360 BC
THE REPUBLIC
by Plato
translated by Benjamin Jowett
360 B.C.
THE INTRODUCTION
THE Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception
of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer
approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist;
the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of
the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the
Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other
Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same
perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world,
or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and
not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper
irony or a greater wealth of humor or imagery, or more dramatic power.
Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave
life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The
Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be
grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point to which ancient
thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the
moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although
neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the
substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an
abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest
metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than
in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are
contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied
so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the
analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the
law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the
distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion,
between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the
division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible
elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary
--these and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found
in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato. The
greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on
philosophy are most apt to lose sight, the difference between words
and things, has been most strenuously insisted on by him, although
he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings.
But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae, --logic is still
veiled in metaphysics; and the science which he imagines to
"contemplate all truth and all existence" is very unlike the
doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered.
Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of
a still larger design which was to have included an ideal history of
Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment
of the Critias has given birth to a world-famous fiction, second
only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and
is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the
sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a
history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis,
is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which
it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the
logographers to the poems of Homer. It would have told of a struggle
for Liberty, intended to represent the conflict of Persia and
Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus,
from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of
the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high
argument. We can only guess why the great design was abandoned;
perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a
fictitious history, or because he had lost his interest in it, or
because advancing years forbade the completion of it; and we may
please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative ever
been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathizing with
the struggle for Hellenic independence, singing a hymn of triumph over
Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where
he contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire--"How brave a
thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed
every other state of Hellas in greatness!" or, more probably,
attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the
favor of Apollo and Athene.
Again, Plato may be regarded as the "captain" ('arhchegoz') or
leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be
found the original of Cicero's De Republica, of St. Augustine's City
of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other
imaginary States which are framed upon the same model. The extent to
which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted to him in the
Politics has been little recognized, and the recognition is the more
necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two
philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of; and
probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in
Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many affinities may be traced,
not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists, but in great
original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas.
That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind
bears witness to herself, is a conviction which in our own
generation has been enthusiastically asserted, and is perhaps
gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought
a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The
Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of
which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and
Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has
a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed
with the un unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a
real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on
politics. Even the fragments of his words when "repeated at
second-hand" have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have
seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of
idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the
latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity
of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have
been anticipated in a dream by him.
ARGUMENT
The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature
of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old
man --then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates
and Polemarchus --then caricatured by Thrasymachus and partially
explained by Socrates --reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and
Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual reappears at
length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The
first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is
drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved
religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a
manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and
the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State,
in which "no man calls anything his own," and in which there is
neither "marrying nor giving in marriage," and "kings are
philosophers" and "philosophers are kings;" and there is another and
higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of
science as well as of art, and not of youth only but of the whole of
life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this world and would
quickly degenerate. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of
the soldier and the lover of honor, this again declining into
democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular
order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. When "the wheel
has come full circle" we do not begin again with a new period of human
life; but we have passed from the best to the worst, and there we end.
The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and
philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of
the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry
is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and
Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an
imitator, is sent into banishment along with them. And the idea of the
State is supplemented by the revelation of a future life.
The division into books, like all similar divisions, is probably
later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;
--(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the paragraph
beginning, "I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and
Adeimantus," which is introductory; the first book containing a
refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and
concluding, like some of the earlier Dialogues, without arriving at
any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature
of justice according to common opinion, and an answer is demanded to
the question --What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second
division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the
third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the
construction of the first State and the first education. The third
division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, in which
philosophy rather than justice is the subject of inquiry, and the
second State is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by
philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the
place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth
books (4) the perversions of States and of the individuals who
correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of
pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analyzed in the
individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole,
in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined,
and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been
assured, is crowned by the vision of another.
Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the
first (Books I - IV) containing the description of a State framed
generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and
morality, while in the second (Books V - X) the Hellenic State is
transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all other
governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really
opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The
Republic, like the Phaedrus, is an imperfect whole; the higher light
of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple,
which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection
of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the
imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling
elements of thought which are now first brought together by him; or,
perhaps, from the composition of the work at different times --are
questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the
Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct
answer. In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of
publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering
or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends.
There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have laid his labors
aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such
interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than
of a short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological
he order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this
uncertainty about any single Dialogue being composed at one time is
a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect longer works,
such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But, on the
other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise
out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted
to unite in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to
recognize the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a
judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able
to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the want of
connection in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which
are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings
of literature and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and
language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of
speculation are well worn and the meaning of words precisely
defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of
the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting in unity.
Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to
our modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no
proof that they were composed at different times or by different
hands. And the supposition that the Republic was written
uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some degree confirmed
by the numerous references from one part of the work to another.
The second title, "Concerning Justice," is not the one by which
the Republic is quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity,
and, like the other second titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may
therefore be assumed to be of later date. Morgenstern and others
have asked whether the definition of justice, which is the professed
aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of the
work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of
the same truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State
is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human
society. The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the
Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a
fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the State is the reality of which
justice is the ideal. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom
of God is within, and yet develops into a Church or external
kingdom; "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," is
reduced to the proportions of an earthly building. Or, to use a
Platonic image, justice and the State are the warp and the woof
which run through the whole texture. And when the constitution of
the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed,
but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work,
both as the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the
principle of rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues
are based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and selling is
the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, which is the
harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions of
States and in motions of the heavenly bodies. The Timaeus, which takes
up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and
is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world,
yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign
over the State, over nature, and over man.
Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient
and in modern times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works,
whether of nature or of art, are referred to design. Now in ancient
writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a
large element which was not comprehended in the original design. For
the plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in
the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end
before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under
which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the
vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the
ordinary explanations of the argument of the Republic, imagines
himself to have found the true argument "in the representation of
human life in a State perfected by justice and governed according to
the idea of good." There may be some use in such general descriptions,
but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The
truth is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor
need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the
mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, and which does
not interfere with the general purpose. What kind or degree of unity
is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry,
in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the
subject-matter. To Plato himself, the inquiry "what was the
intention of the writer," or "what was the principal argument of the
Republic" would have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had
better be at once dismissed.
Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which,
to Plato's own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the
State? Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or "the
day of the Lord," or the suffering Servant or people of God, or the
"Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings" only convey, to us at
least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State
Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which is
the idea of good --like the sun in the visible world; --about human
perfection, which is justice --about education beginning in youth
and continuing in later years --about poets and sophists and tyrants
who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind --about "the
world" which is the embodiment of them --about a kingdom which
exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern
and rule of human life. No such inspired creation is at unity with
itself, any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces
through them. Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of
fiction which is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of
philosophical imagination. It is not all on the same plane; it
easily passes from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures
of speech. It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it,
and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the
probabilities of history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas
into an artistic whole; they take possession of him and are too much
for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such
as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward
form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For
the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth;
and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear
the greatest "marks of design" --justice more than the external
frame-work of the State, the idea of good more than justice. The great
science of dialectic or the organization of ideas has no real content;
but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher
knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all
existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that Plato
reaches the "summit of speculation," and these, although they fail
to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may therefore be
regarded as the most important, as they are also the most original,
portions of the work.
It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which
has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date at which
the conversation was held (the year 411 B. C. which is proposed by him
will do as well as any other); for a writer of fiction, and especially
a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously careless of chronology,
only aims at general probability. Whether all the persons mentioned in
the Republic could ever have met at any one time is not a difficulty
which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work forty
years later, or to Plato himself at the time of writing (any more than
to Shakespeare respecting one of his own dramas); and need not greatly
trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer "which
is still worth asking," because the investigation shows that we can
not argue historically from the dates in Plato; it would be useless
therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched reconcilements of
them in order avoid chronological difficulties, such, for example,
as the conjecture of C. F. Hermann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are
not the brothers but the uncles of Plato, or the fancy of Stallbaum
that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at
which some of his Dialogues were written.
CHARACTERS
The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus,
Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Cephalus
appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops at the end of
the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to silence at the
close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by
Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the
orator) and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of
Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides --these are mute auditors; also
there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue
which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of
Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of house, has been appropriately engaged
in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has
almost done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all
mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and
seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that
Socrates should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last
generation, happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at
having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of
conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his
garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those
who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in
making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of
placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The
respectful attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of
conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle,
leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should
also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than
Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The
moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very
tolerable portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but
of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of
Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by
Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible
touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus
would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and
which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a
violation of dramatic propriety.
His "son and heir" Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness
of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening
scene, and will not "let him off" on the subject of women and
children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and
represents the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life
rather than principles; and he quotes Simonides as his father had
quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers which
he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He
has not yet experienced the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and
Adeimantus, nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he
belongs to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of
arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does
not know what he is saying. He is made to admit that justice is a
thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts. From his
brother Lysias we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants,
but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the circumstance that
Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan origin, and had migrated
from Thurii to Athens.
The "Chalcedonian giant," Thrasymachus, of whom we have already
heard in the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists,
according to Plato's conception of them, in some of their worst
characteristics. He is vain and blustering, refusing to discourse
unless he is paid, fond of making an oration, and hoping thereby to
escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere child in argument, and
unable to foresee that the next "move" (to use a Platonic
expression) will "shut him up." He has reached the stage of framing
general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and
Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion,
and vainly tries to cover his confusion in banter and insolence.
Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really
held either by him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the
infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily
grow up --they are certainly put into the mouths of speakers in
Thucydides; but we are concerned at present with Plato's description
of him, and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the
contest adds greatly to the humor of the scene. The pompous and
empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master
of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and
weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but
his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the
thrusts of his assailant. His determination to cram down their
throats, or put "bodily into their souls" his own words, elicits a cry
of horror from Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of
remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than
his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At
first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon
with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later
stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon he is
humorously protected by Socrates "as one who has never been his
enemy and is now his friend." From Cicero and Quintilian and from
Aristotle's Rhetoric we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made
so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later
ages. The play on his name which was made by his contemporary
Herodicus, "thou wast ever bold in battle," seems to show that the
description of him is not devoid of verisimilitude.
When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal
respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as
in Greek tragedy, three actors are introduced. At first sight the
two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two
friends Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination
of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct
characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can "just never have
enough of fechting" (cf. the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6);
the man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love;
the "juvenis qui gaudet canibus," and who improves the breed of
animals; the lover of art and music who has all the experiences of
youthful life. He is full of quickness and penetration, piercing
easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to the real
difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human life,
and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who
seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to
the world, to whom a state of simplicity is "a city of pigs," who is
always prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an
opportunity, and who is ever ready to second the humor of Socrates and
to appreciate the ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or
in the lovers of theatricals, or in the fantastic behavior of the
citizens of democracy. His weaknesses are several times alluded to
by Socrates, who, however, will not allow him to be attacked by his
brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier, and, like Adeimantus, has been
distinguished at the battle of Megara.
The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the profounder
objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more
demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the
argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick
sympathy of youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up
man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists that
justice and injustice shall be considered without regard to their
consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are regarded by mankind
in general only for the sake of their consequences; and in a similar
vein of reflection he urges at the beginning of the fourth book that
Socrates falls in making his citizens happy, and is answered that
happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim
but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State. In the
discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the respondent,
but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the
conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of
the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of
common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to
let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children.
It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more argumentative, as
Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the
Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth
book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of
the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Then Glaucon resumes
his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in
apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false
hits in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns
with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the
contentious State; in the next book he is again superseded, and
Glaucon continues to the end.
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive
stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden
time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating
his life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization
of the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great
teacher, who know the sophistical arguments but will not be
convinced by them, and desire to go deeper into the nature of
things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are
clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the Republic, nor
in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated.
The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly
consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates,
such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest
Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology. He is ironical, provoking,
questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask
of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his
enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are
the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world. He also
becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range
either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates.
In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now
come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to
give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of
other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the
conception of a perfect State were comprehended in the Socratic
teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and
of final causes (cp. Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep thinker
like him in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly
have falled to touch on the nature of family relations, for which
there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51
foll.) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every
inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or
represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one
can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows
wearisome as the work advances. The method of inquiry has passed
into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the
same thesis is looked at from various points of view.
The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon, when he
describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an
investigation, but can see what he is shown, and may, perhaps, give
the answer to a question more fluently than another.
Neither can we be absolutely certain that, Socrates himself taught
the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple
Glaucon in the Republic; nor is there any reason to suppose that he
used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of
instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced
the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight
mention is made of the daemonium, or internal sign, which is alluded
to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element
of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than
in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and
illustration ('taphorhtika auto prhospherhontez'): "Let us apply the
test of common instances." "You," says Adeimantus, ironically, in
the sixth book, "are so unaccustomed to speak in images." And this use
of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by
the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which
embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is
about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in
Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI.
The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the
soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are
a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the
State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog in
the second, third, and fourth books, or the marriage of the
portionless maiden in the sixth book, or the drones and wasps in the
eighth and ninth books, also form links of connection in long
passages, or are used to recall previous discussions.
Plato is most true to the character of his master when he
describes him as "not of this world." And with this representation
of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of the Republic are
quite in accordance, though they can not be shown to have been
speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both
philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed
to be the embodiment of error and evil. The common sense of mankind
has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And
even in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the multitude at
times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general
are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the
philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for
they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are
only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force
of truth --words which admit of many applications. Their leaders
have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their
own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be
quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could
only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation
towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic
features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different
representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and the
differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the
character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth,
without which he would have ceased to be Socrates.
Leaving the characters we may now analyze the contents of the
Republic, and then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this
Hellenic ideal of the State, (2) The modern lights in which the
thoughts of Plato may be read.
BOOK I
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.
BOOK II
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.
BOOK III
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.
BOOK IV
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.
BOOK V
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, perhaps.
Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the argument, and
then we may hope to show him that there is nothing peculiar in the
constitution of women which would affect them in the administration of
the State.
By all means.
Let us say to him: Come now, and we will ask you a question:
--when you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect,
did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing easily,
another with difficulty; a little learning will lead the one to
discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and
application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean,
that the one has a body which is a good servant to his mind, while the
body of the other is a hindrance to him?-would not these be the sort
of differences which distinguish the man gifted by nature from the one
who is ungifted?
No one will deny that.
And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has
not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree than the
female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the
management of pancakes and preserves, in which womankind does really
appear to be great, and in which for her to be beaten by a man is of
all things the most absurd?
You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general
inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in many
things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you say is true.
And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of
administration in a state which a woman has because she is a woman, or
which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts of nature are
alike diffused in both; all the pursuits of men are the pursuits of
women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.
Very true.
Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none of them
on women?
That will never do.
One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a musician, and
another has no music in her nature?
Very true.
And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exercises, and
another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics?
Certainly.
And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy of
philosophy; one has spirit, and another is without spirit?
That is also true.
Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and another
not. Was not the selection of the male guardians determined by
differences of this sort?
Yes.
Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a guardian;
they differ only in their comparative strength or weakness.
Obviously.
And those women who have such qualities are to be selected as the
companions and colleagues of men who have similar qualities and whom
they resemble in capacity and in character?
Very true.
And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits?
They ought.
Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural in
assigning music and gymnastic to the wives of the guardians --to
that point we come round again.
Certainly not.
The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, and therefore
not an impossibility or mere aspiration; and the contrary practice,
which prevails at present, is in reality a violation of nature.
That appears to be true.
We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possible,
and secondly whether they were the most beneficial?
Yes.
And the possibility has been acknowledged?
Yes.
The very great benefit has next to be established?
Quite so.
You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good
guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original
nature is the same?
Yes.
I should like to ask you a question.
What is it?
Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man
better than another?
The latter.
And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the
guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more
perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling?
What a ridiculous question!
You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say
that our guardians are the best of our citizens?
By far the best.
And will not their wives be the best women?
Yes, by far the best.
And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than
that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible?
There can be nothing better.
And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic, when present in
such manner as we have described, will accomplish?
Certainly.
Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the
highest degree beneficial to the State?
True.
Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will
be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the
defence of their country; only in the distribution of labours the
lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures,
but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for
the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the
best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking
A fruit of unripe wisdom,
and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is
about; --for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, That
the useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base.
Very true.
Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may
say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive
for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their
pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this
arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears witness.
Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped.
Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will of this when you
see the next.
Go on; let me see.
The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has
preceded, is to the following effect, --'that the wives of our
guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and
no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.'
Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the
possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more
questionable.
I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very
great utility of having wives and children in common; the
possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed.
I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both.
You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now
I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I
thought; I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain
only the possibility.
But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please
to give a defence of both.
Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favour: let
me feast my mind with the dream as day dreamers are in the habit of
feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they
have discovered any means of effecting their wishes --that is a matter
which never troubles them --they would rather not tire themselves by
thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is
already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight
in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true --that
is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which
was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart,
and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question
of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the
proposal, I shall now proceed to enquire how the rulers will carry out
these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if
executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the
guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will
endeavour with your help to consider the advantages of the measure;
and hereafter the question of possibility.
I have no objection; proceed.
First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be
worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to
obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians
must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit
of them in any details which are entrusted to their care.
That is right, he said.
You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will
now select the women and give them to them; --they must be as far as
possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common
houses and meet at common meals, None of them will have anything
specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought
up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they
will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with
each other --necessity is not too strong a word, I think?
Yes, he said; --necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of
necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and
constraining to the mass of mankind.
True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed
after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness
is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid.
Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted.
Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in
the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred?
Exactly.
And how can marriages be made most beneficial? --that is a
question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for
hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech
you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding?
In what particulars?
Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are
not some better than others?
True.
And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to
breed from the best only?
From the best.
And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe
age?
I choose only those of ripe age.
And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would
greatly deteriorate?
Certainly.
And the same of horses and animals in general?
Undoubtedly.
Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our
rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!
Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any
particular skill?
Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon the
body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do
not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the
inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when
medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man.
That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?
I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose
of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we
were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines
might be of advantage.
And we were very right.
And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the
regulations of marriages and births.
How so?
Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the
best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the
inferior with the inferior, as seldom as possible; and that they
should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the
other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition. Now
these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or
there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be
termed, breaking out into rebellion.
Very true.
Had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring
together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered
and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of
weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the
rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There
are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the
effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far
as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too
large or too small.
Certainly, he replied.
We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less
worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and
then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the rulers.
To be sure, he said.
And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other
honours and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with
women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers
ought to have as many sons as possible.
True.
And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices
are to be held by women as well as by men --
Yes --
The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to
the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain
nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the
inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be
put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be.
Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is
to be kept pure.
They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to
the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care
that no mother recognizes her own child; and other wet-nurses may be
engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process
of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will
have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all
this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants.
You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of
it when they are having children.
Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our
scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of
life?
Very true.
And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period
of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's?
Which years do you mean to include?
A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children
to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin
at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of
life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be
fifty-five.
Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the
prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigour.
Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the
public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and
unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals
into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the
sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and
priest and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be
better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his
child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust.
Very true, he replied.
And the same law will apply to any one of those within the
prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of
life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is
raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated.
Very true, he replied.
This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified
age: after that we allow them to range at will, except that a man
may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother
or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited
from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's
father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this,
accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo
which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a
way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of
such an union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly.
That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they
know who are fathers and daughters, and so on?
They will never know. The way will be this: --dating from the day of
the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the
male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards
his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call
him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and
they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All
who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came
together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I
was saying, will be forbidden to inter-marry. This, however, is not to
be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers
and sisters; if the lot favours them, and they receive the sanction of
the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them.
Quite right, he replied.
Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our
State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you
would have the argument show that this community is consistent with
the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better --would
you not?
Yes, certainly.
Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what
ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in
the organization of a State, --what is the greatest I good, and what
is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous
description has the stamp of the good or of the evil?
By all means.
Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and
plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the
bond of unity?
There cannot.
And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains
--where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions
of joy and sorrow?
No doubt.
Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State
is disorganized --when you have one half of the world triumphing and
the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or
the citizens?
Certainly.
Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the
use of the terms 'mine' and 'not mine,' 'his' and 'not his.'
Exactly so.
And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest
number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same
way to the same thing?
Quite true.
Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the
individual --as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt,
the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a center and forming one
kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes
all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a
pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other
part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of
pleasure at the alleviation of suffering.
Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered
State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you
describe.
Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil,
the whole State will make his case their own, and will either
rejoice or sorrow with him?
Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State.
It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see
whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these
fundamental principles.
Very good.
Our State like every other has rulers and subjects?
True.
All of whom will call one another citizens?
Of course.
But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in
other States?
Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they
simply call them rulers.
And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the
people give the rulers?
They are called saviours and helpers, he replied.
And what do the rulers call the people?
Their maintainers and foster-fathers.
And what do they call them in other States?
Slaves.
And what do the rulers call one another in other States?
Fellow-rulers.
And what in ours?
Fellow-guardians.
Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would
speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not
being his friend?
Yes, very often.
And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an
interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest?
Exactly.
But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian
as a stranger?
Certainly he would not; for every one whom they meet will be
regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother,
or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus
connected with him.
Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a
family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the
name? For example, in the use of the word 'father,' would the care
of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience
to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties
to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not
likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man?
Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will
hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are
intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk?
These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than
for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and
not to act in the spirit of them?
Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more
often beard than in any other. As I was describing before, when any
one is well or ill, the universal word will be with me it is well'
or 'it is ill.'
Most true.
And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not
saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common?
Yes, and so they will.
And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they
will alike call 'my own,' and having this common interest they will
have a common feeling of pleasure and pain?
Yes, far more so than in other States.
And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of
the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women
and children?
That will be the chief reason.
And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as
was implied in our own comparison of a well-ordered State to the
relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or
pain?
That we acknowledged, and very rightly.
Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is
clearly the source of the greatest good to the State?
Certainly.
And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming,
--that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other
property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive
from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses;
for we intended them to preserve their true character of guardians.
Right, he replied.
Both the community of property and the community of families, as I
am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not
tear the city in pieces by differing about 'mine' and 'not mine;' each
man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house
of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private
pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by
the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about
what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend towards a
common end.
Certainly, he replied.
And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their
own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will
be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or
relations are the occasion.
Of course they will.
Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur
among them. For that equals should defend themselves against equals we
shall maintain to be honourable and right; we shall make the
protection of the person a matter of necessity.
That is good, he said.
Yes; and there is a further good in the law; viz. that if a man
has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment then and
there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths.
Certainly.
To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastising the
younger.
Clearly.
Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or do
any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates command him;
nor will he slight him in any way. For there are two guardians,
shame and fear, mighty to prevent him: shame, which makes men
refrain from laying hands on those who are to them in the relation
of parents; fear, that the injured one will be succoured by the others
who are his brothers, sons, one wi fathers.
That is true, he replied.
Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the
peace with one another?
Yes, there will be no want of peace.
And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves there
will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided either against
them or against one another.
None whatever.
I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which they
will be rid, for they are beneath notice: such, for example, as the
flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and pangs which
men experience in bringing up a family, and in finding money to buy
necessaries for their household, borrowing and then repudiating,
getting how they can, and giving the money into the hands of women and
slaves to keep --the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer
in this way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking
of.
Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that.
And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will
be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed.
How so?
The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only
of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a
more glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the
public cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of
the whole State; and the crown with which they and their children
are crowned is the fulness of all that life needs; they receive
rewards from the hands of their country while living, and after
death have an honourable burial.
Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are.
Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous
discussion some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our
guardians unhappy --they had nothing and might have possessed all
things-to whom we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might
perhaps hereafter consider this question, but that, as at present
advised, we would make our guardians truly guardians, and that we were
fashioning the State with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any
particular class, but of the whole?
Yes, I remember.
And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out
to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors --is the life
of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared
with it?
Certainly not.
At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said
elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in
such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not
content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is
of all lives the best, but infatuated by some youthful conceit of
happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the
whole State to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod
spoke, when he said, 'half is more than the whole.'
If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are,
when you have the offer of such a life.
You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common
way of life such as we have described --common education, common
children; and they are to watch over the citizens in common whether
abiding in the city or going out to war; they are to keep watch
together, and to hunt together like dogs; and always and in all
things, as far as they are able, women are to share with the men?
And in so doing they will do what is best, and will not violate, but
preserve the natural relation of the sexes.
I agree with you, he replied.
The enquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a community be
found possible --as among other animals, so also among men --and if
possible, in what way possible?
You have anticipated the question which I was about to suggest.
There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be carried on
by them.
How?
Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and will take
with them any of their children who are strong enough, that, after the
manner of the artisan's child, they may look on at the work which they
will have to do when they are grown up; and besides looking on they
will have to help and be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers
and mothers. Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys
look on and help, long before they touch the wheel?
Yes, I have.
And shall potters be more careful in educating their children and in
giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising their duties than
our guardians will be?
The idea is ridiculous, he said.
There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with other
animals, the presence of their young ones will be the greatest
incentive to valour.
That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, which
may often happen in war, how great the danger is! the children will be
lost as well as their parents, and the State will never recover.
True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any risk?
I am far from saying that.
Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do so on
some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be the better
for it?
Clearly.
Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days of
their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which some
risk may fairly be incurred.
Yes, very important.
This then must be our first step, --to make our children
spectators of war; but we must also contrive that they shall be
secured against danger; then all will be well.
True.
Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks of war,
but to know, as far as human foresight can, what expeditions are
safe and what dangerous?
That may be assumed.
And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cautious
about the dangerous ones?
True.
And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans
who will be their leaders and teachers?
Very properly.
Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there is a good
deal of chance about them?
True.
Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished
with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and
escape.
What do you mean? he said.
I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth,
and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see
war: the horses must be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable
and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an
excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if
there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and
escape.
I believe that you are right, he said.
Next, as to war; what are to be the relations of your soldiers to
one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to propose that
the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away his arms, or is
guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be degraded into the rank
of a husbandman or artisan. What do you think?
By all means, I should say.
And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well be made a
present of to his enemies; he is their lawful prey, and let them do
what they like with him.
Certainly.
But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be done to
him? In the first place, he shall receive honour in the army from
his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown
him. What do you say?
I approve.
And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fellowship?
To that too, I agree.
But you will hardly agree to my next proposal.
What is your proposal?
That he should kiss and be kissed by them.
Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and say: Let
no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed by him while the
expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover in the army, whether his
love be youth or maiden, he may be more eager to win the prize of
valour.
Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives than
others has been already determined: and he is to have first choices in
such matters more than others, in order that he may have as many
children as possible?
Agreed.
Again, there is another manner in which, according to Homer, brave
youths should be honoured; for he tells how Ajax, after he had
distinguished himself in battle, was rewarded with long chines,
which seems to be a compliment appropriate to a hero in the flower
of his age, being not only a tribute of honour but also a very
strengthening thing.
Most true, he said.
Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at
sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave
according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with
hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with
seats of precedence, and meats and full cups;
and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them.
That, he replied, is excellent.
Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say,
in the first place, that he is of the golden race?
To be sure.
Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when
they are dead
They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of
evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men?
Yes; and we accept his authority.
We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture of divine
and heroic personages, and what is to be their special distinction and
we must do as he bids?
By all means.
And in ages to come we will reverence them and knee. before their
sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they but any who
are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die from age, or in any
other way, shall be admitted to the same honours.
That is very right, he said.
Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What about this?
In what respect do you mean?
First of all, in regard to slavery? Do you think it right that
Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to enslave
them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to spare them,
considering the danger which there is that the whole race may one
day fall under the yoke of the barbarians?
To spare them is infinitely better.
Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave; that is a rule
which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes to observe.
Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against the
barbarians and will keep their hands off one another.
Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take anything
but their armour? Does not the practice of despoiling an enemy
afford an excuse for not facing the battle? Cowards skulk about the
dead, pretending that they are fulfilling a duty, and many an army
before now has been lost from this love of plunder.
Very true.
And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and
also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the
dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his
fighting gear behind him, --is not this rather like a dog who cannot
get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him
instead?
Very like a dog, he said.
Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering their
burial?
Yes, he replied, we most certainly must.
Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, least
of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good feeling
with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to fear that the
offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a pollution unless
commanded by the god himself?
Very true.
Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burning of
houses, what is to be the practice?
May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion?
Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the annual
produce and no more. Shall I tell you why?
Pray do.
Why, you see, there is a difference in the names 'discord' and
'war,' and I imagine that there is also a difference in their natures;
the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, the other of
what is external and foreign; and the first of the two is termed
discord, and only the second, war.
That is a very proper distinction, he replied.
And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic race is
all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and alien and
strange to the barbarians?
Very good, he said.
And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians and barbarians
with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at war when
they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of antagonism
should be called war; but when Hellenes fight with one another we
shall say that Hellas is then in a state of disorder and discord, they
being by nature friends and such enmity is to be called discord.
I agree.
Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowledged to be
discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties destroy the
lands and burn the houses of one another, how wicked does the strife
appear! No true lover of his country would bring himself to tear in
pieces his own nurse and mother: There might be reason in the
conqueror depriving the conquered of their harvest, but still they
would have the idea of peace in their hearts and would not mean to
go on fighting for ever.
Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other.
And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic city?
It ought to be, he replied.
Then will not the citizens be good and civilized?
Yes, very civilized.
And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as
their own land, and share in the common temples?
Most certainly.
And any difference which arises among them will be regarded by
them as discord only --a quarrel among friends, which is not to be
called a war?
Certainly not.
Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be
reconciled? Certainly.
They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or destroy
their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies?
Just so.
And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate
Hellas, nor will they burn houses, not even suppose that the whole
population of a city --men, women, and children --are equally their
enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a
few persons and that the many are their friends. And for all these
reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and raze their
houses; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent
sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction?
I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their
Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with
one another.
Then let us enact this law also for our guardians:-that they are
neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses.
Agreed; and we may agree also in thinking that these, all our
previous enactments, are very good.
But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on
in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the
commencement of this discussion you thrust aside: --Is such an order
of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to
acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only feasible, would
do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, what you have
omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and
will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another,
and each will call the other father, brother, son; and if you
suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in
the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiliaries in case
of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible; and
there are many domestic tic advantages which might also be mentioned
and which I also fully acknowledge: but, as I admit all these
advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours
were to come into existence, we need say no more about them;
assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the
question of possibility and ways and means --the rest may be left.
If I loiter for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon me, I said,
and have no mercy; I have hardly escaped the first and second waves,
and you seem not to be aware that you are now bringing upon me the
third, which is the greatest and heaviest. When you have seen and
heard the third wave, I think you be more considerate and will
acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural respecting a
proposal so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and
investigate.
The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more
determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible:
speak out and at once.
Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the
search after justice and injustice.
True, he replied; but what of that?
I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we
are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute
justice; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the
attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in
other men?
The approximation will be enough.
We are enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the
character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the
perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at
these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and
unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the
degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing
that they could exist in fact.
True, he said.
Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated
with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was
unable to show that any such man could ever have existed?
He would be none the worse.
Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State?
To be sure.
And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to prove
the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner described?
Surely not, he replied.
That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try
and show how and under what conditions the possibility is highest, I
must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your former admissions.
What admissions?
I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realised in language?
Does not the word express more than the fact, and must not the actual,
whatever a man may think, always, in the nature of things, fall
short of the truth? What do you say?
I agree.
Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State will in
every respect coincide with the ideal: if we are only able to discover
how a city may be governed nearly as we proposed, you will admit
that we have discovered the possibility which you demand; and will
be contented. I am sure that I should be contented --will not you?
Yes, I will.
Let me next endeavour to show what is that fault in States which
is the cause of their present maladministration, and what is the least
change which will enable a State to pass into the truer form; and
let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, or if not, of
two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and slight as possible.
Certainly, he replied.
I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only
one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a
possible one.
What is it? he said.
Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the greatest of
the waves; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the wave break
and drown me in laughter and dishonour; and do you mark my words.
Proceed.
I said: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of
this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political
greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who
pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand
aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, --nor the human
race, as I believe, --and then only will this our State have a
possibility of life and behold the light of day. Such was the thought,
my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not
seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can
there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing.
Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the
word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very
respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in
a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you
might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do
heaven knows what; and if you don't prepare an answer, and put
yourself in motion, you will be prepared by their fine wits,' and no
mistake.
You got me into the scrape, I said.
And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get you out
of it; but I can only give you good-will and good advice, and,
perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your questions better than
another --that is all. And now, having such an auxiliary, you must
do your best to show the unbelievers that you are right.
I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable
assistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our
escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we say that
philosophers are to rule in the State; then we shall be able to defend
ourselves: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to
study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are
not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than
leaders.
Then now for a definition, he said.
Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or other be
able to give you a satisfactory explanation.
Proceed.
I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you,
that a lover, if lie is worthy of the name, ought to show his love,
not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole.
I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist my
memory.
Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do; but a man of
pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are in the flower of
youth do somehow or other raise a pang or emotion in a lover's breast,
and are thought by him to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is
not this a way which you have with the fair: one has a snub nose,
and you praise his charming face; the hook-nose of another has, you
say, a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the
grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children
of the gods; and as to the sweet 'honey pale,' as they are called,
what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks in
diminutives, and is not adverse to paleness if appearing on the
cheek of youth? In a word, there is no excuse which you will not make,
and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a single
flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth.
If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake of
the argument, I assent.
And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see them doing the
same? They are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine.
Very good.
And the same is true of ambitious men; if they cannot command an
army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be
honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be
honoured by lesser and meaner people, but honour of some kind they
must have.
Exactly.
Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire
the whole class or a part only?
The whole.
And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a
part of wisdom only, but of the whole?
Yes, of the whole.
And he who dislikes learnings, especially in youth, when he has no
power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain
not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who
refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite
and not a good one?
Very true, he said.
Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is
curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a
philosopher? Am I not right?
Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a
strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of
sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included.
Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among
philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would
come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could
help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had
let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in
town or country --that makes no difference --they are there. Now are
we to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well
as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers?
Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.
He said: Who then are the true philosophers?
Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.
That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean?
To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining;
but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to
make.
What is the proposition?
That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two?
Certainly.
And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one?
True again.
And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the
same remark holds: taken singly, each of them one; but from the
various combinations of them with actions and things and with one
another, they are seen in all sorts of lights and appear many? Very
true.
And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving,
art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who
are alone worthy of the name of philosophers.
How do you distinguish them? he said.
The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond
of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products
that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or
loving absolute beauty.
True, he replied.
Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this.
Very true.
And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of
absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that
beauty is unable to follow --of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a
dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who
likens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real
object?
I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming.
But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of
absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects
which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the
place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects --is he a
dreamer, or is he awake?
He is wide awake.
And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge,
and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion
Certainly.
But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our
statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him,
without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits?
We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied.
Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we
begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may
have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to
ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or
nothing? (You must answer for him.)
I answer that he knows something.
Something that is or is not?
Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known?
And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points
of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that
the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown?
Nothing can be more certain.
Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be
and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure
being and the absolute negation of being?
Yes, between them.
And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity
to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being
there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between
ignorance and knowledge, if there be such?
Certainly.
Do we admit the existence of opinion?
Undoubtedly.
As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?
Another faculty.
Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter
corresponding to this difference of faculties?
Yes.
And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I
proceed further I will make a division.
What division?
I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are
powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do.
Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I
clearly explained the class which I mean?
Yes, I quite understand.
Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and
therefore the distinctions of fire, colour, and the like, which enable
me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In
speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and
that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same
faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call
different. Would that be your way of speaking?
Yes.
And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would
you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you
place it?
Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all
faculties.
And is opinion also a faculty?
Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to
form an opinion.
And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge
is not the same as opinion?
Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that
which is infallible with that which errs?
An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of
a distinction between them.
Yes.
Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct
spheres or subject-matters?
That is certain.
Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is
to know the nature of being?
Yes.
And opinion is to have an opinion?
Yes.
And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion
the same as the subject-matter of knowledge?
Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in
faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject matter, and if, as
we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the
sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same.
Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else
must be the subject-matter of opinion?
Yes, something else.
Well then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather,
how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a
man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have
an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?
Impossible.
He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one thing?
Yes.
And not-being is not one thing but, properly speaking, nothing?
True.
Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative;
of being, knowledge?
True, he said.
Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?
Not with either.
And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?
That seems to be true.
But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in
a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than
ignorance?
In neither.
Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than
knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?
Both; and in no small degree.
And also to be within and between them?
Yes.
Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?
No question.
But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of
a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing
would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and
absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither
knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between
them?
True.
And in that interval there has now been discovered something which
we call opinion?
There has.
Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes
equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be
termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we
may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to its proper
faculty, -the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean
to the faculty of the mean.
True.
This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion
that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty --in whose
opinion the beautiful is the manifold --he, I say, your lover of
beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is
one, and the just is one, or that anything is one --to him I would
appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us
whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be
found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of
the holy, which will not also be unholy?
No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found
ugly; and the same is true of the rest.
And may not the many which are doubles be also halves? --doubles,
that is, of one thing, and halves of another?
Quite true.
And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed,
will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?
True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of
them.
And can any one of those many things which are called by
particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this?
He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at
feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat,
with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat
was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also
a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your
mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither.
Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better
place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in
greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and
existence than being.
That is quite true, he said.
Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas which the
multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are
tossing about in some region which is halfway between pure being and
pure not-being?
We have.
Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we
might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter
of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained
by the intermediate faculty.
Quite true.
Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see
absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way
thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the
like, --such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge?
That is certain.
But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said
to know, and not to have opinion only?
Neither can that be denied.
The one loves and embraces the subjects of knowledge, the other
those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say will
remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colours,
but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty.
Yes, I remember.
Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of
opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with
us for thus describing them?
I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is
true.
But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers
of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.
Assuredly.
BOOK VI
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
AND thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary way, the true
and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.
I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.
I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a
better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined
to this one subject and if there were not many other questions
awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of
the just differs from that of the unjust must consider.
And what is the next question? he asked.
Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as
philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable,
and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not
philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the
rulers of our State?
And how can we rightly answer that question?
Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and
institutions of our State --let them be our guardians.
Very good.
Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who
is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?
There can be no question of that.
And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge
of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no
clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the
absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect
vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness,
justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the
order of them --are not such persons, I ask, simply blind?
Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.
And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides
being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no
particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing?
There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this
greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place
unless they fail in some other respect.
Suppose then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite
this and the other excellences.
By all means.
In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the
philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an understanding
about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we
shall also acknowledge that such an union of qualities is possible,
and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be
rulers in the State.
What do you mean?
Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a
sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation
and corruption.
Agreed.
And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true
being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less
honourable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of
the lover and the man of ambition.
True.
And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not
another quality which they should also possess?
What quality?
Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their
mind falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the
truth.
Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.
'May be,' my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather 'must be
affirmed:' for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help
loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections.
Right, he said.
And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?
How can there be?
Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood?
Never.
The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far
as in him lies, desire all truth?
Assuredly.
But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are
strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will
be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel.
True.
He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be
absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily
pleasure --I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.
That is most certain.
Such an one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for
the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending,
have no place in his character.
Very true.
Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be
considered.
What is that?
There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can more
antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the
whole of things both divine and human.
Most true, he replied.
Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of
all time and all existence, think much of human life?
He cannot.
Or can such an one account death fearful?
No indeed.
Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?
Certainly not.
Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not
covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward-can he, I say, ever be
unjust or hard in his dealings?
Impossible.
Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude
and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth
the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.
True.
There is another point which should be remarked.
What point?
Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will
love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he
makes little progress.
Certainly not.
And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns,
will he not be an empty vessel?
That is certain.
Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless
occupation? Yes.
Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine philosophic
natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good
memory?
Certainly.
And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to
disproportion?
Undoubtedly.
And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to
disproportion?
To proportion.
Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally
well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously
towards the true being of everything.
Certainly.
Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been
enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary
to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being?
They are absolutely necessary, he replied.
And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue
who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn, --noble,
gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are
his kindred?
The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with
such a study.
And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and
education, and to these only you will entrust the State.
SOCRATES - ADEIMANTUS
Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements,
Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a
strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that
they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to
their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these
littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to
have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions
appear to be turned upside down. And as unskilful players of
draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and
have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last;
for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the
counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The
observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one
of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you
at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of
philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a
part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most
of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that
those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the
world by the very study which you extol.
Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong?
I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is your
opinion.
Hear my answer; I am of opinion that they are quite right.
Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease
from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are
acknowledged by us to be of no use to them?
You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in
a parable.
Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at
all accustomed, I suppose.
I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged
me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then
you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for
the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so
grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and
therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to
fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the
fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures.
Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is
taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf
and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of
navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one
another about the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a
right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation
and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further
assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces
any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain,
begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time
they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the
others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the
noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny
and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus,
eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner
as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly
aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's
hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment
with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other
sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true
pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and
winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be
really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and
will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the
possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has
never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their
calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by
sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will
he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?
Of course, said Adeimantus.
Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the
figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the
State; for you understand already.
Certainly.
Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is
surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities;
explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour
would be far more extraordinary.
I will.
Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be
useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to
attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use
them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the
sailors to be commanded by him --that is not the order of nature;
neither are 'the wise to go to the doors of the rich' --the
ingenious author of this saying told a lie --but the truth is, that,
when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he
must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to
govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his
subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind
are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the
mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by
them good-for-nothings and star-gazers.
Precisely so, he said.
For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest
pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the
opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is
done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the
same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number
of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which
opinion I agreed.
Yes.
And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained?
True.
Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is
also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to the charge of
philosophy any more than the other?
By all means.
And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the
description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will
remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things;
failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true
philosophy.
Yes, that was said.
Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly
at variance with present notions of him?
Certainly, he said.
And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true lover
of knowledge is always striving after being --that is his nature; he
will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which is an
appearance only, but will go on --the keen edge will not be blunted,
nor the force of his desire abate until he have attained the knowledge
of the true nature of every essence by a sympathetic and kindred power
in the soul, and by that power drawing near and mingling and
becoming incorporate with very being, having begotten mind and
truth, he will have knowledge and will live and grow truly, and
then, and not till then, will he cease from his travail.
Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description of him.
And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's nature?
Will he not utterly hate a lie?
He will.
And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil of the
band which he leads?
Impossible.
Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and temperance
will follow after?
True, he replied.
Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array the
philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that courage,
magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural gifts. And you
objected that, although no one could deny what I then said, still,
if you leave words and look at facts, the persons who are thus
described are some of them manifestly useless, and the greater
number utterly depraved; we were then led to enquire into the
grounds of these accusations, and have now arrived at the point of
asking why are the majority bad, which question of necessity brought
us back to the examination and definition of the true philosopher.
Exactly.
And we have next to consider the of the philosophic nature, why so
many are spoiled and so few escape spoiling --I am speaking of those
who were said to be useless but not wicked --and, when we have done
with them, we will speak of the imitators of philosophy, what manner
of men are they who aspire after a profession which is above them
and of which they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold
inconsistencies, bring upon philosophy, and upon all philosophers,
that universal reprobation of which we speak.
What are these corruptions? he said.
I will see if I can explain them to you. Every one will admit that a
nature having in perfection all the qualities which we required in a
philosopher, is a rare plant which is seldom seen among men.
Rare indeed.
And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy these rare
natures!
What causes?
In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage,
temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praise worthy
qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) destroys and
distracts from philosophy the soul which is the possessor of them.
That is very singular, he replied.
Then there are all the ordinary goods of life --beauty, wealth,
strength, rank, and great connections in the State --you understand
the sort of things --these also have a corrupting and distracting
effect.
I understand; but I should like to know more precisely what you mean
about them.
Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way; you will
then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding remarks, and
they will no longer appear strange to you.
And how am I to do so? he asked.
Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vegetable or
animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment or climate or
soil, in proportion to their vigour, are all the more sensitive to the
want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is
good than what is not.
Very true.
There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when under
alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, because the
contrast is greater.
Certainly.
And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when
they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes
and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined
by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures
are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?
There I think that you are right.
And our philosopher follows the same analogy-he is like a plant
which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into
all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the
most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine
power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are
corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt
them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these
things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to
perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them
after their own hearts?
When is this accomplished? he said.
When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly,
or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular
resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which
are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating
both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and
the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the
praise or blame --at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they
say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand
firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he
be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good
and evil which the public in general have --he will do as they do, and
as they are, such will he be?
Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him.
And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has not
been mentioned.
What is that?
The gentle force of attainder or confiscation or death which, as you
are aware, these new Sophists and educators who are the public,
apply when their words are powerless.
Indeed they do; and in right good earnest.
Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private person, can
be expected to overcome in such an unequal contest?
None, he replied.
No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece of
folly; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, any
different type of character which has had no other training in
virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion --I speak, my
friend, of human virtue only; what is more than human, as the
proverb says, is not included: for I would not have you ignorant that,
in the present evil state of governments, whatever is saved and
comes to good is saved by the power of God, as we may truly say.
I quite assent, he replied.
Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation.
What are you going to say?
Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many call
Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact,
teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to say, the
opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom. I might
compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a
mighty strong beast who is fed by him-he would learn how to approach
and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is
dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several
cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed
or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by
continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this,
he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art,
which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what
he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but
calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just
or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the
great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights
and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other
account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary,
having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others
the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is
immense. By heaven, would not such an one be a rare educator?
Indeed, he would.
And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the discernment of
the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or
music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been
describing For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them
his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the
State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called
necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they
praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in
confirmation of their own notions about the honourable and good. Did
you ever hear any of them which were not?
No, nor am I likely to hear.
You recognise the truth of what I have been saying? Then let me
ask you to consider further whether the world will ever be induced
to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather than of the many
beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind rather than of the many
in each kind?
Certainly not.
Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?
Impossible.
And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of
the world?
They must.
And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?
That is evident.
Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be preserved
in his calling to the end? and remember what we were saying of him,
that he was to have quickness and memory and courage and
magnificence --these were admitted by us to be the true
philosopher's gifts.
Yes.
Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things first
among all, especially if his bodily endowments are like his mental
ones?
Certainly, he said.
And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as he
gets older for their own purposes?
No question.
Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do him
honour and flatter him, because they want to get into their hands now,
the power which he will one day possess.
That often happens, he said.
And what will a man such as he be likely to do under such
circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and
noble, and a tall proper youth? Will he not be full of boundless
aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the affairs of
Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such notions into his
head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the fulness of vain
pomp and senseless pride?
To be sure he will.
Now, when he is in this state of mind, if some one gently comes to
him and tells him that he is a fool and must get understanding,
which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think that, under such
adverse circumstances, he will be easily induced to listen?
Far otherwise.
And even if there be some one who through inherent goodness or
natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little and is humbled
and taken captive by philosophy, how will his friends behave when they
think that they are likely to lose the advantage which they were
hoping to reap from his companionship? Will they not do and say
anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to
render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as
well as public prosecutions?
There can be no doubt of it.
And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become a philosopher?
Impossible.
Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities
which make a man a philosopher may, if he be ill-educated, divert
him from philosophy, no less than riches and their accompaniments
and the other so-called goods of life?
We were quite right.
Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and
failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to
the best of all pursuits; they are natures which we maintain to be
rare at any time; this being the class out of which come the men who
are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals; and
also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that
direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing
either to individuals or to States.
That is most true, he said.
And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite
incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while
they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other unworthy
persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in
and dishonour her; and fasten upon her the reproaches which, as you
say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries that some are
good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the severest
punishment.
That is certainly what people say.
Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the
puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them --a land well
stocked with fair names and showy titles --like prisoners running
out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out of their trades into
philosophy; those who do so being probably the cleverest hands at
their own miserable crafts? For, although philosophy be in this evil
case, still there remains a dignity about her which is not to be found
in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures are
imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their
meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not
this unavoidable?
Yes.
Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got
out of durance and come into a fortune; he takes a bath and puts on
a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his
master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate?
A most exact parallel.
What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not be vile
and bastard?
There can be no question of it.
And when persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy
and make an alliance with her who is a rank above them what sort of
ideas and opinions are likely to be generated? Will they not be
sophisms captivating to the ear, having nothing in them genuine, or
worthy of or akin to true wisdom?
No doubt, he said.
Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be
but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person,
detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting
influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean
city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be
a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come
to her; --or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our
friend Theages' bridle; for everything in the life of Theages
conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him
away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hardly worth
mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been given to
any other man. Those who belong to this small class have tasted how
sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen
enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no
politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose
side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man
who has fallen among wild beasts --he will not join in the
wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all
their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no
use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would
have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself
or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one
who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries
along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of
mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own
life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and
good-will, with bright hopes.
Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he departs.
A great work --yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State
suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have
a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of
himself.
The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have now been
sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges against her has
been shown-is there anything more which you wish to say?
Nothing more on that subject, he replied; but I should like to
know which of the governments now existing is in your opinion the
one adapted to her.
Not any of them, I said; and that is precisely the accusation
which I bring against them --not one of them is worthy of the
philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and estranged;
--as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land becomes
denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to lose itself in the
new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, instead of persisting,
degenerates and receives another character. But if philosophy ever
finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will
be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things,
whether natures of men or institutions, are but human; --and now, I
know that you are going to ask, what that State is.
No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another
question --whether it is the State of which. we are the founders and
inventors, or some other?
Yes, I replied, ours in most respects; but you may remember my
saying before, that some living authority would always be required
in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you
when as legislator you were laying down the laws.
That was said, he replied.
Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner; you frightened us by
interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion
would be long and difficult; and what still remains is the reverse
of easy.
What is there remaining?
The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to
be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are attended with risk;
'hard is the good,' as men say.
Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will
then be complete.
I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at
all, by a want of power: my zeal you may see for yourselves; and
please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and
unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not
as they do now, but in a different spirit.
In what manner?
At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young;
beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the
time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and
even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic
spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the
subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when
invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture,
and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by
them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most
cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch
as they never light up again.
But what ought to be their course?
Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what
philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years:
during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the
chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may
have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and
the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of
the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past
civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in
no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to
crown this life with a similar happiness in another.
How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of
that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely
to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be
convinced; Thrasymachus least of all.
Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have
recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies;
for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him
and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day
when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state
of existence.
You are speaking of a time which is not very near.
Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison
with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to
believe; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking
realised; they have seen only a conventional imitation of
philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not
like these of ours having a natural unity. But a human being who in
word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the
proportion and likeness of virtue --such a man ruling in a city
which bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one
nor many of them --do you think that they ever did?
No indeed.
No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and noble
sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly and by every
means in their power seeking after truth for the sake of knowledge,
while they look coldly on the subtleties of controversy, of which
the end is opinion and strife, whether they meet with them in the
courts of law or in society.
They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you speak.
And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why truth
forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that neither
cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until
the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt
are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care
of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to
obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or
princes, are divinely inspired ' d with a true love of true
philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are
impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might
indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not
right?
Quite right.
If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour
in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the
perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled
by a superior power to have the charge of the State, we are ready to
assert to the death, that this our constitution has been, and is
--yea, and will be whenever the Muse of Philosophy is queen. There
is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we
acknowledge ourselves.
My opinion agrees with yours, he said.
But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the
multitude?
I should imagine not, he replied.
O my friend, I said, do not attack the multitude: they will change
their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently and with
the view of soothing them and removing their dislike of
over-education, you show them your philosophers as they really are and
describe as you were just now doing their character and profession,
and then mankind will see that he of whom you are speaking is not such
as they supposed --if they view him in this new light, they will
surely change their notion of him, and answer in another strain. Who
can be at enmity with one who loves them, who that is himself gentle
and free from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no
jealousy? Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh
temper may be found but not in the majority of mankind.
I quite agree with you, he said.
And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling which the
many entertain towards philosophy originates in the pretenders, who
rush in uninvited, and are always abusing them, and finding fault with
them, who make persons instead of things the theme of their
conversation? and nothing can be more unbecoming in philosophers
than this.
It is most unbecoming.
For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has
surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be filled
with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever directed
towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither injuring nor
injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason;
these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he can, conform
himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he holds reverential
converse?
Impossible.
And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order,
becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows; but
like every one else, he will suffer from detraction.
Of course.
And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only himself,
but human nature generally, whether in States or individuals, into
that which he beholds elsewhere, will he, think you, be an unskilful
artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue?
Anything but unskilful.
And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is
the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will they disbelieve
us, when we tell them that no State can be happy which is not designed
by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern?
They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how will
they draw out the plan of which you are speaking?
They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from
which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a
clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy or not, herein
will lie the difference between them and every other legislator,
--they will have nothing to do either with individual or State, and
will inscribe no laws, until they have either found, or themselves
made, a clean surface.
They will be very right, he said.
Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline of the
constitution?
No doubt.
And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will
often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will
first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and again at
the human copy; and will mingle and temper the various elements of
life into the image of a man; and thus they will conceive according to
that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form
and likeness of God.
Very true, he said.
And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in,
they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the
ways of God?
Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture.
And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you
described as rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of
constitutions is such an one as we are praising; at whom they were
so very indignant because to his hands we committed the State; and are
they growing a little calmer at what they have just heard?
Much calmer, if there is any sense in them.
Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? Will they
doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and being?
They would not be so unreasonable.
Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin to the
highest good?
Neither can they doubt this.
But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under
favourable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if any
ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have rejected?
Surely not.
Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until
philosophers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest
from evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realised?
I think that they will be less angry.
Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite
gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, if for
no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms?
By all means, he said.
Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected.
Will any one deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings
or princes who are by nature philosophers?
Surely no man, he said.
And when they have come into being will any one say that they must
of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be saved is not denied
even by us; but that in the whole course of ages no single one of them
can escape --who will venture to affirm this?
Who indeed!
But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city
obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal
polity about which the world is so incredulous.
Yes, one is enough.
The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been
describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them?
Certainly.
And that others should approve of what we approve, is no miracle
or impossibility?
I think not.
But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that all this,
if only possible, is assuredly for the best.
We have.
And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be enacted,
would be for the best, but also that the enactment of them, though
difficult, is not impossible.
Very good.
And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one subject,
but more remains to be discussed; --how and by what studies and
pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be created, and at what
ages are they to apply themselves to their several studies?
Certainly.
I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of women, and
the procreation of children, and the appointment of the rulers,
because I knew that the perfect State would be eyed with jealousy
and was difficult of attainment; but that piece of cleverness was
not of much service to me, for I had to discuss them all the same. The
women and children are now disposed of, but the other question of
the rulers must be investigated from the very beginning. We were
saying, as you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their
country, tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in
hardships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to
lose their patriotism --he was to be rejected who failed, but he who
always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, was
to be made a ruler, and to receive honours and rewards in life and
after death. This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then
the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir
the question which has now arisen.
I perfectly remember, he said.
Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding the bold
word; but now let me dare to say --that the perfect guardian must be a
philosopher.
Yes, he said, let that be affirmed.
And do not suppose that there will be many of them; for the gifts
which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are
mostly found in shreds and patches.
What do you mean? he said.
You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, sagacity,
cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow together, and
that persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited
and magnanimous are not so constituted by nature as to live orderly
and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their
impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them.
Very true, he said.
On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be
depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and
immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned;
they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep
over any intellectual toil.
Quite true.
And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in those
to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who are to share
in any office or command.
Certainly, he said.
And will they be a class which is rarely found?
Yes, indeed.
Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labours and
dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but there is
another kind of probation which we did not mention --he must be
exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see whether the soul
will be able to endure the highest of all, will faint under them, as
in any other studies and exercises.
Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing him. But what do you
mean by the highest of all knowledge?
You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into three parts;
and distinguished the several natures of justice, temperance, courage,
and wisdom?
Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to hear
more.
And do you remember the word of caution which preceded the
discussion of them?
To what do you refer?
We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted to see them
in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at
the end of which they would appear; but that we could add on a popular
exposition of them on a level with the discussion which had
preceded. And you replied that such an exposition would be enough
for you, and so the enquiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a
very inaccurate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for
you to say.
Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave us a
fair measure of truth.
But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things Which in any degree
falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing
imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt
to be contented and think that they need search no further.
Not an uncommon case when people are indolent.
Yes, I said; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian of
the State and of the laws.
True.
The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer
circuit, and toll at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will
never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were just now
saying, is his proper calling.
What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this
--higher than justice and the other virtues?
Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold not the
outline merely, as at present --nothing short of the most finished
picture should satisfy us. When little things are elaborated with an
infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full
beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that we should not think
the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy!
A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from
asking you what is this highest knowledge?
Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard
the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or,
as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have of
been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all
other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this.
You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak,
concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little;
and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will
profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other
things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge
of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness?
Assuredly not.
You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the
good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge
Yes.
And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what they
mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowledge of the
good?
How ridiculous!
Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our
ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it --for
the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we
understood them when they use the term 'good' --this is of course
ridiculous.
Most true, he said.
And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity;
for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well
as good.
Certainly.
And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?
True.
There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which
this question is involved.
There can be none.
Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or
to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but
no one is satisfied with the appearance of good --the reality is
what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by
every one.
Very true, he said.
Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of
all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end,
and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the
same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing
whatever good there is in other things, --of a principle such and so
great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is
entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?
Certainly not, he said.
I am sure, I said, that he who does not know now the beautiful and
the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I
suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true
knowledge of them.
That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.
And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will
be perfectly ordered?
Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you
conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or
pleasure, or different from either.
Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you
would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these
matters.
True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a
lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the
opinions of others, and never telling his own.
Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not
know?
Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no
right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of
opinion.
And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the
best of them blind? You would not deny that those who have any true
notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way
along the road?
Very true.
And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when
others will tell you of brightness and beauty?
GLAUCON - SOCRATES
Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn
away just as you are reaching the goal; if you will only give such
an explanation of the good as you have already given of justice and
temperance and the other virtues, we shall be satisfied.
Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but I
cannot help fearing that I shall fall, and that my indiscreet zeal
will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not at present ask
what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach what is now in
my thoughts would be an effort too great for me. But of the child of
the good who is likest him, I would fain speak, if I could be sure
that you wished to hear --otherwise, not.
By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall remain
in our debt for the account of the parent.
I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive,
the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring only;
take, however, this latter by way of interest, and at the same time
have a care that i do not render a false account, although I have no
intention of deceiving you.
Yes, we will take all the care that we can: proceed.
Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with you, and
remind you of what I have mentioned in the course of this
discussion, and at many other times.
What?
The old story, that there is a many beautiful and a many good, and
so of other things which we describe and define; to all of them 'many'
is applied.
True, he said.
And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and of other
things to which the term 'many' is applied there is an absolute; for
they may be brought under a single idea, which is called the essence
of each.
Very true.
The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas are known
but not seen.
Exactly.
And what is the organ with which we see the visible things?
The sight, he said.
And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other senses
perceive the other objects of sense?
True.
But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly and
complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the senses ever
contrived?
No, I never have, he said.
Then reflect; has the ear or voice need of any third or additional
nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the other to be
heard?
Nothing of the sort.
No, indeed, I replied; and the same is true of most, if not all, the
other senses --you would not say that any of them requires such an
addition?
Certainly not.
But you see that without the addition of some other nature there
is no seeing or being seen?
How do you mean?
Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes wanting
to see; colour being also present in them, still unless there be a
third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes
will see nothing and the colours will be invisible.
Of what nature are you speaking?
Of that which you term light, I replied.
True, he said.
Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and
visibility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of
nature; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing?
Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.
And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was the
lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes the eye to see
perfectly and the visible to appear?
You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say.
May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as follows?
How?
Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun?
No.
Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the sun?
By far the most like.
And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence which
is dispensed from the sun?
Exactly.
Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognised
by sight.
True, he said.
And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the good
begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation
to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual
world in relation to mind and the things of mind.
Will you be a little more explicit? he said.
Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them
towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but
the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to
have no clearness of vision in them?
Very true.
But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun
shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them?
Certainly.
And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which
truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is
radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of
becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking
about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to
have no intelligence?
Just so.
Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power of
knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the idea of
good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, and of
truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowledge;
beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in
esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as
in the previous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like
the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science
and truth may be deemed to be like the good, but not the good; the
good has a place of honour yet higher.
What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the author
of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty; for you surely
cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good?
God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the image in
another point of view?
In what point of view?
You would say, would you not, that the sun is only the author of
visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment
and growth, though he himself is not generation?
Certainly.
In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of
knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet
the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.
Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness: By the light of
heaven, how amazing!
Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you; for you
made me utter my fancies.
And pray continue to utter them; at any rate let us hear if there is
anything more to be said about the similitude of the sun.
Yes, I said, there is a great deal more.
Then omit nothing, however slight.
I will do my best, I said; but I should think that a great deal will
have to be omitted.
You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and
that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over
the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy that I am
playing upon the name ('ourhanoz, orhatoz'). May I suppose that you
have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your
mind?
I have.
Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and
divide each of them again in the same proportion, and suppose the
two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and the other to
the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions in respect of
their clearness and want of clearness, and you will find that the
first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And
by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, and in the second
place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth and polished bodies
and the like: Do you understand?
Yes, I understand.
Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the
resemblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything
that grows or is made.
Very good.
Would you not admit that both the sections of this division have
different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the original as
the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge?
Most undoubtedly.
Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of the
intellectual is to be divided.
In what manner?
Thus: --There are two subdivisions, in the lower or which the soul
uses the figures given by the former division as images; the enquiry
can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upwards to a
principle descends to the other end; in the higher of the two, the
soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a principle which is
above hypotheses, making no use of images as in the former case, but
proceeding only in and through the ideas themselves.
I do not quite understand your meaning, he said.
Then I will try again; you will understand me better when I have
made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that students of
geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences assume the odd and
the even and the figures and three kinds of angles and the like in
their several branches of science; these are their hypotheses, which
they and everybody are supposed to know, and therefore they do not
deign to give any account of them either to themselves or others;
but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and
in a consistent manner, at their conclusion?
Yes, he said, I know.
And do you not know also that although they make use of the
visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these,
but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they
draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so
on --the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and
reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into
images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves,
which can only be seen with the eye of the mind?
That is true.
And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search
after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a
first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of
hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are
resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the
shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and
therefore a higher value.
I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province of
geometry and the sister arts.
And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will
understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason
herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as
first principles, but only as hypotheses --that is to say, as steps
and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in
order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the
whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by
successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible
object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.
I understand you, he replied; not perfectly, for you seem to me to
be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, at any rate, I
understand you to say that knowledge and being, which the science of
dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as
they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also
contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because
they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who
contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason
upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are
cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with
geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term
understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion
and reason.
You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now,
corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties
in the soul-reason answering to the highest, understanding to the
second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of
shadows to the last-and let there be a scale of them, and let us
suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree
that their objects have truth.
I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your
arrangement.
BOOK VII
SOCRATES - GLAUCON
AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is
enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a
underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching
all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and
have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can
only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round
their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance,
and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and
you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the
screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they
show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all
sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood
and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of
them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or
the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall
of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they
were never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would
only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not
suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from
the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the
passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing
shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the
shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow it' the
prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when
any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn
his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer
sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see
the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows;
and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before
was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to
being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a
clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine
that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and
requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not
fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the
objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer.
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not
have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take
in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will
conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now
being shown to him?
True, he now
And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and
rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of
the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When
he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be
able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper
world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of
men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves;
then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the
spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better
than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections
of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place,
and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly.
He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season
and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible
world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his
fellows have been accustomed to behold?
Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about
him.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den
and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would
felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves
on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to
remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and
which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw
conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such
honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not
say with Homer,
Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after
their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than
entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the
sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to
have his eyes full of darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring
the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den,
while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become
steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit
of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men
would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes;
and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any
one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only
catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to
the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the
light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if
you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into
the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your
desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But,
whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge
the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort;
and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all
things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light
in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in
the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would
act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye
fixed.
I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to
this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for
their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they
desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our
allegory may be trusted.
Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine
contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a
ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has
become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to
fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the
shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the
conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
Anything but surprising, he replied.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of
the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from
coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of
the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who
remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and
weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that
soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see
because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to
the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy
in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or,
if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the
light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which
greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.
That, he said, is a very just distinction.
But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be
wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul
which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of
learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was
unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too
the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul
be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn
by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best
of being, or in other words, of the good.
Very true.
And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the
easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight,
for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction,
and is looking away from the truth?
Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be
akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate
they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the of wisdom
more than anything else contains a divine element which always
remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or,
on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the
narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue --how
eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he
is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the
service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his
cleverness.
Very true, he said.
But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the
days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual
pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights,
were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and
turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below --if,
I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the
opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen
the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.
Very likely.
Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely. or rather a
necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the
uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make
an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the
former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of
all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter,
because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that
they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
Very true, he replied.
Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State
will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we
have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to
ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended
and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
What do you mean?
I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be
allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the
den, and partake of their labours and honours, whether they are
worth having or not.
But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life,
when they might have a better?
You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the
legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy
above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he
held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them
benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to
this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his
instruments in binding up the State.
True, he said, I had forgotten.
Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling
our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall
explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not
obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for
they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would
rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to
show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But
we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings
of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far
better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are
better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when
his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get
the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you
will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den,
and you will know what the several images are, and what they
represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in
their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality,
and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that
of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows
only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes
is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the
rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most
quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the
worst.
Quite true, he replied.
And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their
turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater
part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?
Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands
which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every
one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the
fashion of our present rulers of State.
Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must
contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of
a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the
State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in
silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true
blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of
public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private advantage,
thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can
never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and
domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers
themselves and of the whole State.
Most true, he replied.
And the only life which looks down upon the life of political
ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Indeed, I do not, he said.
And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if
they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
No question.
Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they
will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the
State is best administered, and who at the same time have other
honours and another and a better life than that of politics?
They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be
produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light,
--as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
By all means, he replied.
The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but
the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little
better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from
below, which we affirm to be true philosophy?
Quite so.
And should we not enquire what sort of knowledge has the power of
effecting such a change?
Certainly.
What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from
becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to
me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes
Yes, that was said.
Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional quality?
What quality?
Usefulness in war.
Yes, if possible.
There were two parts in our former scheme of education, were there
not?
Just so.
There was gymnastic which presided over the growth and decay of
the body, and may therefore be regarded as having to do with
generation and corruption?
True.
Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to discover? No.
But what do you say of music, which also entered to a certain extent
into our former scheme?
Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart of
gymnastic, and trained the guardians by the influences of habit, by
harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhythmical, but not giving
them science; and the words, whether fabulous or possibly true, had
kindred elements of rhythm and harmony in them. But in music there was
nothing which tended to that good which you are now seeking.
You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music
there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of
knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired nature;
since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us?
Undoubtedly; and yet if music and gymnastic are excluded, and the
arts are also excluded, what remains?
Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special subjects; and
then we shall have to take something which is not special, but of
universal application.
What may that be?
A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences use in
common, and which every one first has to learn among the elements of
education.
What is that?
The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three --in a word,
number and calculation: --do not all arts and sciences necessarily
partake of them?
Yes.
Then the art of war partakes of them?
To the sure.
Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves Agamemnon
ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never remark how he
declares that he had invented number, and had numbered the ships and
set in array the ranks of the army at Troy; which implies that they
had never been numbered before, and Agamemnon must be supposed