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The Republic

by Plato · English · Gutenberg #150 · 698,487 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Republic

Author: Plato

Translator: Benjamin Jowett


        
Release date: July 1, 1994 [eBook #150]
                Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

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THE REPUBLIC

by Plato

(360 B.C.)


translated by Benjamin Jowett




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 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 be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had
    spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven he
    raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I
    thought that the word of Phoebus being divine and full
    of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who
    uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet,
    and who said this--he it is who has slain my son.

These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our
anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall
we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young,
meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be
true worshippers of the gods and like them.

I entirely agree, 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
    be seen both of mortals and immortals.

And again:

    O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and
    ghostly form but no mind at all!

Again of Tiresias:--

    [To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he
    alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.

Again:--

    The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamentng her
    fate, leaving manhood and youth.

Again:--

    And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the
    earth.

And,--

    As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of 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 he speaks
correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep
within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great),
and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?

That is quite true, he said.

Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of
rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the
style has all sorts of changes.

That is also perfectly true, he replied.

And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all
poetry, and every form of expression in words?  No one can say anything
except in one or other of them or in both together.

They include all, he said.

And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only
of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?

I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.

Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and
indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you,
is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with
the world in general.

I do not deny it.

But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our
State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man
plays one part only?

Yes; quite unsuitable.

And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we
shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a
husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a
soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?

True, he said.

And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so
clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a
proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and
worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also
inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the
law will not allow them.  And so when we have anointed him with myrrh,
and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to
another city.  For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher
and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the
virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at
first when we began the education of our soldiers.

We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.

Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education
which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished;
for the matter and manner have both been discussed.

I think so too, he said.

Next in order will follow melody and song.

That is obvious.

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 di

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