to cheat and
deceive them.
Very true.
And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them.
Yes, probably.
And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend?
Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them?
Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his parents.
 But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some newfangled love of a
harlot, who is anything but a necessary connection, can you believe that he
would strike the mother who is his ancient friend and necessary to his very
existence, and would place her under the authority of the other, when she is
brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like circumstances, he
would do the same to his withered old father, first and most indispensable of
friends, for the sake of some newly found blooming youth who is the reverse of
indispensable?
Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would.
Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his father and mother.
He is indeed, he replied.
He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are
beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or
steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a
temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which
gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which
have just been emancipated, and are now the bodyguard of love and share his
empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and
to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is
under the dominion of Love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he
was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder,
or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant,
and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on,
as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he
can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom
evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself
has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in
himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life?
Yes, indeed, he said.
And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the rest of the people
are well disposed, they go away and become the body-guard of mercenary
soldiers of some other tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if
there is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mischief in the
city.
What sort of mischief?
 For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, footpads, robbers
of temples, man-stealers of the community; or if they are able to speak, they
turn informers and bear false witness and take bribes.
A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them are few in
number.
Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, and all these
things, in the misery and evil which they inflict upon a State, do not come
within a thousand miles of the tyrant; when this noxious class and their
followers grow numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by
the infatuation of the people, they choose from among themselves the one who
has most of the tyrant in his own soul, and him they create their tyrant.
Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant.
If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, as he began by
beating his own father and mother, so now, if he has the power, he beats them,
and will keep his dear old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in
subjection to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their rulers
and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires.
Exactly.
When such men are only private individuals and before they get power,
this is their character; they associate entirely with their own flatterers or ready
tools; or if they want anything from anybody, they in their turn are equally
ready to bow down before them: they profess every sort of affection for them;
but when they have gained their point they know them no more.
Yes, truly.
They are always either the masters or servants and never the friends of
anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship.
Certainly not.
And may we not rightly call such men treacherous?
No question.
Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our notion of justice?
Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right.
Let us, then, sum up in a word, I said, the character of the worst man: he is
the waking reality of what we dreamed.
Most true.
 And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears rule, and the
longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes.
That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer.
And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, be also the most
miserable? and he who has tyrannized longest and most, most continually and
truly miserable; although this may not be the opinion of men in general?
Yes, he said, inevitably.
And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical State, and the
democratical man like the democratical State; and the same of the others?
Certainly.
And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man in relation to
man?
To be sure.
Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, and the city
which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to virtue?
They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the
other is the very worst.
There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will
at once inquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their
relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be
panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may
perhaps have a few retainers about him; but let us go as we ought into every
corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion.
A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as everyone must, that a tyranny is
the wretchedest form of government, and the rule of a king the happiest.
And in estimating the men, too, may I not fairly make a like request, that I
should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human
nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at
the pompous aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, but
let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose that the judgment is
given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the
same place with him, and been present at his daily life and known him in his
family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again
in the hour of public danger — he shall tell us about the happiness and misery
of the tyrant when compared with other men?
That again, he said, is a very fair proposal.
Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced judges and have
before now met with such a person? We shall then have someone who will
answer our inquiries.
By all means.
Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual and the State;
bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn from one to the other of them, will
you tell me their respective conditions?
What do you mean? he asked.
Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a city which is
governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved?
No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved.
And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters in such a State?
Yes, he said, I see that there are — a few; but the people, speaking
generally, and the best of them are miserably degraded and enslaved.
Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same rule prevail?
His soul is full of meanness and vulgarity — the best elements in him are
enslaved; and there is a small ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest.
Inevitably.
And would you say that the soul of such a one is the soul of a freeman or of
a slave?
He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion.
And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly incapable of
acting voluntarily?
Utterly incapable.
And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul taken
as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a gadfly which
goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse?
Certainly.
And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor?
Poor.
 And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable?
True.
And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear?
Yes, indeed.
Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow
and groaning and pain?
Certainly not.
And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery
than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires?
Impossible.
Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to be
the most miserable of States?
And I was right, he said.
Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical man,
what do you say of him?
I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men.
There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong.
What do you mean?
I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery.
Then who is more miserable?
One of whom I am about to speak.
Who is that?
He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has
been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant.
From what has been said, I gather that you are right.
Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more
certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting
good and evil is the greatest.
Very true, he said.
Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light
upon this subject.
What is your illustration?
 The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them
you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the
only difference is that he has more slaves.
Yes, that is the difference.
You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from
their servants?
What should they fear?
Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this?
Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection
of each individual.
Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some
fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a
god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him — will he not
be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death
by his slaves?
Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear.
The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his
slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much
against his will — he will have to cajole his own servants.
Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself.
And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with
neighbors who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if
they could catch the offender, would take his life?
His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere
surrounded and watched by enemies.
And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound — he
who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and
lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is
never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen
desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is
jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of
interest.
Very true, he said.
 And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own
person — the tyrannical man, I mean — whom you just now decided to be the
most miserable of all — will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of
leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has
to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or
paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting
and combating with other men.
Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact.
Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a
worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst?
Certainly.
He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is
obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer
of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy,
and has more wants than anyone, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect
the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of
convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely
the resemblance holds?
Very true, he said.
Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power:
he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust,
more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and
cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely
miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.
No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come, then, I said, and as
the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also
decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second,
and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all — they are the
royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.
The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming
on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the
criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.
Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce that the son of Ariston (the
best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is
he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and
most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the
greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?
Make the proclamation yourself, he said.
And shall I add, "whether seen or unseen by gods and men"?
Let the words be added.
Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may
also have some weight.
What is that?
The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the
individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the
division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.
Of what nature?
It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond;
also three desires and governing powers.
How do you mean? he said.
There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns,
another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special
name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary
strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other
sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving,
because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money.
That is true, he said.
If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were
concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion;
and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain or
money.
I agree with you.
Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering
and getting fame?
True.
Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious — would the term be
suitable?
 Extremely suitable.
On the other hand, everyone sees that the principle of knowledge is wholly
directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for gain or fame.
Far less.
"Lover of wisdom," "lover of knowledge," are titles which we may fitly
apply to that part of the soul?
Certainly.
One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in others,
as may happen?
Yes.
Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men —
lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, lovers of gain?
Exactly.
And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects?
Very true.
Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn
which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and
depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honor
or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and
silver?
True, he said.
And the lover of honor — what will be his opinion? Will he not think that
the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it brings no
distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him?
Very true.
And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on other
pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in that
pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure?
Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that if there
were no necessity for them, he would rather not have them?
There can be no doubt of that, he replied.
Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute,
and the question is not which life is more or less honorable, or better or worse,
but which is the more pleasant or painless — how shall we know who speaks
truly?
I cannot myself tell, he said.
Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience,
and wisdom, and reason?
There cannot be a better, he said.
Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has the greatest
experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated? Has the lover of gain, in
learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure of
knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain?
The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of
necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood
upward: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted —
or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted — the
sweetness of learning and knowing truth.
Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for
he has a double experience?
Yes, very great.
Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honor, or the lover of
honor of the pleasures of wisdom?
Nay, he said, all three are honored in proportion as they attain their
object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their
crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honor they all have experience of the
pleasures of honor; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of
true being is known to the philosopher only.
His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than anyone?
Far better.
And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience?
Certainly.
Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not
possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher?
What faculty?
Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.
 Yes.
And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument?
Certainly.
If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the lover
of gain would surely be the most trustworthy?
Assuredly.
Or if honor, or victory, or courage, in that case the judgment of the
ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest?
Clearly.
But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges —
The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are
approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest.
And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of
the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the
ruling principle has the pleasantest life.
Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he
approves of his own life.
And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the
pleasure which is next?
Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honor; who is nearer to himself
than the money-maker.
Last comes the lover of gain?
Very true, he said.
Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this
conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus
the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise
is quite true and pure — all others are a shadow only; and surely this will
prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?
Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself?
I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions.
Proceed.
Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain?
True.
 And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain?
There is.
A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about either
— that is what you mean?
Yes.
You remember what people say when they are sick?
What do they say?
That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew
this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill.
Yes, I know, he said.
And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard
them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain?
I have.
And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and
cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, are extolled by them as the
greatest pleasure?
Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at rest.
Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be painful?
Doubtless, he said.
Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain?
So it would seem.
But can that which is neither become both?
I should say not.
And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not?
Yes.
But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion,
and in a mean between them?
Yes.
How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is
pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain?
Impossible. This, then, is an appearance only, and not a reality; that is to
say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful,
and painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations,
when tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real, but a sort of imposition?
That is the inference.
Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and
you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is
only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.
What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?
There are many of them: take as an example, the pleasures of smell, which
are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and
when they depart leave no pain behind them.
Most true, he said.
Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the cessation
of pain, or pain of pleasure.
No.
Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul
through the body are generally of this sort — they are reliefs of pain.
That is true.
And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature?
Yes.
Shall I give you an illustration of them?
Let me hear.
You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and
middle region?
I should.
And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he
not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees
whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if
he has never seen the true upper world?
To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise?
But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that
he was descending?
No doubt.
 All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and
lower regions?
Yes.
Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as
they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas
about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only
being drawn toward the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they
experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the
neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the
goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting
pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with gray instead
of white — can you wonder, I say, at this?
No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite.
Look at the matter thus: Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the
bodily state?
Yes.
And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul?
True.
And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either?
Certainly.
And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which
has more existence the truer?
Clearly, from that which has more.
What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence, in your
judgment — those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of
sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and
knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in
this way: Which has a more pure being — that which is concerned with the
invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found in
such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and
mortal, and is itself variable and mortal?
Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the
invariable.
 And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same
degree as of essence?
Yes, of knowledge in the same degree.
And of truth in the same degree?
Yes.
And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence?
Necessarily.
Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body
have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul?
Far less.
And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul?
Yes.
What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real
existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real existence
and is less real?
Of course.
And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to
nature, that which is more really filled with more real being will more really
and truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real
being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory
and less real pleasure?
Unquestionably. Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are
always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the
mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never
pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find
their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure
and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and
their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and
feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and
butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill
one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with
that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also
unsubstantial and incontinent.
 Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an
oracle.
Their pleasures are mixed with pains — how can they be otherwise? For
they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are colored by contrast,
which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of
fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus
says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, in ignorance of
the truth.
Something of that sort must inevitably happen.
And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of
the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be
in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and
contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honor and
victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense?
Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also.
Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honor,
when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of
reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom
shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is
attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the
pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also
most natural to him?
Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.
And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is
no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business,
and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable?
Exactly.
But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its
own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a
shadow only and which is not their own?
True.
And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and
reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?
Yes.
 And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from
law and order?
Clearly.
And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest
distance? Yes.
And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?
Yes.
Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural
pleasure, and the king at the least?
Certainly.
But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most
pleasantly?
Inevitably.
Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them?
Will you tell me?
There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now
the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run
away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain
slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can
only be expressed in a figure.
How do you mean?
I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the
democrat was in the middle?
Yes.
And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image
of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the
oligarch?
He will.
And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and
aristocratical?
Yes, he is third.
Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number
which is three times three?
 Manifestly.
The shadow, then, of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of
length will be a plane figure.
Certainly.
And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no
difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from
the king.
Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum.
Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by
which the king is parted from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him,
when the multiplication is completed, living 729 times more pleasantly, and
the tyrant more painfully by this same interval.
What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the distance which
separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain!
Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human
life, if human beings are concerned with days and nights and months and
years.
Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them.
Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and
unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life and in
beauty and virtue?
Immeasurably greater.
Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may
revert to the words which brought us hither: Was not someone saying that
injustice was a gain to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just?
Yes, that was said. Now, then, having determined the power and quality of
justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him.
What shall we say to him?
Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words
presented before his eyes.
Of what sort?
 An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of ancient
mythology, such as the Chimera, or Scylla, or Cerberus, and there are many
others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one.
There are said to have been such unions.
Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, manyheaded
monster, having a ring of heads of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, which
he is able to generate and metamorphose at will.
You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as language is more
pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you
propose.
Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and a third of a
man, the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second.
That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as you say.
And now join them, and let the three grow into one.
That has been accomplished.
Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of a man, so that
he who is not able to look within, and sees only the outer hull, may believe the
beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said.
And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human
creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let us reply that, if he be
right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster and
strengthen the lion and the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the
man, who is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of either of
the other two; and he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with
one another — he ought rather to suffer them to fight, and bite and devour one
another.
Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice says.
To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he should ever so speak
and act as to give the man within him in some way or other the most complete
mastery over the entire human creature.
He should watch over the manyheaded monster like a good husbandman,
fostering and cultivating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones
from growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in common
care of them all should be uniting the several parts with one another and with
himself.
Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice will say.
And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honor, or advantage,
the approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is
wrong and false and ignorant?
Yes, from every point of view.
Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not
intentionally in error. "Sweet sir," we will say to him, "what think you of things
esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to
the man, or rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which subjects the
man to the beast?" He can hardly avoid saying, Yes — can he, now? Not if he
has any regard for my opinion. But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to
answer another question: "Then how would a man profit if he received gold
and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to
the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into
slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil
men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received?
And will anyone say that he is not a miserable caitiff who remorselessly sells
his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle
took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in
order to compass a worse ruin."
Yes, said Glaucon, far worse — I will answer for him.
Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in him the huge
multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large?
Clearly.
And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent
element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength?
Yes.
And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax and weaken this
same creature, and make a coward of him?
Very true.
And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates
the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, for the sake of money, of which
he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be
trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey?
True, he said.
And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach? Only
because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle; the individual
is unable to control the creatures within him, but has to court them, and his
great study is how to flatter them.
Such appears to be the reason.
And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the
best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the Divine
rules; not, as Thrasymachus supposed, to the injury of the servant, but
because everyone had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him;
or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in order that we may be
all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals.
True, he said.
And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of
the whole city; and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over
children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them
a principle analogous to the constitution of a State, and by cultivation of this
higher element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like our own,
and when this is done they may go their ways.
Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest.
From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man
is profited by injustice or intemperance or other baseness, which will make
him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness?
From no point of view at all.
What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He
who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished
has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element
in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the
acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever
is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength, and health, in proportion as the soul is
more honorable than the body.
Certainly, he said.
 To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote the energies
of his life. And in the first place, he will honor studies which impress these
qualities on his soul, and will disregard others?
Clearly, he said.
In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training, and so far
will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard
even health as quite a secondary matter; his first object will be not that he may
be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he
will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the
soul?
Certainly he will, if he has true music in him.
And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order and harmony
which he will also observe; he will not allow himself to be dazzled by the
foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm?
Certainly not, he said.
He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder
occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon
this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his
means.
Very true.
And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honors as
he deems likely to make him a better man; but those, whether private or
public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid?
Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman.
By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will,
though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call.
I understand; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are
the founders, and which exists in idea only; for I do not believe that there is
such a one anywhere on earth?
In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he
who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his own house in order. But
whether such a one exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live
after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other.
I think so, he said.
 The Republic, by Plato

BOOK X
THE RECOMPENSE OF LIFE
(SOCRATES, GLAUCON.)
OF the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there
is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry.
To what do you refer?
To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be
received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been
distinguished.
What do you mean?
Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to
the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe — but I do not mind saying to
you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the
hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to
them.
Explain the purport of your remark.
Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an
awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for
he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic
company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and
therefore I will speak out.
Very good, he said.
Listen to me, then, or, rather, answer me.
Put your question.
Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know.
A likely thing, then, that I should know.
Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener.
Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I
could not muster courage to utter it. Will you inquire yourself? Well, then,
shall we begin the inquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of
individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a
corresponding idea or form; do you understand me?
I do.
Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world
— plenty of them, are there not?
Yes.
But there are only two ideas or forms of them — one the idea of a bed, the
other of a table.
True.
And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our
use, in accordance with the idea — that is our way of speaking in this and
similar instances — but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could
he?
Impossible.
And there is another artist — I should like to know what you would say of
him.
Who is he?
One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen.
What an extraordinary man!
Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is
he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind, but plants and animals,
himself and all other things — the earth and heaven, and the things which are
in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also.
He must be a wizard and no mistake.
Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such
maker or creator, or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these
things, but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which you could
make them all yourself?
What way?
An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat
might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a
mirror round and round — you would soon enough make the sun and the
heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the
other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.
Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.
Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter, too,
is, as I conceive, just such another — a creator of appearances, is he not?
Of course.
But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet
there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed?
Yes, he said, but not a real bed.
And what of the maker of the bed? were you not saying that he too makes,
not the idea which, according to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a
particular bed?
Yes, I did.
Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence,
but only some semblance of existence; and if anyone were to say that the work
of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has real existence, he could
hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth.
At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking
the truth.
No wonder, then, that his work, too, is an indistinct expression of truth.
No wonder.
Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we inquire who
this imitator is?
If you please. Well, then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which
is made by God, as I think that we may say — for no one else can be the
maker?
No.
There is another which is the work of the carpenter?
Yes.
And the work of the painter is a third?
Yes.
Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend
them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter?
 Yes, there are three of them.
God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and
one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be
made by God.
Why is that?
Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind
them which both of them would have for their idea, and that would be the
ideal bed and not the two others.
Very true, he said.
God knew this, and he desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a
particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore he created a bed which is
essentially and by nature one only.
So we believe.
Shall we, then, speak of him as the natural author or maker of the bed?
Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation he is the
author of this and of all other things.
And what shall we say of the carpenter — is not he also the maker of the
bed?
Yes.
But would you call the painter a creator and maker?
Certainly not.
Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?
I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that
which the others make.
Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an
imitator?
Certainly, he said.
And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, therefore, like all other imitators,
he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?
That appears to be so.
Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter? I
would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally
exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?
 The latter.
As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this.
What do you mean?
I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely
or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different,
but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things.
Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.
Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting
designed to be — an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear — of
appearance or of reality?
Of appearance.
Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things
because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For
example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though
he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive
children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter
from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.
Certainly.
And whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all
the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a
higher degree of accuracy than any other man — whoever tells us this, I think
that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have
been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought
all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of
knowledge and ignorance and imitation.
Most true.
And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who
is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice,
and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he
knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a
poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar
illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by
them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these
were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made
without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and
not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know
the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well?
The question, he said, should by all means be considered.
Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well
as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch?
Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had
nothing higher in him?
I should say not.
The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in
realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of
himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums,
he would prefer to be the theme of them.
Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honor and
profit.
Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any
of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask
him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left
behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he
only talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we have a right
to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest
and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them.
"Friend Homer," then we say to him, "if you are only in the second remove
from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third — not an image
maker or imitator — and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men
better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better
governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and
many other cities, great and small, have been similarly benefited by others;
but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them
any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is
renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you?" Is there
any city which he might name?
I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that
he was a legislator.
 Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by
him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive?
There is not.
Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life,
such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious
men have conceived, which is attributed to him?
There is absolutely nothing of the kind.
But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or
teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him,
and who handed down to posterity a Homeric way of life, such as was
established by Pythagoras, who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and
whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was
named after him?
Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For, surely, Socrates, Creophylus,
the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us
laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was
greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive?
Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if
Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind — if he had
possessed knowledge, and not been a mere imitator — can you imagine, I say,
that he would not have had many followers, and been honored and loved by
them? Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos and a host of others have
only to whisper to their contemporaries: "You will never be able to manage
either your own house or your own State until you appoint us to be your
ministers of education"— and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect
in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on
their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or
again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists,
if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have
been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to
stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples
would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education
enough?
Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true.
 Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with
Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the
truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already
observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of
cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he
does, and judge only by colors and figures.
Quite so.
In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on
the colors of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough
to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only
from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or
of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well —
such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I
think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance
the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon
them, and recited in simple prose.
Yes, he said.
They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming;
and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them?
Exactly.
Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing
of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right?
Yes.
Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an
explanation.
Proceed.
Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit?
Yes.
And the worker in leather and brass will make them?
Certainly.
But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly
even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who
knows how to use them — he knows their right form.
Most true.
 And may we not say the same of all things?
What?
That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which
uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them?
Yes.
And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or
inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature
or the artist has intended them.
True.
Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he
must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop
themselves in use; for example, the fluteplayer will tell the flute-maker which
of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to
make them, and the other will attend to his instructions?
Of course.
The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness
and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told
by him?
True.
The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the
maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who
knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say,
whereas the user will have knowledge?
True.
But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no his
drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from being
compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions
about what he should draw?
Neither.
Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about
the goodness or badness of his imitations?
I suppose not.
 The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own
creations?
Nay, very much the reverse.
And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good
or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be
good to the ignorant multitude?
Just so.
Thus far, then, we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no
knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of
play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in iambic or in heroic
verse, are imitators in the highest degree?
Very true.
And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be
concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?
Certainly.
And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed?
What do you mean?
I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small
when seen at a distance?
True.
And the same objects appear straight when looked at out of the water, and
crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the
illusion about colors to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is
revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the
art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious
devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic.
True.
And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the
rescue of the human understanding — there is the beauty of them — and the
apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over
us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight?
Most true.
 And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle
in the soul?
To be sure.
And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal,
or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent
contradiction?
True.
But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible — the same
faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing?
Very true.
Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not
the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure?
True.
And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure
and calculation?
Certainly.
And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the
soul?
No doubt.
This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that
painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper
work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and
associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and
that they have no true or healthy aim.
Exactly.
The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior
offspring.
Very true.
And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also,
relating in fact to what we term poetry?
Probably the same would be true of poetry.
 Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting;
but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical
imitation is concerned is good or bad.
By all means.
We may state the question thus: Imitation imitates the actions of men,
whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad
result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything
more?
No, there is nothing else.
But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself —
or, rather, as in the instance of sight there were confusion and opposition in
his opinions about the same things, so here also are there not strife and
inconsistency in his life? though I need hardly raise the question again, for I
remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been
acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions
occurring at the same moment?
And we were right, he said.
Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must
now be supplied.
What was the omission?
Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his
son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more
equanimity than another?
Yes.
But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help
sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow?
The latter, he said, is the truer statement.
Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow
when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone?
It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not.
When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which
he would be ashamed of anyone hearing or seeing him do?
True.
 There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well
as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow?
True.
But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same
object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him?
Certainly.
One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law?
How do you mean?
The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we
should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things
are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human
thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the
moment is most required.
What is most required? he asked.
That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice
have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not,
like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting
time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a
remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow
by the healing art.
Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune.
Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of
reason?
Clearly.
And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles
and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call
irrational, useless, and cowardly?
Indeed, we may.
And does not the latter — I mean the rebellious principle — furnish a great
variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament,
being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when
imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is
assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are
strangers.
 Certainly.
Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made,
nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul;
but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated?
Clearly.
And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter,
for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior
degree of truth — in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being
concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in
refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and
nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city
when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the
way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil
constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of
greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another
small — he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth.
Exactly.
But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation:
the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few
who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing?
Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say.
Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage
of Homer or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero
who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his
breast — the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are
in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most.
Yes, of course, I know.
But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that
we pride ourselves on the opposite quality — we would fain be quiet and
patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us in the
recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman.
Very true, he said.
Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that
which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person?
 No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable.
Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view.
What point of view?
If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger
and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this
feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and
delighted by the poets; the better nature in each of us, not having been
sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to
break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that
there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying anyone who comes
telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he
thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose
this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that
from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves.
And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the
misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own.
How very true!
And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which
you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed
in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not
at all disgusted at their unseemliness; the case of pity is repeated; there is a
principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which
you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a
buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the
theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet
at home.
Quite true, he said.
And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of
desire, and pain, and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every
action — in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying
them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind
are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.
I cannot deny it.
 Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of
Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is
profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you
should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your
whole life according to him, we may love and honor those who say these things
— they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to
acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers;
but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises
of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State.
For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic
or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent
have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our
State.
That is most true, he said.
And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our
defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending
away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described;
for reason constrained us. But that she may not impute to us any harshness or
want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between
philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of
"the yelping hound howling at her lord," or of one "mighty in the vain talk of
fools," and "the mob of sages circumventing Zeus," and the "subtle thinkers
who are beggars after all"; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient
enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and
the sister art of imitation, that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-
ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her — we are very conscious of
her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say,
Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she
appears in Homer?
Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed.
Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile, but upon
this condition only — that she make a defence of herself in lyrical or some
other metre?
Certainly.
 And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of
poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let
them show not only that she is pleasant, but also useful to States and to
human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we
shall surely be the gainers — I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a
delight?
Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers.
If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are
enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think
their desires are opposed to their interests, so, too, must we after the manner
of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We, too, are inspired by
that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us,
and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as
she is unable to make good her defence, this argument of ours shall be a
charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains;
that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the
many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have
described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who
listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be
on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.
Yes, he said, I quite agree with you.
Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than
appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will anyone be profited
if under the influence of honor or money or power, aye, or under the
excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue?
Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that
anyone else would have been.
And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards
which await virtue.
What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must be of an
inconceivable greatness.
Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The whole period of
threescore years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with
eternity?
 Say rather 'nothing' he replied.
And should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather
than of the whole?
Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask?
Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and
imperishable?
He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you
really prepared to maintain this?
Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too — there is no difficulty in proving it.
I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state this argument of
which you make so light. Listen, then.
I am attending.
There is a thing which you call good and another which you call evil?
Yes, he replied.
Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting and destroying
element is the evil, and the saving and improving element the good?
Yes.
And you admit that everything has a good and also an evil; as ophthalmia
is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole body; as mildew is of corn, and
rot of timber, or rust of copper and iron: in everything, or in almost
everything, there is an inherent evil and disease?
Yes, he said.
And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made evil, and at
last wholly dissolves and dies?
True.
The vice and evil which are inherent in each are the destruction of each;
and if these do not destroy them there is nothing else that will; for good
certainly will not destroy them, nor, again, that which is neither good nor evil.
Certainly not.
If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent corruption cannot
be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain that of such a nature there is no
destruction?
That may be assumed.
 Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul?
Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in
review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance.
But does any of these dissolve or destroy her? — and here do not let us fall
into the error of supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when he is
detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take
the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and
reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now
speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them
and inhering in them and so destroying them. Is not this true?
Yes.
Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or other evil which
exists in the soul waste and consume her? Do they by attaching to the soul and
inhering in her at last bring her to death, and so separate her from the body?
Certainly not.
And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything can perish
from without through affection of external evil which could not be destroyed
from within by a corruption of its own?
It is, he replied.
Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, whether
staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, when confined to the
actual food, is not supposed to destroy the body; although, if the badness of
food communicates corruption to the body, then we should say that the body
has been destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought on by
this; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed by the badness of the
food, which is another, and which does not engender any natural infection —
this we shall absolutely deny?
Very true.
And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can produce an evil of
the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, which is one thing, can be
dissolved by any merely external evil which belongs to another?
Yes, he said, there is reason in that. Either, then, let us refute this
conclusion, or, while it remains unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any
other disease, or the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole
body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she herself is proved
to become more unholy or unrighteous in consequence of these things being
done to the body; but that the soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an
internal evil, can be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any
man.
And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls of men
become more unjust in consequence of death.
But if someone who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul
boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and
unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease,
must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this
disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and
which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which,
at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of
their deeds?
Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very
terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the
opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will
murder others, keeps the murderer alive — aye, and well awake, too; so far
removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death.
True, I said; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill
or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of
some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was
appointed to be the destruction.
Yes, that can hardly be.
But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or
external, must exist forever, and, if existing forever, must be immortal?
Certainly.
That is the conclusion, I said; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls
must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in
number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures
must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in
immortality.
Very true.
 But this we cannot believe — reason will not allow us — any more than we
can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difference
and dissimilarity.
What do you mean? he said.
The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of
compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements?
Certainly not.
Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are
many other proofs; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her,
marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must
contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity; and then her
beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we
have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, we have spoken the
truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also
that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of
the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because
his natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by the waves in
all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of sea-weed and
shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own
natural form. And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition,
disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we
look. Where, then?
At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and
converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal
and divine; also how different she would become if, wholly following this
superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which
she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and
rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth,
and is overgrown by the good things in this life as they are termed: then you
would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many,
or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in
this present life I think that we have now said enough.
True, he replied.
And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument; we have
not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying,
are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own nature has been
shown to be the best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what is just,
whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of
Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades.
Very true.
And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how
many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues
procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death.
Certainly not, he said.
Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument?
What did I borrow?
The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust
just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not
possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be
made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed
against pure injustice. Do you remember?
I should be much to blame if I had forgotten.
Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the
estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to
be her due should now be restored to her by us; since she has been shown to
confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has
been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of
appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own.
The demand, he said, is just.
In the first place, I said — and this is the first thing which you will have to
give back — the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods.
Granted.
And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other
the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning?
True.
And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all
things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of
former sins?
Certainly.
 Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in
poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end
work together for good to him in life and death; for the gods have a care of
anyone whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can
attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue?
Yes, he said; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected by him.
And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed?
Certainly.
Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the just?
That is my conviction.
And what do they receive of men? Look at things as they really are, and
you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from
the starting-place to the goal, but not back again from the goal: they go off at a
great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears
draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes
to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the
just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life
has a good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow.
True.
And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you
were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of them, what you were
saying of the others, that as they grow older, they become rulers in their own
city if they care to be; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to
whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of these. And, on the
other hand, of the unjust I say that the greater number, even though they
escape in their youth, are found out at last and look foolish at the end of their
course, and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by
stranger and citizen; they are beaten, and then come those things unfit for ears
polite, as you truly term them; they will be racked and have their eyes burned
out, as you were saying. And you may suppose that I have repeated the
remainder of your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without reciting
them, that these things are true?
Certainly, he said, what you say is true.
 These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are bestowed upon
the just by gods and men in this present life, in addition to the other good
things which justice of herself provides.
Yes, he said; and they are fair and lasting.
And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or greatness in
comparison with those other recompenses which await both just and unjust
after death. And you ought to hear them, and then both just and unjust will
have received from us a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to
them.
Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more gladly hear.
Well, I said, I will tell you a tale; not one of the tales which Odysseus tells
to the hero Alcinous, yet this, too, is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a
Pamphylian by birth. He was slain in battle, and ten days afterward, when the
bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was
found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to be buried. And on the
twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pyre, he returned to life and told
them what he had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul left the
body he went on a journey with a great company, and that they came to a
mysterious place at which there were two openings in the earth; they were
near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven
above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded
the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their
sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand;
and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower
way on the left hand; these also bore the symbols of their deeds, but fastened
on their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be the
messenger who would carry the report of the other world to them, and they
bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place. Then he
beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either opening of heaven
and earth when sentence had been given on them; and at the two other
openings other souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with
travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And arriving ever and
anon they seemed to have come from a long journey, and they went forth with
gladness into the meadow, where they encamped as at a festival; and those
who knew one another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from
earth curiously inquiring about the things above, and the souls which came
from heaven about the things beneath. And they told one another of what had
happened by the way, those from below weeping and sorrowing at the
remembrance of the things which they had endured and seen in their journey
beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those from
above were describing heavenly delights and visions of inconceivable beauty.
The story, Glaucon, would take too long to tell; but the sum was this: He said
that for every wrong which they had done to anyone they suffered tenfold; or
once in a hundred years — such being reckoned to be the length of man's life,
and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thousand years. If, for example,
there were any who had been the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or
enslaved cities or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behavior, for each
and all of their offences they received punishment ten times over, and the
rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the same proportion. I
need hardly repeat what he said concerning young children dying almost as
soon as they were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of
murderers, there were retributions other and greater far which he described.
He mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked another,
"Where is Ardiaeus the Great?" (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years
before the time of Er: he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and
had murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to have
committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer of the other spirit
was: "He comes not hither, and will never come." And this, said he, was one of
the dreadful sights which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the
cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about to reascend,
when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were
tyrants; and there were also, besides the tyrants, private individuals who had
been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the
upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever
any of these incurable sinners or someone who had not been sufficiently
punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were
standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus
and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and
flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side,
carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were
their crimes, and that they were being taken away to be cast into hell. And of
all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like
the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the
voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding
joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were
blessings as great.
Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days,
on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth
day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a
line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven
and through the earth, in color resembling the rainbow, only brighter and
purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the
midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from
above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the
universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the
spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of
this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also
partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on
earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl
which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and
another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which
fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on
their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the
spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and
outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are
narrower, in the following proportions — the sixth is next to the first in size,
the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the
fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest
(or fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest; the eighth (or
moon) colored by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth
(Saturn and Mercury) are in color like one another, and yellower than the
preceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth (Mars) is
reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has
the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner
circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in
swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in
swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion, the
fourth; the third appeared fourth, and the second fifth. The spindle turns on
the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who
goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form
one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three
in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of
Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads,
Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the
harmony of the sirens — Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present,
Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her
right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and
Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis
laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other.
When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once to Lachesis;
but first of all there came a prophet who arranged them in order; then he took
from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives, and having mounted a
high pulpit, spoke as follows: "Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of
Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius
will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who
draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be
his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors or dishonors her he will have
more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser — God is justified."
When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scattered lots indifferently among
them all, and each of them took up the lot which fell near him, all but Er
himself (he was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number
which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the ground before
them the samples of lives; and there were many more lives than the souls
present, and they were of all sorts. There were lives of every animal and of
man in every condition. And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting
out the tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to an end
in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were lives of famous men, some
who were famous for their form and beauty as well as for their strength and
success in games, or, again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors;
and some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. And of
women likewise; there was not, however, any definite character in them,
because the soul, when choosing a new life, must of necessity become
different. But there was every other quality, and they all mingled with one
another, and also with elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and
health; and there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is the
supreme peril of our human state; and therefore the utmost care should be
taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowledge and seek and
follow one thing only, if peradventure he may be able to learn and may find
someone who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil,
and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity.
He should consider the bearing of all these things which have been mentioned
severally and collectively upon virtue; he should know what the effect of
beauty is when combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what
are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, of private and
public station, of strength and weakness, of cleverness and dullness, and of all
the natural and acquired gifts of the soul, and the operation of them when
conjoined; he will then look at the nature of the soul, and from the
consideration of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the
better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving the name of evil to
the life which will make his soul more unjust, and good to the life which will
make his soul more just; all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know
that this is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must take with
him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth and right, that there too
he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil,
lest, coming upon tyrannies and similar villanies, he do irremediable wrongs
to others and suffer yet worse himself; but let him know how to choose the
mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible, not only in this
life but in all that which is to come. For this is the way of happiness.
And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this
was what the prophet said at the time: "Even for the last comer, if he chooses
wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable
existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last
despair." And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward
and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind having been darkened
by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he
chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils,
to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was
in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting
the proclamation of the prophet; for, instead of throwing the blame of his
misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather
than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a
former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of
habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were
similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and
therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims WhO
came from earth, having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not
in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also
because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for
an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this
world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been
moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger
reported, be happy here, and also his journey to another life and return to this,
instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly.
Most curious, he said, was the spectacle — sad and laughable and strange; for
the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a
previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing
the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a
woman because they had been his murderers; he beheld also the soul of
Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, like the
swans and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the
twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of
Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done
him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the
life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his
sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta; she, seeing the great
fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there
followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a
woman cunning in the arts; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of
the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the
soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the
last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of
ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a
private man who had no cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which
was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else; and when he saw
it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of
last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into
animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who
changed into one another and into corresponding human natures — the good
into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations.
All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in the order of
their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the genius whom they had
severally chosen, to be the guardian of their lives and the fulfiller of the choice:
this genius led the souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of
the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of each; and then,
when they were fastened to this, carried them to Atropos, who spun the
threads and made them irreversible, whence without turning round they
passed beneath the throne of Necessity; and when they had all passed, they
marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a
barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then toward evening they
encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of
this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not
saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank
forgot all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the middle of the night
there were a thunderstorm and earthquake, and then in an instant they were
driven upward in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He
himself was hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by what
means he returned to the body he could not say; only, in the morning, awaking
suddenly, he found himself lying on the pyre.
And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not perished, and will
save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over
the river of Forgetfulness, and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my
counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice
and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure
every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another
and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the
games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well
with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we
have been describing.