419A–427D Socrates and Adeimantus
427D–445E Socrates and Glaucon
Note
Differences between the two brothers become evident in this book. Glaucon had objected to the simple life of the first city described because it seemed an affront to human dignity, but Adeimantus now objects to the severe life led by the guardians of the second city because it goes against conventional opinions about happiness. And while Glaucon had been won over by a positive vision of a disciplined life, Adeimantus is aroused instead against a picture of the self-indulgent lives of people ordinarily considered happy (425E-426B). Once both brothers have wholeheartedly endorsed it, the imaginary city has been “founded.” The task of finding the justice in it, in order to see its reflection in the human soul, eventually requires exploring the way in which the soul too is a whole composed of parts. The partitioning must be threefold, to match the city, but the common understanding of moderation as a relation to oneself already indicates that the soul cannot be simply uniform (430E-431B). As with the city, the middle part turns out to be the least obvious, the most interesting, and the only means to bring unity back into the whole. Once the focus has been shifted to the interior life of each human being, the desirability of harmony rather than conflict becomes obvious, and the arguments in favor of injustice appear laughable.
[419A] And Adeimantus, interrupting, said, “How would you defend yourself against the charge, Socrates, if someone were to claim you aren’t making these men very happy at all, and that it’s their own doing, since in truth the city belongs to them but they don’t enjoy anything good from the city, as others do who own land, build beautiful big houses, get furnishings for them on an appropriate scale, offer the gods private sacrifices, entertain foreign visitors, and especially do what you were just talking about, acquiring gold and silver and everything that’s regarded as belonging to people who’re going to be blessedly happy? Frankly, he might claim, they look just like [420A] auxiliary forces paid to camp in the city and do nothing other than stand guard.”
“Yes,” I said, “and at that they’re provided with food and don’t even get any wages in addition to their rations the way those others do. So it isn’t even possible for them to take an outing in private if they want to, or give anything to a lady friend, or spend money in any other direction they might want to, on the sorts of things people who seem to be happy spend their money on. You’re leaving these things and scads of others like them out of your indictment.”
“Well,” he said, “let these things too be included in the charge.”
[420B] “So you’re asking how we’ll make our defense?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll find what needs to be said, I imagine,” I said, “by going along the same road. For we’ll say that there’d be nothing surprising if these people living this way are also the happiest ones,56 even though that wasn’t what we were looking toward when we founded the city, that some one class of people would be exceptionally happy, but that the whole city should be happy to the greatest possible extent. Because we imagined we’d find justice most of all in such a city, and injustice in turn in the worst-managed one, [420C] and by looking closely at them we’d judge what we’ve been seeking all along. So now, as we’re imagining it, we’re molding a city that’s happy as a whole, not taking aside some few people in it to make them that way; and we’ll consider the opposite sort of city shortly.
“Now it’s just as if, when we were painting a statue, someone who came up complained, saying that we weren’t putting the most beautiful paints on the most beautiful parts of the figure, since the eyes, which are the most beautiful part, [420D] weren’t painted purple but black; we’d think we were making a decent defense if we said ‘Strange fellow, don’t expect us to have to paint such beautiful eyes that they don’t even look like eyes, or the other parts either, but see whether we’re making the whole beautiful by giving each of the parts what’s appropriate to it.’ So now too, don’t force us to fasten onto the guardians a type of happiness that will make them anything other than [420E] guardians. We also know how to dress farmers in magnificent robes, adorn them with gold, and tell them to work the land at their pleasure, and have the potters lie back in front of the fire, feasting and matching drinks with one another around a circle, having the wheel brought to them for as long as they feel like making pots, and make everyone else blessedly happy in this manner, so the whole city is happy. But don’t give us that kind of advice, because, if [421A] we’re persuaded by you, the farmer won’t be a farmer or the potter a potter, and no one else will hold onto any of the characteristic features out of which a city comes about.
“But for the others the argument is less important, because when people become bad shoemakers and corrupt, and pretend to be something they’re not, it’s no terrible thing for a city, but when people aren’t guardians of the laws and the city but seem to be, you surely see that they utterly destroy a whole city, and also, on the other hand, that they alone are in a position to manage it well and make it happy. So if we’re making them guardians in the [421B] true sense, who do the least harm of all to the city, while the one who made the charge would make them some sort of gentleman farmers, and, as if they were at a big party and not in a city, happy banqueters, he’d be talking about something other than a city.
“What needs to be considered, then, is whether we’re instituting the guardians with a view to that, in order for the greatest possible happiness to be brought about in them, or else, with a view toward this for the whole city, it needs to be seen whether it’s being brought about there. In the latter case, these auxiliaries and guardians would need to be compelled and persuaded to see to that, so that [421C] they’ll be the best craftsmen at their own work and all the others will be the same, and once the city is growing all together in that way and is beautifully established, one needs to leave it up to nature to allow each class of people to partake of happiness.”
“You seem to me to be speaking beautifully,” he said.
“Then will I also seem to you to be speaking in a level-headed way,” I said, “in saying something closely akin to this?”
“What in particular?”
“Consider whether these things corrupt the other craftsmen as well, so that they too go bad.”
[421D] “What sort of things are these?”
“Riches,” I said, “and poverty.”
“How so?”
“Like this. Does it seem to you that a pottery maker who’s gotten rich will still be willing to attend to his art?”
“Not at all,” he said
“And will he himself become more lazy and careless that he was?”
“Very much.”
“So he becomes a worse pottery maker?”
“That too,” he said, “much worse.”
“And then too, if from poverty he can’t even provide himself with tools or any of the other things that go into his art, he’ll produce substandard work [421E] and he’ll train his sons, or any others he trains, to be inferior craftsmen.”
“How could he not?”
“From both poverty and riches, then, the works of the art are worse, and the people themselves are worse.”
“So it appears.”
“So it looks like we’ve discovered other things that the guardians need to be on guard against in every way, so that they never sneak into the city unnoticed by them.”
“What sort of things are these?”
[422A] “Riches,” I said, “and poverty, since the one brings in luxury, laziness, and upheaval, and the other brings in stinginess and bad workmanship, in addition to upheaval.”
“Certainly,” he said. “But consider this, Socrates: how will our city be able to wage war when it hasn’t acquired any money, especially if it’s forced to make war against a big and rich city?”
“It’s obvious,” I said, “that it would be a harder thing against one, but against [422B] two of that sort it would be easier.”
“How can you say that?” he said.
“First of all,” I said, “presumably when it’s necessary to do battle, won’t they be trained warriors in battle against rich men?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said.
“Well then, Adeimantus, doesn’t it seem to you that that one boxer prepared for that as beautifully as possible could easily fight with two who were not boxers, and were also rich and fat?”
“Maybe not,” he said, “not at the same time, anyway.”
“Not even if he had the ability,” I said, “to dodge away and continually turn and [422C] punch the first one to approach, and if he were to do this often in the sun and stifling heat? Couldn’t someone like that handle even more opponents of that sort?”
“I take it back,” he said; “there’d be nothing surprising about it.”
“But don’t you imagine rich people have a bigger share of knowledge and experience about boxing than about warfare?”
“I do,” he said.
“Therefore in all likelihood our warriors will easily do battle with twice or three times their number.”
[422D] “I’ll go along with you on that,” he said, “since you seem to me to be speaking correctly.”
“And what if they sent a delegation to the other city and told them the truth? They’d say ‘we have no use for gold or silver, nor is it even lawful for us, but it is for you; so go to war alongside us and you keep what belongs to the other side.’ Do you imagine anyone who heard that would choose to go to war against solid, lean dogs rather than alongside dogs against fat, tender sheep?”
“I think not,” he said; “but if the money belonging to the others is gathered together into one city, look out that it doesn’t present a danger for the one that isn’t rich.”
[422E] “You’re a lucky one,” I said, “in that you imagine any other city than one of the sort we’re fitting out is worth being called a city.”
“But what, then?” he said.
“The others should be addressed in a bigger way,” I said, “since each of them is a whole bunch of cities, not a city, as they say in the game.57 Whatever they are, each of them is two things at war with each other, one [423A] made up of the poor, the other of the rich, and in each of these there are a great many parts; if you treat them as one thing, you’d miss the whole point, but if you treat them as many, and offer to some the property and power of the others, or even those others themselves, you’ll always have a lot of allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is managed moderately in the way it was just organized, it will be the greatest one; I don’t mean by being well thought of, but greatest in fact, even if has only a thousand men who go to war on its behalf. You won’t easily find a single [423B] city as great as it is among the Greeks or the barbarians, though many, that are many times its size, are thought to be. Do you imagine it’s any different?”
“No, by Zeus,” he said.
“Then wouldn’t this be the most beautiful limit for our rulers to use, for how big in size they ought to make the city, and how much land to mark out for one that’s that size, letting the rest go?”
“What limit is that?” he said.
“This one, I imagine,” I said: “for it to grow as far as it can grow and be willing to be one, that far but not beyond.”
[423C] “That would indeed be beautifully done,” he said.
“Then shall we also assign this as another ordinance for the guardians, to be on guard in every way that the city not be small or think itself great, but something sufficient and one?”
“That’s probably a light task we’ll be assigning them,” he said.
“And here’s one even lighter than that,” I said. “We made mention of it in the earlier discussion, saying that if any child of light ability was born among the guardians, he’d need to be sent away [423D] to the others, and if one with serious promise was born among the others, he’d need to be sent away to the guardians. And this was meant to make it clear about the rest of the citizens as well, that they need to bring each one to one job, the one for which he’s naturally suited, so that each of them, by pursuing the one thing that belongs to him, will become one and not many, and in that way the city as a whole will grow to be one and not many.”
“Sure,” he said; “this is a tinier task than the other one.”
“Well, my good Adeimantus,” I said, “these aren’t, as one might think, [423E] a lot of big tasks we’re assigning them, but they’re all light ones if they safeguard the proverbial one big thing, or rather, instead of big, sufficient.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Their education and upbringing,” I said. “Because if, by being well educated, they become decent men, they’ll easily see about all these things, as well as all the other things we’re now leaving out, the [424A] possessing of women, marriages, the procreation of children, that all these things ought to be done as much as possible by the proverb ‘what belongs to friends is shared.’”
“That would be the most correct way,” he said.
“And then the polity,” I said, “once it’s been well set in motion, goes on growing like a circle, because a sound upbringing and education, when they’re maintained, instill good natures, and sound natures, getting that sort of education in turn, grow up even better than those before them, in other respects and especially in procreation, the same as among the other animals.”
[424B] “Very likely,” he said.
“So then, putting it in few words, this is what those in charge of the city need to hold on to, so that it won’t get corrupted without their notice but they’ll safeguard it above all: no innovating contrary to the organized plan for gymnastic training and music. But they’ll safeguard them as much as they possibly can, alarmed whenever anyone says
People pay more regard to the newest song,
Whatever drifts around among the singers,58
[424C] that often someone might imagine the poet was talking not about new songs but a new style of song, and might approve of that. But one ought not to approve of such a thing or understand the poet in such a way. For changing over to a strange form of music is something one needs to be cautious about as bringing danger into the whole, since nowhere are styles of music changed without changes in political customs of the greatest importance, as Damon59 says and I’m persuaded.”
“Put me down also,” said Adeimantus, “among the persuaded.”
“So,” I said, “it seems that the place the guardians [424D] need to build their fortification is here, in music.”
“Certainly this sort of undermining of custom easily slips in unnoticed,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “as if it fell in the category of amusement and did no harm.”
“That’s because it doesn’t do any,” he said, “other than the fact that when it settles in little by little, it flows quietly under the surface into people’s characters and habits, and from them comes out stronger into their [424E] dealings with one another, and from their interactions it goes on with great recklessness to their customs and polities, Socrates, until it ends up overturning everything in private and public life.”
“Really!” I said. “It goes that far?”
“It seems that way to me,” he said.
“Then as we were saying at the beginning, don’t our children need to be involved right away in a more law-abiding sort of play, since, if the play itself becomes lawless, and the children come to be that way too, it would be impossible for law-abiding [425A] serious men to grow out of them?”
“How could it be otherwise?” he said.
“So whenever, by starting out in a beautiful way at playing, children open themselves up to lawfulness by means of music, then back in the opposite direction from those others, lawfulness follows along with them and makes everything grow, setting back on its feet anything in the city that had been knocked down.”
“True indeed,” he said.
“Then they even rediscover the customary practices that seem to be small things,” I said, “all of which their predecessors destroyed.”
“What sort?”
[425B] “This sort: silence of young people in the presence of their elders when it’s appropriate, letting them sit and standing up for them, and taking care of parents, as well as haircuts, clothes, shoes, and the appearance of the body generally, and all the other things of that sort. Don’t you think so?”
“I do.”
“To make them laws, I imagine, is silly, since presumably they don’t come about and they wouldn’t be maintained by being legislated in words and in writing.”
“How could they be?”
“At any rate, Adeimantus,” I said, “the direction in which someone [425C] gets set in motion by his education is liable to be of a piece with the things that follow it as well. Doesn’t like always call forth its like?”
“Certainly.”
“And in the final result, I imagine, we’d claim that it turns into a single vigorous whole, either good or the reverse.”
“How could it not?” he said.
“For these reasons, then,” I said, “I wouldn’t attempt to legislate about such things any further.”
“That’s reasonable,” he said.
“And before the gods,” I said, “what about the business of the marketplace, having to do with the contracts each sort of people agree to with one another in the market, and, if [425D] you like, having to do with engaging the services of skilled workmen, and with slander and insults and seeking legal redress and appointing juries, and the collecting and paying of taxes if any are necessary either in the markets or the ports, and on the whole, any sort of regulation of the markets, town, and harbors—will we have the nerve to legislate anything about these things?”
“It’s not worth it,” he said, “to dictate to men who are gentlemen, [425E] since presumably they’ll easily discover a lot of them, all the ones that ought to be legislated about.”
“Yes, my friend,” I said, “so long as a god grants them the preservation of the laws we went through before.”
“And if not,” he said, “they’ll spend their lives continually setting down a lot of such laws and straightening them out, imagining they’ll catch hold of what’s best.”
“You’re saying,” I said, “that such people would be living like those who’re sick, but from intemperance aren’t willing to give up a worthless way of life.”
“Very much so.”
[426A] “And the way they go through life is sure charming; they accomplish nothing with their medical treatments except to make their diseases more varied and stronger, always hoping that, if only someone would recommend some drug, they’ll be healthy on account of that.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing that happens,” he said, “with people who’re sick in that way.”
“And what about this?” I said. “Isn’t it a charming thing about them that they consider the most hateful thing of all to be someone who tells them the truth, that until they cease from drunkenness, stuffing themselves, sexual indulgences, and lack of exercise, [426B] no drugs, burning, or cutting will do them any good, and neither will any sort of thing they chant or wear around their necks?”
“Not charming at all,” he said. “There’s nothing charming about getting angry at someone who’s speaking for their benefit.”
“You’re no fan of such men, it seems,” I said.
“No I’m not, by Zeus.”
“Then if the city as a whole does that sort of thing, the way we were just talking about, you won’t approve of it either. Or don’t they appear to you to act the same way as these people, all those cities that, despite being badly governed, [426C] warn their citizens against changing the city’s whole set-up, on penalty of death for anyone who does that? But whoever ministers to them most pleasingly while they’re governed that way, gratifying and cozying up to them, who anticipates their wishes and is clever at fulfilling them, will be for that reason a good man and wise in great matters, and will be honored by them.”
“They do seem to me to act the same way,” he said, “and I’m no fan of theirs either by any means.”
[426D] “And what about those, for their part, who’re willing and eager to minister to such cities? Don’t you marvel at how brave and accommodating they are?”
“I do,” he said, “except for the ones who are taken in by them and imagine they really are statesmen because they’re praised by most people.”
“You mean you don’t sympathize with these men?” I said. “Do you imagine it’s possible for a man who doesn’t know how to measure, when lots of other people of his sort are telling him he’s six feet tall, [426E] not to believe what they say about it?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t imagine that.”
“Then don’t be so hard on them, since such people are probably the most charming ones of all, making laws of the sort we just went over and correcting them, always imagining they’ll find some limit for wrongdoing in business dealings and the things I was just talking about, ignorant that it’s in fact just like they were cutting off the Hydra’s heads.”60
[427A] “And certainly,” he said, “they’re doing nothing else.”
“That’s why I’d imagine,” I said, “that a true lawgiver ought not to trouble himself with such a form of laws or such a form of polity, either in a badly governed or a well governed city, in the one because it’s pointless and does no good, and in the other because anybody at all could discover some of them and the rest follow by themselves from the practices mentioned before.”
[427B] “Then what legislation would still be left for us?” he said.
And I said, “For us, none; for Apollo at Delphi, though, the greatest, most beautiful, and first pieces of legislation.”
“What sort are they?” he said.
“Dedications of temples, sacrifices, and other sorts of worship of the gods, divinities, and heroes, and also burial of the dead and all the things people need to do as service to those in that place for them to be kindly disposed. Because we don’t know that sort of thing, and if [427C] we have any sense we won’t be persuaded by anyone else when we’re founding a city, and won’t use any interpreter other than the ancestral one. For no doubt this god, as the interpreter of such things for all human beings, reveals them from his seat at the center and navel of the earth.”
“Beautifully said,” he said, “and so it must be done.”
“Then your city, son of Ariston,” I said, “should [427D] now be founded. So after that, take a look around in it yourself, once you’ve provided a light from somewhere, and call in your brother and Polemarchus and the others, if in any way we might see wherever its justice might be, and its injustice, and what differentiates the pair from each other, and which of the two someone who’s going to be happy ought to get hold of, whether he goes unnoticed or not by all gods and human beings.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” said Glaucon. “You took it on yourself to search for it [427E] because it’s irreverent for you not to come to the aid of justice in every way to the limit of your power.”
“It’s true,” I said, “as you remind me, and so it must be done, but you folks need to do your part too.”
“Well that’s what we’ll do,” he said.
“Then I hope to find it this way,” I said. “I imagine our city, if in fact it’s been correctly founded, is completely good.”
“Necessarily,” he said.
“So it’s clear that it’s wise and courageous and moderate and just.”
“That’s clear.”
“Then whatever we find in it from among them, the leftover part will be [428A] what hasn’t been found?”61
“Of course.”
“Then just as with any other four things, if we were looking for a particular one of them in whatever it was, whenever we recognized that one first that would be good enough for us, but if we recognized the three first, by that very means we would have recognized the thing we’re looking for, because it’s obvious that it couldn’t any longer be anything else than the thing left over.”
“You’re saying it correctly,” he said.
“So for these things too, since they happen to be four, they need to be looked for in the same way?”
“Obviously.”
[428B] “Well then, the first thing that seems to me to be clearly visible in it is wisdom. And there seems to be something strange about it.”
“What?” he said.
“The city that we went over seems to me to be wise in its very being.62 Because it is well-counseled, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And surely it’s clear that this very thing, good counsel, is a certain kind of knowledge, since it’s presumably not by ignorance but by knowledge that people counsel well.”
“That’s clear.”
“But many kinds of knowledge of all varieties are surely present in the city.”
“How could there not be?”
“Then is it on account of the carpenters’ knowledge that the city is called wise and well-counseled?”
[428C] “Not at all,” he said; “on account of that it’s called skilled in carpentry.”
“Then it’s not on account of the knowledge that counsels about how wooden equipment would be best that a city is called wise.”
“No indeed.”
“Well then, is it the knowledge about things made of bronze or anything else of that sort?”
“None whatever of those,” he said.
“And it’s not the knowledge about growing the fruits of the earth; that makes it skilled in farming.”
“It seems that way to me.”
“What about it, then?” I said. “Is there any knowledge in the city just now founded [428D] by us, on the part of any of its citizens, by which it counsels not about things in the city pertaining to someone in particular, but about itself as a whole, and in what way it would interact best within itself and with other cities?”
“There certainly is.”
“What is it,” I said, “and in which of them?”
“It’s guardianship,” he said, “and it’s in those rulers whom we were just now naming complete guardians.”
“So on account of this sort of knowledge, what do you call the city?”
“Well-counseled,” he said, “and wise in its very being.”
“Now do you imagine,” I said, “that there will be more metalworkers present [428E] in our city than these true guardians?”
“A lot more metalworkers,” he said.
“And compared also to all the rest who are given names for having any particular kinds of knowledge, wouldn’t these guardians be the fewest of them all?”
“By a lot.”
“Therefore it’s by means of the smallest group and part of itself, the part that directs and rules, and by the knowledge in it, that a whole city founded in accord with nature would be wise. And it seems likely that this turns out [429A] by nature to be the smallest class, the one that’s appropriately allotted a share of that knowledge which, alone among the other kinds of knowledge, ought to be called wisdom.”
“Very true, just as you say,” he said.
“So we’ve discovered this one of the four—how we did it I don’t know—both it and where in the city it’s lodged.”
“It seems to me at any rate,” he said, “to have been discovered well enough.”
“But as for courage, it and the part of the city it lies in, and through which the city is called courageous, are surely not very hard to see.”
“How so?”
[429B] “Who,” I said, “would say a city was cowardly or courageous by looking to anything other than that part of it which defends it and takes the field on its behalf?”
“No one,” he said, “would look to anything else.”
“Because I don’t imagine,” I said, “that whether the other people in it are cowards or courageous would be what determines it to be the one sort or the other.”
“No.”
“Then a city is also courageous by means of a certain part of itself, by its having in it a power such that it will safeguard through everything its [429C] opinion about what’s to be feared, that it’s the same things or the sorts of things that the lawgiver passed on to them in their education. Or isn’t that what you call courage?”
“I haven’t quite understood what you’re saying,” he said; “just say it again.”
“I mean,” I said, “that courage is a certain kind of preservation.”
“What kind of preservation exactly?”
“Of the opinion instilled by law through education about what things and what sorts of things are to be feared. By preserving it through everything I meant keeping it intact when one is in the midst of pains and [429D] pleasures and desires and terrors and not dropping it. I’m willing to make an image of what it seems to me to be like if you want me to.”
“I want you to.”
“You know, don’t you,” I said, “that dyers, when they want to dye wool so it will be purple, first select, from among the many colors, wool of the single nature belonging to white things, and then prepare it in advance, taking care with no little preparation that it will accept the pigment as much as possible, and only so dip it in the dye? [429E] And what is dyed in this way becomes impervious to fading, and washing it, whether without soaps or with them, has no power to remove the color from it, but what is not done that way—well, you know what it comes out like, whether one dyes it with other colors or this one without having taken care in advance.”
“I know,” he said, “that it’s washed out and laughable.”
“Then understand,” I said, “that we too were doing something like that to the extent of our power when we were selecting the soldiers and [430A] educating them with music and gymnastic training. Don’t imagine that we devised that for any reason other than so they, persuaded by us, would take the laws into themselves like a dye in the most beautiful way possible, so that their opinion about what’s to be feared, and about everything else, would become impervious to fading, because they’d had the appropriate nature and upbringing, and the dye couldn’t be washed out of them by those soaps that are so formidable at scouring, [430B] either pleasure, which is more powerful at doing that than every sort of lye and alkaline ash, or pain, terror, and desire, more powerful than any other soaps. This sort of power and preservation through everything of a right and lawful opinion about what is and isn’t to be feared, I for my part call courage, and I set it down as such unless you say otherwise.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t say anything different, because it seems to me that you’re considering the right opinion about these same things that comes about without education, as animal-like or slavish, and not entirely reliable, and that you’d call it something other than courage.”
[430C] “Entirely true,” I said, “as you say.”
“Then I accept this as being courage,” he said.
“Yes, do accept it,” I said, “but as a citizen’s courage,63 and you’ll be accepting it the right way. We’ll go over something still more beautiful in connection with it later if you want, because what we’ve been looking for now is not that but justice. For the inquiry about that, I imagine this is sufficient.”
“Yes,” he said, “beautifully said.”
“So two things are still left,” I said, “that it’s necessary to catch sight of in the city, [430D] moderation, and the one for the sake of which we’re looking for them all, justice.”
“Quite so.”
“How, then, might we discover justice so that we won’t have to bother any more about moderation?”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know and I wouldn’t want it to come to light first anyway if we’re no longer going to examine moderation. So if you want to gratify64 me, consider this before that.”
“I certainly do want to,” I said; “unless I’d be doing an injustice.”
“Consider it, then,” he said.
[430E] “It’s got to be considered,” I said, “and as seen from where we are, it looks more like a sort of consonance and harmony than the ones before.”
“How?”
“Presumably,” I said, “moderation is a certain well-orderedness, and a mastery over certain pleasures and desires, as people say—being stronger than oneself—though in what way they mean that I don’t know. And some other things of that sort are said that are like clues to it, aren’t they?”
“They most of all,” he said.
“But then isn’t being stronger than oneself absurd? Because the one who’s stronger than himself would presumably also be weaker than himself, and the weaker [431A] stronger, since the same person is referred to in all these terms.”
“How could it not be the same one?”
“But it appears to me,” I said, “that this phrase intends to say that there’s something to do with the soul within a human being himself that has something better and something worse in it, and whenever what’s better by nature is master over what’s worse, calling this ‘being stronger than oneself’ at least praises it. But whenever, from a bad upbringing or some sort of bad company, the better part that’s smaller is mastered by the larger multitude of the worse part, this [431B] as a reproach is blamed and called ‘being weaker than oneself,’ and the person so disposed is called intemperate.”
“That’s likely it,” he said.
“Then look over toward our new city,” I said, “and you’ll find one of these things present in it. Because you’ll claim that it’s justly referred to as stronger than itself, if in fact something in which the better rules over the worse ought to be called moderate and stronger than itself.”
“I am looking over at it,” he said, “and you’re telling the truth.”
“And surely one would find a multitude and variety [431C] of desires as well as pleasures and pains, in children especially, and in women and menial servants, and also in most of the lower sorts of people among those who are called free.”
“Very much so.”
“But you’ll meet with simple and measured desires and pleasures, which are guided by reasoning with intelligence and right opinion, in few people, who are both best in nature and best educated.”
“True,” he said.
“Then don’t you see that these too are present in your city, and that the desires in most people and those of the lower sorts are mastered [431D] there by the desires and intelligence of the lesser number of more decent people?”
“I do,” he said.
“So if one ought to refer to any city as stronger than pleasures and desires, and than itself, that needs to be applied to this one.”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“So then isn’t it moderate too in all these respects?”
“Very much so,” he said.
“And also, if in any city the same opinion is present in both the [431E] rulers and the ruled about who ought to rule, it would be present in this one. Doesn’t that seem so?”
“Emphatically so,” he said.
“Then as for being moderate, in which group of citizens will you say it’s present when they’re in this condition, in the rulers or in the ruled?”
“In both, presumably,” he said.
“So do you see,” I said, “that we had an appropriate premonition just now that moderation is like a certain harmony?”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s not like courage and wisdom, each of which by its presence [432A] in a certain part showed the city to be either wise or courageous. It doesn’t act that way, but is in fact stretched through the whole across the scale, showing the weakest, the strongest, and those in between to be singing the same song together, whether you want to rank them in intelligence, or, if you want, in strength, or even by their number or their money or by anything whatever of that sort. So we’d be most correct in claiming that this like-mindedness is moderation, a concord of the naturally worse and better about which ought to rule, both [432B] in the city and in each one.”
“The way it seems to me is completely in accord with that,” he said.
“Well then,” I said, “three of them have been spotted in our city—at least it seems that way. So what would be the remaining form by which the city would further partake in virtue? For it’s clear that this is justice.
“That’s clear.”
“So now, Glaucon, don’t we need to take up positions like hunters in a circle around a patch of woods and concentrate our attention, so that justice doesn’t escape anywhere, disappear from our sight, and become obscure? [432C] Because it’s evident that it’s in there somewhere. So look and make a spirited effort to catch sight of it, in case you spot it in any way before I do, and you’ll show it to me.”
“If only I were able to,” he said. “Instead, if you treat me as a follower who’s capable of seeing what’s pointed out to him, you’ll be handling me in an entirely sensible way.”
“Follow then,” I said, “after offering up prayers along with me.”
“I’ll do that,” he said; “just you lead.”
“The place sure does look like an inaccessible and shadowy one,” I said; “at any rate it’s dark and hard to scout through. But still, one needs to go on.”
[432D] “Yes, one does need to go on,” he said.
And spotting something, I called, “Got it! Got it, Glaucon! We’ve probably got its trail, and I don’t think it’s going to get away from us at all.”
“You bring good tidings,” he said.
“But oh what a slug-like condition we were in,” I said.
“In what sort of way?”
“All this time, you blessed fellow, and it seems it’s been rolling around in front of our feet from the beginning, and we didn’t see it for all that, but were utterly ridiculous; the way people holding something in their hands sometimes look for [432E] the things they’re holding, we too weren’t looking at the thing itself but were gazing off into the distance somewhere, which is probably the very reason it escaped our notice.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“Like this,” I said: “it seems to me that although we’ve been saying it and hearing it all along, we haven’t learned from our own selves that we were in a certain way saying it.”
“That’s a long prologue for someone who’s eager to hear,” he said.
[433A] “Well then, hear whether I mean anything after all,” I said. “Because from the beginning the thing we’ve set down as what we needed to do all through everything when we were founding the city, this, it seems to me, or else some form of this, is justice. Surely we set down, and said often, if you remember, that each one person needed to pursue one of the tasks that are involved in the city, the one to which his nature would be naturally best adapted.”
“We did say that.”
“And surely we’ve heard it said by many others that doing what’s properly one’s own and not meddling in other people’s business is justice, [433B] and we’ve said it often ourselves.”
“We have said that.”
“This, then, my friend,” I said, “when it comes about in a certain way, is liable to be justice, this doing what’s properly one’s own. Do you know where I find an indication of this?”
“No, tell me,” he said.
“It seems to me,” I said, “that the thing that’s left over in the city from the ones we’ve considered—moderation, courage, and wisdom—is what provided all of them with the power to come into being in it and provides their preservation once they’ve come into being, for as long as it’s in it. [433C] And in fact we were claiming that justice would be what was left over from them if we were to find the three.”
“And that is necessary,” he said.
“And certainly,” I said, “if one had to judge which of these would do our city the most good by coming to be present in it, it would be hard to decide whether it’s the agreement of opinion of the rulers and ruled, or the preservation of a lawful opinion that arises in the soldiers about what things are and aren’t to be feared, or the judgment and guardianship [433D] present in the rulers, or whether it’s this that does it the most good by being in it, in a child and a woman and a slave and a free person and a craftsman and a ruler and one who’s ruled, the fact that each of them, being one person, did what was properly his own and didn’t meddle in other people’s business.”
“It’s hard to decide,” he said; “how could it not be?”
“Therefore, it seems that, with a view to a city’s virtue, the power that comes from each person’s doing what’s properly his own in it is a match for its wisdom and moderation and courage.”
“Very much so,” he said.
“And wouldn’t you place justice as a match for these as to a city’s virtue?”
“Absolutely so.”
[433E] “Then consider whether it will seem that way in this respect too: will you assign the judging of lawsuits in the city to the rulers?”
“Certainly.”
“And will they judge them with their sights on anything else besides this, that each party not have another’s property or be deprived of his own?”
“No, only on that.”
“Because it’s the just thing?”
“Yes.”
“Then in this respect too, having and doing what’s properly [434A] one’s own would be agreed to be justice.”
“That’s so.”
“Now see if the same thing seems so to you that does to me. If a carpenter tries to work at the job of a leatherworker, or a leatherworker at that of a carpenter, or if they trade their tools and honors with each other, or even if the same person tries to do both jobs, and everything else gets traded around, would it seem to you to do the city any great harm?”
“Not very great,” he said.
“But I imagine when someone who’s a craftsman by nature, or some other sort of moneymaker, but proud of his wealth or the multitude of his household or his strength [434B] or anything else of the sort, tries to get in among the warrior kind, or one of the warriors into the deliberative and guardian kind when he doesn’t merit it, and they trade their tools and honors with each other, or when the same person tries to do all these jobs at the same time, then I imagine it would seem to you too that this change and meddling among them would be the ruin of the city.”
“Absolutely so.”
“Therefore among the three classes there are, any meddling or changing [434C] into one another is of the greatest harm to the city, and would most correctly be referred to as the greatest wrongdoing.”
“Precisely so.”
“And wouldn’t you say the greatest wrongdoing toward one’s own city is injustice?”
“How could it not be?”
“So this is injustice. And let’s say this the other way around; the minding of their own business by the moneymaking, auxiliary, and guardian classes, when each of them does what properly belongs to it in a city, is the opposite of that and would be justice and would show the city to be just?”
“It doesn’t seem to be any other way than that to me,” he said.
[434D] “Let’s not say it in quite so rigid a way yet, but if this form is agreed by us to be present in each one of the people as well and to be justice there, then we’ll join in going along with it. What more would there be to say? And if not, then we’ll consider something else. But for now let’s complete the examination by which we imagined it would be easier to catch sight of what sort of thing justice is in one human being if we tried to see it first in some bigger thing that has justice in it. And [434E] it seemed to us that a city is just that, and so we founded the best one in our power, knowing well that it would be present in a good one at least. So let’s carry over what came to light for us there to one person, and if they’re in accord, it will turn out beautifully; but if something different shows up in the single person, [435A] we’ll go back to the city again and test it. And maybe, by examining them side by side and rubbing them together like sticks, we could make justice flame forth from them, and once it’s become evident we could substantiate it for ourselves.”
“Then it’s down the road you indicate,” he said, “and it behooves us to go there too.”
“Well then,” I said, “does the bigger or smaller thing that someone refers to by the same name happen to be unlike the other one in the respect in which it’s called the same, or like it?”
“Like it,” he said.
[435B] “Therefore a just man will not differ at all from a just city with respect to the form of justice, but he’ll be like it.”
“He’ll be like it,” he said.
“But the city seemed to be just because each of the three classes of natures present in it did what properly belonged to it, while it seemed also to be moderate, courageous, and wise on account of certain other attributes and characteristic activities of these same classes.”
“True,” he said.
“Therefore, my friend, we’ll regard a single person in this way too, as having these [435C] same forms in his soul, and as rightly deserving to have the same names applied to them as in the city as a result of the same attributes.”
“There’s every need to,” he said.
“It’s certainly a light question about the soul we’ve landed ourselves into now, you strange fellow,” I said, “whether it has these three forms in it or not.”
“It’s not quite such a light one we seem to me to be in,” he said. “It’s probably because the saying is true, Socrates, that beautiful things are difficult.”
“So it appears,” I said. “And know for sure, Glaucon, that it’s my [435D] opinion we’ll never get hold of this in a precise way along the sorts of paths we’re now taking in our arguments, because there’s another, longer and more rigorous road that leads to it. Maybe, though, we can get hold of it in a way worthy, at least, of the things that have already been said and considered.”
“Isn’t that something to be content with?” he said. “For me, at present anyway, it would be good enough.”
“Yes, certainly,” I said; “that will be quite sufficient for me too.”
“Don’t get tired, then,” he said; “just examine it.”
“Well then,” I said, “isn’t there a great necessity for us to agree that [435E] the same forms and states of character are present in each of us as are in the city? Because presumably they didn’t get there from anywhere else. It would be ridiculous if anyone imagined the spirited character didn’t come to be in the cities from particular people who also have this attribute, like those in Thrace and Scythia, and pretty generally in the northern region, or similarly with the love of learning, which one might attribute especially to the [436A] region round about us, or the love of money that one might claim to be not least round about the Phoenicians and those in Egypt.”
“Very much so,” he said.
“That’s just the way it is,” I said, “and it’s not difficult to recognize.”
“Certainly not.”
“But this now is difficult: whether we act each way by means of the same thing, or in the different ways by means of different things, of which there are three—whether we learn by means of one of the things in us, become spirited by means of another, and feel desires in turn by means of a [436B] third for the pleasures having to do with nourishment and procreation and as many things as are closely related to these, or whether we act by means of the whole soul in each of them, once we’re aroused. These are the things that will be difficult to determine in a manner worthy of the discussion.”65
“It seems that way to me too,” he said.
“Then let’s try to mark out whether they’re the same as one another or different, in this way.”
“How?”
“It’s obvious that the same thing isn’t going to put up with66 doing or undergoing opposite things in the same respect and in relation to the same thing at the same time, so presumably if we [436C] find that happening in the things in question, we’ll know that they’re not the same but more than one thing.”
“Okay.”
“Then consider what I say.”
“Say it,” he said.
“Does the same thing have the power to stand still and move,” I said, “at the same time in the same respect?”
“Not at all.”
“Then let’s agree about it in a still more precise way, so that we won’t be quibbling as we go on. Because if anyone were to say of a person who was standing still but moving his hands and his head, that the same person was standing still and moving at the same time, I imagine we wouldn’t consider that [436D] he ought to say it that way, but that some one thing about the person stands still while another moves. Isn’t that so?”
“It’s so.”
“So if the one who said that were to get still more cute, making the subtle point that tops stand still as a whole and move at the same time, when they spin around with the point fixed in the same place, or that anything else going around in a circle on the same spot does that, we wouldn’t accept it, since it’s not with respect to the same things about themselves that such things are in that case staying in place and being carried around, but we’d claim that they have [436E] in them something straight and something surrounding it, and stand still with respect to the straight part, since they don’t tilt in any direction, but move in a circle with respect to the surrounding part; and when the straight axis is leaning to the right or the left, or forward or back, at the same time it’s spinning around, then it’s not standing still in any way.”
“You’ve got that right,” he said.
“Therefore, when such things are said they won’t knock us off course at all, any more than they’ll persuade us that in any way, the same thing, at the same time, in the same respect, [437A] in relation to the same thing, could ever undergo, be, or do opposite things.”
“Not me at any rate,” he said.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “in order that we won’t be forced to waste time going through all the objections of that sort and establishing that they aren’t true, let’s go forward on the assumption that this is how it is, having agreed that, if these things should ever appear otherwise than that, all our conclusions from it will have been refuted.”
“That’s what one ought to do,” he said.
[437B] “Well then, would you place nodding ‘yes’ as compared to shaking one’s head ‘no’ among things that are opposite to each other, and having a craving to get something as compared to rejecting it, and drawing something to oneself as compared to pushing it away, and everything of that sort? Whether they’re things one does actively or experiences passively, there won’t be any difference on that account.”
“Sure,” he said, “they’re opposites.”
“And what about thirst and hunger and the desires in general,” I said, “as well as wishing and wanting? Wouldn’t you place all these things somewhere in those forms just mentioned? For example, wouldn’t you claim that [437C] the soul of someone who desires either has a craving for what it desires, or draws to itself what it wants to become its own, or, in turn, to the extent it wishes something to be provided to it, nods its assent to this to itself as though it had asked some question, stretching out toward its source?”
“I would indeed.”
“And what about this? Won’t we place not wanting and not wishing and not desiring in with pushing away and banishing from itself and in with all the opposites of the former things?”
“How could we not?”
[437D] “Now these things being so, are we going to claim that there’s a form consisting of desires, and that among these themselves, the most conspicuous ones are what we call thirst and what we call hunger?”
“We’re going to claim that,” he said.
“And the one is for drink, the other for food?”
“Yes.”
“Now to the extent that it’s thirst, would it be a desire in the soul for anything beyond that of which we say it’s a desire? For instance, is thirst a thirst for a hot drink or a cold one, or a big or a little one, or in a word, for any particular sort of drink? Or, if there’s any heat present in addition to the thirst, [437E] wouldn’t that produce an additional desire for cold, or if cold is present, a desire for heat? And if by the presence of magnitude the thirst is a big one, that will add a desire for a big drink, or of smallness, for a little one? But being thirsty itself will never turn into a desire for anything other than the very thing it’s naturally for, for drink, or being hungry in turn for food?”
“It’s like that,” he said; “each desire itself is only for the very thing it’s naturally for, while the things attached to it are for this or that sort.”
[438A] “Then let’s not be unprepared, and let someone get us confused, on the grounds that no one desires drink, but decent quality drink, and not food but decent quality food, since everyone, after all, desires good things. So if thirst is a desire, it would be for a decent quality of drink, or of whatever else it’s a desire for, and the same way with the other desires.”
“Well, maybe there could seem to be something in what he’s saying,” he said, “when he says that.”
“But surely,” I said, “with all such things that are related to something, [438B] the ones that are of particular kinds are related to something of a particular kind, as it seems to me, while the sorts that are just themselves are related only to something that’s just itself.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Don’t you understand,” I said, “that what’s greater is of such a sort as to be greater than something?”
“Certainly.”
“Than a lesser thing?”
“Yes.”
“And a much greater thing than one that’s much less, right?”
“Yes.”
“And also a thing that was greater than one that was less, and a thing that’s going to be greater than one that’s going to be less?”
“Yes, of course,” he said.
“And something more numerous is related to something that’s fewer, and something twice as many to something that’s [438C] half as many, and all that sort of thing, and also something heavier to something lighter and faster to slower, and in addition, hot things are related to cold things, and isn’t everything like that the same way?”
“Very much so.”
“And what about the kinds of knowledge? Aren’t they the same way? Knowledge just by itself is knowledge of what’s learnable just by itself, or of whatever one ought to set down knowledge as being of, while a particular knowledge or a particular sort is of a particular thing or a particular sort of thing. I mean this sort of thing: when a knowledge [438D] of constructing houses came into being, didn’t it differ from the other kinds of knowledge so that it got called housebuilding?”
“Certainly.”
“And wasn’t that because it’s a particular kind of knowledge, and any of the others is a different sort?”
“Yes.”
“And wasn’t it because it was about a particular sort of thing that it too came to be of a particular sort, and the same way for the other arts and kinds of knowledge?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“Well then,” I said, “if you’ve understood it now, call that what I meant to say then, that with all the things that are such as to be about something, the ones that are only themselves [438E] are about things that are only themselves, while the ones that are of particular kinds are about things of particular kinds. And I’m not saying at all that the sorts of things they’re about are the same sorts they themselves are, as a result of which the knowledge of what’s healthy and sick would be healthy and sickly, and the knowledge of bad and good things would be bad and good; instead, I’m saying that when a knowledge came into being that was not just about the very thing knowledge is about, but about a particular thing, and that was what’s healthy and sick, it too as a result came to be of a particular sort. And this made it no longer be called simply knowledge, but, with the particular sort included, medicine.”
“I’ve understood it,” he said, “and it does seem that way to me.”
[439A] “So wouldn’t you place thirst,” I said, “among those things in which to be for something is exactly what they are? Thirst is, of course, for something.”
“I would, yes,” he said; “it’s for drink anyway.”
“And isn’t a particular sort of thirst for a particular sort of drink, while thirst itself is not for a lot or a little, or for a good or a bad one, or, in a word, for any particular sort, but thirst itself is naturally just for drink itself?”
“Absolutely so.”
“Therefore the soul of someone who’s thirsty, to the extent he’s thirsty, wants nothing [439B] other than to drink, and stretches out to this, and sets itself in motion toward it.”
“Clearly so.”
“So if anything ever pulls it back when it’s thirsty, it would be some different thing in it from the very thing that’s thirsty, and that tows it like an animal toward drinking? Because we claim that the same thing couldn’t be doing opposite things in the same part of itself in relation to the same thing at the same time.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
“In the same way, I imagine, one doesn’t do well to say about an archer that his hands push and pull the bow at the same time, but rather that one hand is the one pushing it and the other the one [439C] pulling it.”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“Now do we claim that there are some people who sometimes, while they’re thirsty, aren’t willing to drink?”
“Very much so,” he said, “many people and often.”
“Well what should one say about them?” I said. “Isn’t there something in their soul telling them to drink and something preventing them from it that’s different from and mastering what’s telling them to?”
“It seems that way to me,” he said.
“And doesn’t the thing that prevents such things come about in it, when [439D] it does come about, from reasoning? But the things that tug and pull come to it from passions and disorders?”
“It looks that way.”
“So not unreasonably will we regard them as being two things and different from each other, referring to that in the soul by which it reasons as its reasoning part, and that by which it feels erotic love, hunger, and thirst, and is stirred with the other desires, as its irrational and desiring part, associated with certain satisfactions and pleasures.”
“No, we’d regard them that way quite reasonably,” he said.
[439E] “So let these two forms be marked off in the soul,” I said. “But is the part that has to do with spiritedness, and by which we’re spirited, a third thing, or would it be of the same nature as one of these two?”
“Maybe the same as one of them,” he said, “the desiring part.”
“But I once heard something that I believe,” I said, “about how Leontius, Aglaion’s son, was going up from Piraeus along the outside of the north wall, and noticed dead bodies lying beside the executioner. He desired to see them, but at the same time felt disgust and turned [440A] himself away; for a while he struggled and covered his eyes, but then he was overcome by his desire, and running toward the bodies holding his eyes wide open, he said, ‘See for yourselves, since you’re possessed! Take your fill of the lovely sight.’”
“I’ve heard that myself,” he said.
“This story certainly indicates,” I said, “that anger sometimes makes war against the desires as though it were one thing acting against another.”
“It does indicate that,” he said.
“And don’t we often observe it in many other ways as well,” I said, “when [440B] desires overpower someone contrary to his reasoning part, that he scolds himself and is aroused against the part in him that’s overpowering him, and just as if there were a pair of warring factions, the spiritedness of such a person becomes allied with his reason? But as for its making a partnership with the desires to act in defiance when reason has decided what ought not to be done, I don’t suppose you’d claim you’d ever noticed such a thing happening in yourself, or, I imagine, in anyone else.”
“No, by Zeus!” he said.
“Then what about when someone thinks he’s being unjust?” I said. “The more [440C] noble he is, won’t he be that much less capable of getting angry at being hungry or cold or suffering anything else at all of the sort from the person he thinks is doing those things to him justly, and won’t he be unwilling, as I’m saying, for his spirit to be aroused against that person?”
“That’s true,” he said.
“But what about when he regards himself as being treated unjustly? Doesn’t the spirit in him seethe and harden and ally itself with what seems just, and submitting to suffering through hunger and cold and all [440D] such things, it prevails and doesn’t stint its noble struggles until it gains its end or meets its death, or else, called back, like a dog by a herdsman, by the reason that stands by it, it becomes calm?”
“It is very much like what you describe,” he said. “And certainly in our city we set up the auxiliaries like dogs obedient to the rulers, who were like shepherds of the city.”
“You conceive what I want to say beautifully,” I said. “especially if you’ve taken it to heart in this respect in addition to that one.”
“In what sort of respect?”
[440E] “That it’s looking the opposite of the way it did to us just now with the spirited part, because then we imagined it was something having to do with desire, but now we’re claiming that far from that, it’s much more inclined in the faction within the soul to take arms on the side of the reasoning part.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Then is it different from that too, or some form of the reasoning part, so that there aren’t three but two forms in the soul, a reasoning one and a desiring one? Or just as, in the city, there were three classes [441A] that held it together, moneymaking, auxiliary, and deliberative, so too in the soul is there this third, spirited part, which is by nature an auxiliary to the reasoning part, unless it’s corrupted by a bad upbringing?”
“It’s necessarily a third part,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “as long as it comes to light as something differing from the reasoning part, the same way it manifested itself as different from the desiring part.”
“But it’s not hard to make that evident,” he said, “since one could see this even in small children, that they’re full of spiritedness right from birth, while some of them seem to me never to get any share of reasoning, [441B] and most get one at a late time of life.”
“Yes, by Zeus,” I said, “you put it beautifully. And also in animals one could see that what you’re describing is that way. And in addition to these things, what we cited from Homer in some earlier place in the conversation67 will bear witness to it:
Striking his chest, he scolded his heart with words.
Here Homer has clearly depicted that which reflects on the better and the worse [441C] as one thing rebuking another, that which is irrationally spirited.”
“You’ve said it exactly right,” he said.
“Well, with a lot of effort we’ve managed to swim through these waters, and we’re tolerably well agreed that the same classes in the city are present in the soul of each one person, and are equal in number.”
“They are.”
“Isn’t it already a necessary consequence, then, that a private person is wise in the same manner and by the same means that a city was wise?”
“How else?”
“And the means by which and manner in which a private person is courageous is that by which and in [441D] which a city was courageous, and everything else related to virtue is the same way for both?”
“Necessarily.”
“So, Glaucon, I imagine we’ll claim also that a man is just in the very same manner in which a city too was just.”
“This too is entirely necessary.”
“But surely we haven’t forgotten somewhere along the way that the city was just because each of the three classes that are in it do what properly belongs to them.”
“We don’t seem to me to have forgotten that,” he said.
“Therefore we need to remember also that for each of us, that whoever has each of the things within him doing what properly belongs to it will be just himself [441E] and be someone who does what properly belongs to him.”68
“It needs to be remembered very well indeed,” he said.
“Then isn’t it appropriate for the reasoning part to rule, since it’s wise and has forethought on behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to be obedient to it and allied with it?”
“Very much so.”
“Then as we were saying, won’t a blending of music with gymnastic exercise make them concordant, tightening up the one part and [442A] nourishing it with beautiful speeches and things to learn while relaxing the other with soothing stories, taming it with harmony and rhythm?”
“Exactly so,” he said.
“So once this pair have been nurtured in this way, and have learned and been educated in the things that truly belong to them, they need to be put in charge of the desiring part, which is certainly the largest part of the soul in each person and by nature the most insatiable for money. This part needs to be watched over so that it doesn’t get filled with the so-called pleasures of the body and, when it becomes big and strong, not [442B] do the things that properly belong to it, but try to enslave and rule over things that are not of a kind suited to it, so that it turns the whole life of all the parts upsidedown.”
“Very much so,” he said.
“And wouldn’t this pair also stand guard on behalf of the whole soul and body against their external enemies in the most beautiful way,” I said, “one part deliberating while the other goes to war, following its ruler and accomplishing with its courage the things that have been decided?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“And I imagine we call each one person courageous on account of this [442C] part, when the spirited part of him preserves through pains and pleasures what’s been passed on to it by speeches as something to be feared or not.”
“Rightly so,” he said.
“And wise by that little part, the one that ruled in him and passed those things on, and it in turn has knowledge in it of what’s advantageous for each part and for the whole consisting of the three of them in common.”
“Very much so.”
“And what next? Isn’t each person moderate by the friendship and concord among these same [442D] things, when the ruling part and the pair that are ruled are of the same opinion that the reasoning part ought to rule and aren’t in revolt against it?”
“Moderation is certainly nothing other than that,” he said, “in a city or a private person.”
“But each person will be just on account of the thing we repeat so often, and in that manner.”
“That’s a big necessity.”
“Then what about this?” I said. “Surely it hasn’t gotten fuzzy around the edges for us in any way, has it, so it would seem to be some other sort of justice than the one that came to light in the city?”
“It doesn’t seem to me it has,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “we could establish this beyond all doubt, if anything [442E] in our soul still stands unconvinced, by applying the commonplace standards to it.”
“What sort of standards exactly?”
“For example, if we were asked to come to an agreement about that city and the man who’s like that by nature and upbringing, as to whether it seemed such a man would steal a deposit of gold or silver he’d accepted in trust, do you think anyone would imagine [443A] he’d be more likely to do that than all those not of his sort?”
“No one would,” he said.
“And wouldn’t temple robberies, frauds, and betrayals, either of friends in private or cities in public capacities, be out of the question for this person?”
“Out of the question.”
“And in no way whatever would he be unfaithful to oaths or other agreements.”
“How could he?”
“And surely adultery, neglect of parents, and lack of attentiveness to the gods belong more to any other sort of person than to this one.”
“Any other sort for sure,” he said.
[443B] “And isn’t the thing responsible for all that the fact that each of the parts within him does what properly belongs to it in connection with ruling and being ruled?”
“That and nothing else.”
“So are you still looking for justice to be anything other than the power that produces men and cities of that sort?”
“By Zeus,” he said, “not I.”
“So our dream has come to complete fulfillment; we said we suspected, right from when we started founding the city, that by the favor of [443C] some god we were liable to’ve gotten to an origin and outline of justice.”
“Absolutely so.”
“And what it was in fact, Glaucon—and this is why it was so helpful—was an image of justice, that it was right for the natural leatherworker to do leatherwork and not do anything else, and for the carpenter to do carpentry, and the same way for the rest.”
“So it appears.”
“And the truth is, justice was something like that, as it seems, but not anything connected with doing what properly belongs to oneself externally, [443D] but with what’s on the inside, that truly concerns oneself and properly belongs to oneself, not allowing each thing in him to do what’s alien to it, or the classes of things in his soul to meddle with one another, but setting his own house in order in his very being, he himself ruling over and bringing order to himself and becoming his own friend and harmonizing three things, exactly like the three notes marking a musical scale at the low end, the high end, and the middle; and if any other things happen to be [443E] between them, he binds all of them together and becomes entirely one out of many, moderate and harmonized. Only when he’s in this condition does he act, if he performs any action having to do with acquiring money, or taking care of the body, as well as anything of a civic kind or having to do with private transactions; in all these cases he regards an action that preserves that condition and helps to complete it as a just and beautiful act, and gives it that name, and regards as wisdom the knowledge that directs that [444A] action. Anything that always breaks down that condition, he regards as an unjust action, and the opinion that directs that, he regards as ignorance.”
“You’re absolutely telling the truth, Socrates,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “if we were to claim that we’ve discovered the just man and the just city, and exactly what justice is in them, I imagine we wouldn’t seem to be telling a total lie.”
“By Zeus, certainly not,” he said.
“Shall we claim that, then?”
“Let’s claim it.”
“So be it,” I said. “What needs to be examined after this, I imagine, is injustice.”
“Clearly.”
[444B] “Doesn’t it in turn have to be some sort of faction among these three things, a meddling and butting in and an uprising of a certain part of the soul against the whole, in order to rule in it when that’s not appropriate, because it’s of such a kind by nature that it’s only fitting for it to be a slave?69 I imagine we’ll claim something like that, and that the disorder and going off course of these parts is injustice as well as intemperance, cowardice, foolishness, and all vice put together.”
[444C] “Those are the very things it is,” he said.
“Then as for doing unjust things and being unjust,” I said, “and in turn doing just things, isn’t it by now patently obvious exactly what all these are, if indeed that’s so for both injustice and justice?”
“How so?”
“Because,” I said, “they don’t happen to be any different from what’s healthy or diseased; what those are in a body, these are in a soul.”
“In what way?” he said.
“Presumably, healthful things produce health and diseased things produce disease.”
“Yes.”
“Then is it also the case that doing just things produces justice, while [444D] doing unjust things produces injustice?”
“Necessarily.”
“And producing health is settling the things in the body into a condition of mastering and being mastered by one another in accord with nature, while producing disease is settling them into ruling and being ruled one by another contrary to nature.”
“That’s it.”
“Then in turn, as for producing justice,” I said, “isn’t that settling the things in the soul into a condition of mastering and being mastered by one another in accord with nature, while producing injustice is settling them into ruling and being ruled one by another contrary to nature?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“Therefore, it seems likely that virtue would be a certain health, beauty, [444E] and good condition of the soul, while vice would be a disease, deformity, and weakness.”
“That’s what they are.”
“And don’t beautiful practices lead to the acquisition of virtue, and shameful ones to vice?”
“Necessarily.”
“So what remains at this point, it seems, is for us to consider next whether [445A] it’s profitable to perform just actions, pursue beautiful practices, and be just, whether or not it goes unnoticed that one is of that sort, or to do injustice and be unjust, so long as one doesn’t pay the penalty or become better by being corrected.”
“But Socrates,” he said, “the question already appears to me to have become laughable, whether, when life doesn’t seem worth living with the body’s nature corrupted, even with all the foods and drinks and every sort of wealth and political rule, it will then be worth living with the nature of that very thing [445B] by which we live disordered and corrupted, even if someone does whatever he wants, but not the thing by which he’ll get rid of vice and injustice and acquire justice and virtue, seeing as how it’s become obvious that each of them is of the sort we’ve gone over.”
“It is laughable,” I said. “Nevertheless, since we’ve come this far, far enough to be able to see clearly that this is the way it is, it wouldn’t be right to get tired out.”
“By Zeus,” he said, “getting tired out is the last thing we ought to do.”
[445C] “Come up to the mark now,” I said, “so you too can see how many forms vice has, the way it seems to me, at least the ones that are even worth looking at.”
“I’m following,” he said; “just speak.”
“Well,” I said, “as though from a lookout spot, since we’ve climbed up to this point in the discussion, there appears to me to be one look70 that belongs to virtue and infinitely many to vice, but some four among them that are even worth mentioning.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“There are liable to be as many dispositions of a soul,” I said, “as there are dispositions among polities that have looks to them.”
[445D] “How many, exactly?”
“Five for polities,” I said, “and five for a soul.”
“Say which ones,” he said.
“I say that one,” I said, “would be this type of polity we’ve been going over, but it could be named in two ways, since if one exceptional man arose among the rulers it would be called kingship, but aristocracy if there were more than one.”
“True,” he said.
“This, then,” I said, “is one form that I’m talking about, since whether one or more than one man arose, it wouldn’t change any of the laws [445E] of the city worthy of mention, since the upbringing and education they got would be the way we went over.”
“Likely not,” he said.