... 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 inquiry 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
Page 47
a short-sighted person had been asked by someone to read small letters
from a distance; and it
occurred to someone 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 inquiry?
I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject
of our inquiry, 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 inquire 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.
Page 48
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, someone 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 labors into a common stock? -- the
individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and laboring
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?
Page 49
When he has only one.
Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?
No doubt.
For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of
the business is at leisure; but the doer must
follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object.
He must.
And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more
plentifully and easily and of a better
quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does
it at the right time, and leaves
other things. Undoubtedly.
Then more than four citizens will be required; for the
husbandman will not make his own plough or
mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good
for anything. Neither will the
builder make his tools -- and he, too, needs many; and in like manner
the weaver and shoemaker.
True.
Then carpenters and smiths and many other artisans will
be sharers in our little State, which is
already beginning to grow?
True.
Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen,
in order that our husbandmen may
have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have
draught cattle, and curriers
and weavers fleeces and hides -- still our State will not be very large.
That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these.
Then, again, there is the situation of the city -- to find
a place where nothing need be imported is
well-nigh impossible.
Impossible.
Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city?
There must.
But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which
they require who would supply his
need, he will come back empty-handed.
That is certain.
And therefore what they produce at home must be not only
Page 50
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 labor, which accordingly
they sell, and are
Page 51
called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, "hire" being the name which is given to the price of their labor.
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 anywhere else.
I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said;
we had better think the matter out, and not
shrink from the inquiry.
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.
Page 52
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
colors; 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 neighbors' 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
Page 54
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.
Page 55
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.
Page 56
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 recognize 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....
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 favorites 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
Page 106
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 someone came up to us and said:
Why do you not put the most
beautiful colors 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 wine-cup, 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, are 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,
Page 107
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
Page 108
and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
That is very true, he replied; but still I should like
to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to
go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if
deprived of the sinews of war.
There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going
to war with one such enemy; but there is no
difficulty where there are two of them.
How so? he asked.
In the first place, I said, if we have to fight, our side
will be trained warriors fighting against an army
of rich men.
That is true, he said.
And do you not suppose, Adeimantus, that a single boxer
who was perfect in his art would easily
be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers?
Hardly, if they came upon him at once.
What, not, I said, if he were able to run away and then
turn and strike at the one who first came
up? And supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of
a scorching sun, might he not,
being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage?
Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that.
And yet rich men probably have a greater superiority in
the science and 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.
Page 109
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 1,000 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
Page 110
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 gymnastics be preserved in their original form, and
no innovation made. They must
do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when anyone 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.
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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 license, finding a
home, imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs; whence, issuing
with greater force, it
invades contracts between man and man, and from contracts goes on to
laws and constitutions, in
utter recklessness, ending at last, Socrates, by an overthrow of all
rights, private as well as public.
Is that true? I said.
That is my belief, he replied.
Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from
the first in a stricter system, for if
amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless,
they can never grow up
into well-conducted and virtuous citizens.
Very true, he said.
And when they have made a good beginning in play, and by
the help of music have gained the
habit of good order, then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike
the lawless play of the others!
will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth
to them, and if there be any
fallen places [a] [principle] in the State will raise them up again.
Very true, he said.
Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser
rules which their predecessors have
altogether neglected.
What do you mean?
I mean such things as these: -- when the young are to be
silent before their elders; how they are to
show respect to them by standing and making them sit; what honor 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.
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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 harbor dues which may be required, and
in general about the
regulations of markets, police, harbors, and the like.. But, O 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 forever making and mending the 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
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simply that, unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and
idling, nether drug nor cautery
nor spell nor amulet nor any other remedy will avail.
Charming! he replied. I see nothing 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 behavior 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 humors is
held to be a great and good states-man -- 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-
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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.
...There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early;
for youngsters, as you may have
observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for
amusement, and are always
contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute
them; like puppy-dogs, they rejoice
in pulling and tearing at all who come near them.
Yes, he said, there is nothing which they like better.
And when they have made many conquests and received defeats
at the hands of many, they
violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which
they believed before, and hence,
not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to
have a bad name with the rest of the
world.
Too true, he said.
But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be
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guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking
for truth, and not the eristic, who
is contradicting for the sake of amusement; and the greater moderation
of his character will increase
instead of diminishing the honor of the pursuit.
Very true, he said.
And did we not make special provision for this, when we
said that the disciples of philosophy were
to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder?
Very true.
Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place
of gymnastics and to be continued
diligently and earnestly and exclusively for twice the number of years
which were passed in bodily
exercise -- will that be enough?
Would you say six or four years? he asked.
Say five years, I replied; at the end of the time they
must be sent down again into the den and
compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are
qualified to hold: in this way they
will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity
of trying whether, when they are
drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch.
And how long is this stage of their lives to last?
Fifteen years, I answered; and when they have reached fifty
years of age, then let those who still
survive and have distinguished themselves in every action of their
lives, and in every branch of
knowledge, come at last to their consummation: the time has now arrived
at which they must raise
the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things,
and behold the absolute good; for
that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State
and the lives of individuals, and the
remainder of their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit,
but, when their turn comes,
toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good, not as though
they were performing some heroic
action, but simply as a matter of duty; and when they have brought
up in each generation others like
themselves and left them in their place to be governors of the State,
then they will depart to the
Islands of the Blessed and dwell there; and the city will give them
public memorials and sacrifices
and honor them, if the Pythian oracle consent, as demigods, but if
not, as in any case blessed and
divine.
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You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty.
Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses too; for you
must not suppose that what I have been
saying applies to men only and not to women as far as their natures
can go.
There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the men.
Well, I said, and you would agree (would you not?) that
what has been said about the State and
the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult, not impossible,
but only possible in the
way which has been supposed; that is to say, when the true philosopher-kings
are born in a State,
one or more of them, despising the honors of this present world which
they deem mean and
worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honor that springs
from right, and regarding justice
as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they
are, and whose principles will
be exalted by them when they set in order their own city?
How will they proceed?
They will begin by sending out into the country all the
inhabitants of the city who are more than ten
years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be
unaffected by the habits of their
parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean
in the laws which we have given
them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking
will soonest and most
easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution
will gain most.
Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates,
that you have very well described how, if
ever, such a constitution might come into being. Enough, then, of the
perfect State, and of the man
who bears its image -- there is no difficulty in seeing how we shall
describe him.
There is no difficulty, he replied; and I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said.
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