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SOCRATES - GLAUCON
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.
SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS
Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that
you and our 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 honour 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 he 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.
GLAUCON - CEPHALUS - SOCRATES
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 is 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 enquire, 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
towards 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.
CEPHALUS - SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS
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.
SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS
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 should 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 now saying that I
ought to return a 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
friends?
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 harp-player 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 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 the 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
favourite 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 any one 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 general 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 any one?
Impossible.
And the just is the good?
Certainly.
Then to injure a friend or any one 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 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
any one 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.
SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS - THRASYMACHUS
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 honour 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, 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.
SOCRATES - THRASYMACHUS - GLAUCON
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 some one else.
Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one 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 some one 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 any one 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 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 any one 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 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
enquire 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 or 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.
SOCRATES - CLEITOPHON - POLEMARCHUS - THRASYMACHUS
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 sometimes
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.
SOCRATES - THRASYMACHUS
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 me 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 the 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 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
self-sufficing 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
every one 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 of 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 more 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 enquiry?
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 ensured 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 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 say 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 honour, or a penalty
for refusing.
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
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 honour 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 honour. 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 dishonourable. 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
any one 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 every one 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 enquiry 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?
SOCRATES - GLAUCON - THRASYMACHUS
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 honourable 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 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 unjust 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.
They were.
And you also said that the lust 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 any
one. 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 the best and
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.
If you are right in you 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 evil-doers 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 friend?
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 ing at 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 to 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 enquire whether the things
which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their own proper excellence, and fall 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 towards 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 enquiry 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.
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' 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 have 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
any one 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.
GLAUCON
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 honoured 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 outwards and reappeared; he made several trials
of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards
he became invisible, when outwards 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 any one 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 any one 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 any one 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 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 honoured
and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of
justice or for the sake of honours 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.
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
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 honour the gods or any man whom he wants to honour 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.
ADEIMANTUS -SOCRATES
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.
ADEIMANTUS
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 hear acorns at their summit, and bees I the
middle;
And the sheep the bowed down bowed the with the
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 honourable, 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 honour 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 he turned from their purpose; and
men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties,
and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed.
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 quickwitted, 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 he 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 some one 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 honour justice; or indeed to
refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should
be some one 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 some one 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, honours, 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 upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep
one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman,
because afraid, if he did wrong, of harbouring 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 honours 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.
SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS
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 honour 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 enquiry 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 some one to read small letters from a distance; and it
occurred to some one 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 enquiry?
I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the
subject of our enquiry, 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 enquire
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 I 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, some one 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 labours into a common stock? --the individual husbandman, for
example, producing for four, and labouring 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 labour, 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 labour.
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. 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 enquiry.
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.
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
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 way 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 colours; 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 neighbours' 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 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
husbandman, or a weaver, 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 heavy-armed 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
recognise 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 enquiry
which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry 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.
SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS
Adeimantus thought that the enquiry 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, gymnastic for
the body, and music for the soul.
True.
Shall we begin education with music, and go on to
gymnastic afterwards?
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 authorised 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 story-tellers
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 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 for 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 any one 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 any one 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 was 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 any one
is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or
prose by any one 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 vigour 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 any one,
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 for ever 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 any one, 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 he 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, be said, in these principles, and
promise to make them my laws.
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 upwards, if we mean them to honour 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 besides 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 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 he a serf on the land of a poor and
portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to nought. We must
also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared,
Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods
abhor should he 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
the 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 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 harvest 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 dishonoured 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 any one 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 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 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 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 he 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 offering 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 not done by them, or that they were not the sons of
gods; --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 attar 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 seems 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 is 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 any one 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 my 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 fall 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 labour.
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 in drink or, or who in any other
manner sin against themselves and their neighbours 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 behaviour 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 lie 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 hall, 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 hc 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.
Every one can see already what we ought to say about
them, if we are to be consistent with ourselves.
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the words
'every one' 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 surely be no difference
words 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 lamentations 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; even to women
who have a character to maintain they are of no use, 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 many-stringed
curiously-harmonised 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 recognise 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
recognise them wherever they are found:
True --
Or, as we recognise 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, in all their combinations, and can recognise 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 harmonises 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 gymnastic, in which our youth are
next to be trained.
Certainly.
Gymnastic 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 gymnastic is twin sister of
that simple music which we were just now describing.
How so?
Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic which,
like our music, is simple and good; and especially the military gymnastic.
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 gymnastic of health in the body.
Most true, he said.
But when intemperance and disease 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 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 some one 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-bye to this sort of
physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and
does his business, or, if his constitution falls, 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 practice 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 t 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 gymnastic, 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, irreconcilable 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 afterwards 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 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 hd 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 upwards, 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 upwards, 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 honourable 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 amongst
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 recognise 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 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 gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine
unless in some extreme case.
That I quite believe.
The very exercises and tolls 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 gymnastic
really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul,
the other fir 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 gymnastic, 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 impracticable.
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 lie becomes twice the man that he was.
Certainly.
And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds
no con-a verse with the Muses, does not even that intelligence which there may
be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or enquiry 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 harmonised.
That appears to be the intention.
And he who mingles music with gymnastic 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, I 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 enquire
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 upwards, 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 falls 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 behaviour: 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 honoured in life and death, and shall
receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, 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 honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxillaries; 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 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 off spring; 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 towards 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 honour, 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
rumour, 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 shop-keepers.
What is the difference? he said.
That I will endeavour to explain, I replied. To keep
watchdogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit, or 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 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 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 any one 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 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 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 guardians concerning their houses
and all other matters? other
Yes, said Glaucon.
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 favourites 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 some one
came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours 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 winecup, 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, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the
government are only seemingly 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 the latter be the truth, then the guardians
and auxillaries, 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 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 practice 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, of and take the spoils of the other city: Who, on
hearing these words, would choose to fight against lean wiry dogs, rather th
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 a thousand
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 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 gymnastic
be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their
utmost to maintain them intact. And when any one 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, 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 licence, 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 honour 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, dealings
and the ordinary dealings between man and man, or again about agreements with
the commencement with artisans; about insult and injury, of the commencement of
actions, and the appointment of juries, what would you say? there may also
arise questions about any impositions and extractions of market and harbour
dues which may be required, and in general about the regulations of markets,
police, harbours, and the like. But, oh 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 for ever making and mending their 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, neither drug
nor cautery nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail.
Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming 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 behaviour 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 humours 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 well-ordered 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 center, 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.
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
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, I 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 knowledge, and among whom is it found? I
asked.
It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied,
and 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 has 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, every one 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.
Certainly not.
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.
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 colour
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 colour, 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 colour.
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
gymnastic; we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the
dye of the laws in perfection, and the colour 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 we w seeking not for
courage but justice; and for the purpose of our enquiry 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 favour 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 realised; 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 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 enquiry,
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 recognise 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 every one 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 entrust 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 enquiry. 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 enquiry.
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, forwards or backwards, 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 desires; 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 realisation of
his desires, 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 and 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 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 that she should not be opposed, is a sort of thing which
thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I
should imagine, in any one 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 gymnastic 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 any one 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
dishonour his father and mother, or to fall 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 realised; 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 labour 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,
accordingly 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.
______________________________________________
SOCRATES - GLAUCON - ADEIMANTUS
SUCH is the good and true City or State, and the
good and 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 Pole marchus, 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 towards 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.
SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS - GLAUCON - THRASYMACHUS
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 honours 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 enquirer, 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 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 watchdogs 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 hes and shes, or do they both share equally in
hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust
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 suckling their puppies is
labour 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 gymnastic. Yes.
Then women must be taught music and gymnastic 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 gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour 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 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 can not
share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, 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 any one 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, perhap