BOOK II.

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.
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; whereas 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 by his courage and strength, and command of money and
friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity,
wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no
seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be 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.
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.
I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus, his
brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you do not suppose that there is nothing
more to be urged?
Why, what else is there? I answered.
The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied.
 Well, then, according to the proverb, 'Let brother help brother'—if he fails in any
part do you assist him; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite
enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice.
Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: There is
another
side to Glaucon's argument about the praise and censure of
justice
and injustice, which is equally required in order to bring out
what I
believe to be his meaning. Parents and tutors are always telling
their
sons and their wards that they are to be just; but why? not for
the sake
of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation; in the
hope of
obtaining for him who is reputed just some of those offices,
marriages,
and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages
accruing
to the unjust from the reputation of justice. More, however, is
made of
appearances by this class of persons than by the others; for
they
throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a
shower of
benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious;
and this
accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the
first of
whom says, that the gods make the oaks of the just—

'To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle;

and 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 be 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
be a fortress to me all my days?'
For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit
there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakeable. 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.
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 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 wellnigh 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. I cannot imagine that
they are more likely to be found any where 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.
But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.
True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish—salt, and
olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people
prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will
roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a
diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and
bequeath a similar life to their children after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else
would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People
who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and
they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider
is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is
no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and
injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is
the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I
have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler
way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also
dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one
sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was
at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and
the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of
materials must be procured.
True, he said.
 Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer
sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings
which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and
actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and 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 enlargement will be
nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the
invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were
describing above.
Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?
No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all
of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was
that one man cannot practise many arts with success.
Very true, he said.
But is not war an art?
Certainly.
And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?
Quite true.
 And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a
builder—in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every
other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that
he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let
opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can
be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war
an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or
shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or
draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his
earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a
skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not
learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them.
How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good
fighter all in a day, whether with 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 an 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.
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 blameable; but what are the
stories which you mean?
First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet
told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too,—I mean what Hesiod says that
Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the
sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought
certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they
had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their
mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not
a common (Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the
number of the hearers will be very few indeed.
Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable.
Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man
should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing
anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong,
in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest
among the gods.
I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to
be repeated.
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among
themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars
in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they
are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be
embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other
quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only
believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this
time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old
women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also
should be told to compose 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, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

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