THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM
 

 
 A READING FROM HOMER. 
 
 Photogravure from the original painting by Laurence Alma-Tadema.
 
 UoaUUacXCXJUOOUl X 
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO 
 
 AN IDEAL COMMONWEALTH 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A. 
 
 LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY 
 WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF GREEK LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 
 IN ADELPHI COLLEGE, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 m
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 
 By THE COLONIAL PRESS.
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 AMONG classical authors Plato is second in importance 
 to Homer only, if even to him. To call the founder 
 of the Academy the chief of philosophers ancient or 
 modern is a very inadequate statement, and even, in one im- 
 portant respect, misleading. Though at war with many of 
 the strongest moral tendencies of his race and time, he was 
 none the less himself a Greek, an Athenian, to the core. That 
 is, he was an artist, with eyes opened wide for all beauty in 
 color, form, and motion. The Athenians saw, as perhaps no 
 folk of later days have seen, the glorious charm of the uni- 
 verse, of life, of man. The varied pageant of earthly existence 
 did not pall upon them. Only after a century or two of provin- 
 cial enslavement is Menander's cry heard: 
 
 " That man I count most happy, Parmeno, 
 Who, after he hath viewed the splendors here, 
 Departeth quickly thither whence he came." 
 
 To be sure, there is a vein of occasional repining in the 
 Hellenic poets, as, indeed, in all thoughtful men, just suffi- 
 cient to show that they saw, also, the pathos of life. In the 
 Platonic " Apology " Socrates declares that death, even if it 
 be only a dreamless sleep, is still a gain, since there are few 
 days or nights in a long life which a wise man can recall that 
 were so happy as the night when he slumbered most uncon- 
 scious. But it is from the lips of the Homeric Achilles, bereft 
 and conscious of imminent doom, from the octogenarian poet 
 of an (Edipus himself world-worn, or from a Socrates already 
 upon the threshold of old age, strenuous to reconcile himself 
 and his to the inevitable, that such utterances fall. 
 
 To Pindar and the countless lesser lyric poets, to the Tragic 
 Three and their forgotten rivals, as to Homer, life, and espe- 
 cially youth and early manhood, seemed far more fair than
 
 iv SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 any " casual hope of being elsewhere blest." The gods and 
 heroes, the kindly lesser powers that haunt mountain, wood, 
 and stream, were almost as near to the fifth-century Hellenes 
 as to the mythic age itself. Ordinary men knew all the 
 Homeric poems by heart. In popular tradition, in the myriad 
 forms of painting and sculpture, above all as vivified afresh by 
 the genius of dramatic poetry, the legends 
 
 " Of Thebes or Pelops' line, 
 Or the tale of Troy divine," 
 
 still hung like a splendid tapestry about the calmer reality. 
 
 That reality itself was anything but commonplace. The 
 glorious war against the Persian invader left the most deep- 
 rooted confidence that the Hellene had no rival, and that 
 Athens was the natural capital and university of Hellas. 
 Pericles lived and died in that belief: and Plato's life all but 
 overlapped that of the idealistic statesman. He must have 
 actually looked on, an eager-eyed boy, when the armada sailed 
 forth upon the Sicilian expedition, amid yet wilder dreams of 
 occidental empire. 
 
 The failure and disillusion came swift and bitter, indeed. 
 Yet victorious Sparta did not destroy, or even utterly and per- 
 manently humble, her nobler rival. Throughout Plato's mature 
 life Athens was again self-governed ; she had regained a fleet, 
 some commerce, and even a modest leadership in a maritime 
 league, though never her pristine haughtiness and far-reach- 
 ing hopes. Her people looked backward, rather than forward, 
 with fond pride. Their instinct was right. Macedon, not At- 
 tica, was to lead Hellenism to world-wide dominion, though 
 the culture, the art, and the speech of the race were to re- 
 main always essentially Attic. 
 
 Throughout the fourth century B.C., indeed, supremacy in 
 things spiritual still abode with Athens. With Plato walked 
 and talked, under the over-arching trees of Academe, the 
 choicest spirits of Hellas greatest o'f all, Aristotle, " master 
 of them that know " though less happy than Plato and all 
 they that are dreamers with him of the dream divine. Aris- 
 totle was drawn to Athens by the great teacher, and spent 
 there his happiest and most useful years. 
 
 Plato, then, was no mere introverted musing psychologist
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION v 
 
 of the closet. Indeed, he is our chief source of knowledge 
 for the conversational speech of fourth-century Athens. The 
 streets, the gymnasia, the beauty of youth, the pride of man- 
 hood, and the teeming life of the city generally, are revived 
 in his dialogues as nowhere else. The picturesque setting, 
 the sharply outlined characters, the realistic grace and variety 
 in speech, and the easily unfolding plots of his most perfect 
 dialogues, such as the Protagoras and Symposium, show that 
 he might have been that, indeed, he actually is, along with 
 the other sides of his composite manifold life work as mas- 
 terly a dramatist as Sophocles. Even as a fun-maker, he is 
 but second, though indeed a far-away second, to his con- 
 temporary, the unapproachable mad spirit that in the name of 
 conservatism and the " good old ways " turned all the decen- 
 cies and realities of life upside down in his comedy. Aris- 
 tophanes himself, it should be remembered, is a welcome guest 
 at the Platonic Banquet. He speaks there, even on the topic 
 of Love, wittily and with bold creative fancy, though Socra- 
 tes' eloquence makes all that went before seem idle chatter. 
 He drinks well and manfully, too, though here again he meets 
 his match. The Symposium ends with a glimpse of Socrates, 
 sober still and argumentative to the end, sitting, as the long 
 night wanes, between Aristophanes and their host, the tragic 
 poet Agathon. While they quaff in turn from the great bowl, 
 the philosopher is convincing the reluctant and drowsy pair 
 that the consummate dramatist will fuse comedy and tragedy, 
 or become alike supreme in both. We need not call this a 
 prophecy of Shakespeare's advent. It was already largely 
 made true in Plato's own noble art, which saw life whole, alike 
 an amusing and a pathetic spectacle. 
 
 We must insist, then, that Plato's was a great, all but the 
 greatest, dramatic genius. The characteristics of that most 
 noble of arts, including even the effacement of the artist's own 
 person, are seen at once from the fact, that all his works are 
 not didactic sermons, in form at least, but realistic dia- 
 logues: and the chief interlocutor in most, a prominent figure 
 in nearly all, is that most grotesque and most pathetic, most 
 ugly and most fascinating of figures, whether in fiction or in 
 real life, " short of stature, stout of limb," satyr-faced and. 
 siren-voiced, Socrates the Athenian.
 
 vi SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The question, how much in these wonderful dialogues is 
 Socratic and how much Platonic, can never be fully an- 
 swered. From the sober, pious, prosaic-minded Xenophon we 
 have a sketch of Socrates' life, and a report of numerous con- 
 versations. The sketch is apparently truthful, and evidently 
 most inadequate. Neither the love nor the hate inspired by 
 that unique life can be sufficiently explained from the Xeno- 
 phontic " Memorabilia." Plato's " Apology," though a mas- 
 terpiece of self-concealing art, contains nothing which Socra- 
 tes could not or may not have said before his judges: and 
 we have every reason to believe that Plato was actually pres- 
 ent during the trial. On the other hand, the equally famous 
 and vivid " Phaedo " describes the sage's last day, surrounded 
 in the prison by his faithful disciples, and assuring them of 
 the soul's immortality: but in this case Plato's own absence 
 through illness is noted in the text itself. The argument in 
 the " Phaedo " shows wide philosophic thought and study, and 
 includes largely doctrines which are generally believed to be 
 Plato's own. But at any rate such a dialogue as the 
 " Timaeus " can contain little that is truly Socratic. The 
 master himself utterly condemned the childish guesses of his 
 age at astronomical truths and physical science generally, and 
 constantly advised whole-hearted devotion to the practical 
 problems of man's soul and moral nature. Yet in the 
 " Timaeus," as in the grand myth which closes the " Repub- 
 lic," there is an elaborate hypothesis as to the form and sig- 
 nificance of the universe, with an attempt to explain from it 
 the whole nature and destiny of man. 
 
 The general fact, then, is clear, that Plato, surviving his 
 master some fifty years, lived his own life of unresting mental 
 activity and wondrous growth, yet always retained in writ- 
 ing the conversational form of his own personal teaching: 
 and, almost to the end, retained also that most picturesque 
 central figure in all discussions: thus proclaiming his obliga- 
 tion, for all he had acquired, to the original inspiration of 
 Socrates. So Dante's Beatrice, a chief saint in heaven, has 
 the features, the name, even the nature, of the child and maid 
 so well beloved at nine and at twenty. Such loyalty does not 
 lessen the claim of either poet or philosopher to originality 
 and to direct inspiration from the highest sources.
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 Plato is always a student and teacher of ethical psychology. 
 The " Republic " is an investigation as to the exact nature and 
 definition of justice. The avowed purpose in outlining the 
 ideal State is to descry, writ large therein, the quality which 
 we cannot clearly see in the microcosm, man. To take for 
 granted the essential identity between the individual life and 
 the career of a State is an example of Plato's splendid poetic 
 audacity. Socrates' favorite pupil, here fully in accord with 
 the real Socrates, firmly believed that accurate knowledge in 
 such matters was the only secure road to character: that 
 knowledge, reasoned knowledge, is essentially one with virtue, 
 and that ignorance is the true source of folly, of sin, of misery. 
 Aristotle assures us that the real Socrates discovered induc- 
 tive reasoning and showed the value of general definitions; 
 both weighty contributions to true philosophy. Yet we may 
 be sure that in the " Republic," the masterpiece of Plato's later 
 maturity, the chief contribution is from the author's own 
 creative imagination. 
 
 In many of the dialogues we are taught that man's soul 
 is triple in its nature. The most magnificent illustration of 
 this doctrine is the myth of the " Phaedrus," where the baser 
 appetite and the nobler passionate impulse appear as a pair of 
 steeds, one usually bent on thwarting, the other on aiding, 
 the charioteer, who is, of course, the Will. In the " Republic " 
 this triple division reappears, the workers and the soldiers of 
 the State being alike under the guidance of the counsellors. 
 
 Again, Plato firmly believes that our life is a banishment 
 of the soul from an infinitely higher and happier existence, and 
 that each may hope to rise again, when worthy, to the sphere 
 from which he has fallen through sin. Naturally blended with 
 this creed is the belief in reincarnation, in metempsychosis; a 
 faith not peculiar to any land or age. So the Hindu to-day 
 hopes to escape at last, after many lives lived out with inno- 
 cence, from the merciless " wheel of things." Some memory, 
 even, of the higher sphere, the soul may still retain. Here 
 Wordsworth's loftiest ode will help to explain the faith of 
 Plato. 
 
 Most famous perhaps of all Plato's beliefs is the doctrine 
 of the Ideas. No quality, no attribute, no material form, even, 
 exists in our world of sense in its perfection. Out of many
 
 viii SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 manifestations of, for instance, courage or generosity, of man 
 or beast, or even of actual chairs or tables, we come nearer 
 to some typical conception, or, as Plato poetically puts it, we 
 recall imperfectly to mind that ideal type which the soul 
 actually beheld in its higher estate. Even in its crudest and 
 half -grotesque statements this belief is evidently an approach, 
 as is so often the case with Plato's sublimest guesses, to the 
 methods of modern science. 
 
 These peculiar doctrines of Plato, more fully defended in 
 other dialogues, are here largely taken for granted from time 
 to time as the argument requires. In general, the philosopher 
 is at war with the spirit of the age. Perhaps this has been 
 and must be always true, until, as Socrates says, " the kings 
 of earth become sages, or the sages are made our kings." 
 Then, as now, the average man sought wealth, luxury, power, 
 fame, by means more or less selfish and unscrupulous. Now, 
 as then, the art most studied is the art of " getting on in the 
 world." The Sophists, against whom so many a Socratic or 
 Platonic arrow of satire is sped, taught very much what, 
 mutatis mutandis, business colleges, schools of commerce, etc., 
 undertake to-day. For such fluency in rhetoric and oratory, 
 or such general information, as would help to ready success 
 in business or politics, there was a good demand, at generous 
 prices ; and the " Sophists " have continued to pocket their 
 fees, though the barefoot Socrates and the wealthy aristocrat 
 Plato never wearied of gibing at them for it. 
 
 The features of Plato's commonwealth most repugnant to 
 Greek or Yankee, community of goods, dissolution of the fam- 
 ily, etc., were expressly intended to force upon a reluctant folk 
 a somewhat ascetic ideal of simple living, with abundant lei- 
 sure for high, philosophic thought. It was a scholar's paradise ; 
 and the late Thomas Davidson doubtless re-established in his 
 summer home many of the conditions under which Plato 
 actually dwelt with his disciples of the suburban Academy. 
 The monastery, and its offspring the mediaeval university, 
 have close kinship with the dream as with the reality of 
 Academeia. But the great mass of men still prefer free social 
 life, and individualism in gaining and spending; perhaps they 
 always will. Though the plan itself of such an ideal State 
 was felt by Plato himself to be unattainable, and was, indeed,
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 profoundly modified by its author in the later and more prac- 
 tical dialogue, " The Laws," yet a flood of instructive light 
 is incidentally thrown on numberless problems of real life, 
 political and social, as well as moral. 
 
 The opening scene has always been especially admired, the 
 discussion on old age containing nearly all the best thoughts 
 embodied three centuries later by Cicero in his essay, " De 
 Senectute." The rest of Book I is less important, the various 
 current definitions of justice being set up only to be bowled 
 over, more or less fairly, by Socrates. 
 
 It is in Book II that the ideal State, with its three classes, 
 is interestingly developed. The division and subdivision of 
 mechanical labor are advocated in phrases that often sound 
 strangely modern. 
 
 Education is the especial subject of Book III. Poetry and 
 music must be austerely and rigidly limited to the creation of 
 better citizens. The attack directed at this point against the 
 ignoble theology of Homer is a magnificent piece of literary 
 criticism. Myths are to be invented expressly to justify the 
 organization of the State. Individuals are to pass easily from 
 one to another class, according to their fitness. 
 
 Already in Book IV justice is defined as the force that 
 keeps the three elements in equilibrium and each devoted to 
 its proper functions. The analogy to the individual man is 
 now elaborately pointed out. The conclusion is solemnly 
 urged that justice is the only path to prosperity and happi- 
 ness, whether for a State or a man. The original subject 
 seems all but exhausted at this point. 
 
 The fifth book will shock nearly all readers. Socrates is 
 here forced to explain in detail the plans by which he would 
 destroy the family altogether, prevent each child from ever 
 knowing who were his actual parents, and all parents from 
 ever singling out their own offspring. Woman, to Plato, is 
 but lesser man. She must share all gymnastic exposure and 
 training, with the tasks of war, to the limit of her powers. 
 
 Books VI and VII discuss, in a higher and more mystical 
 strain, the philosophic education of those who are to be the 
 guardians of the commonwealth. The argument culminates 
 in what we now call transcendentalism; that is, all the sen- 
 iual phenomena of our world are but unsubstantial shadows
 
 x SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the eternal and divine realities, to which true education 
 should direct the spiritual vision. At the beginning of Book 
 VII occurs the most famous of Plato's similes. This world 
 is likened to a cave wherein we sit as prisoners, facing away 
 from the light, and seeing only distorted shadows of realities. 
 
 Books VIII and IX form, again, a single important section. 
 Here the baser forms of commonwealth are treated as pro- 
 gressive stages of degeneracy and decay from the ideal State. 
 The analogy with the individual man is still insisted upon at 
 every stage. The whole discussion has close and practical 
 relations with the actual history of various Greek city- States, 
 and is full of political wisdom. 
 
 Book X is largely taken up with a renewed attack upon 
 poetry in what men still consider its noblest forms. Especially 
 to be condemned, as we are told, is its effect in widening our 
 human sympathies! Lastly, the rewards of justice are de- 
 scribed. Since they are often clearly inadequate as seen in 
 this life, the immortality of the soul, and the unerring equity 
 of the Divine Judge, are revealed in a magnificent myth, or 
 vision of judgment. 
 
 The thoughtful reader will prefer to keep his notebook in 
 hand, and to build up for himself a much more detailed analy- 
 sis. He should not fail to notice the consummate grace with 
 which every transition in the wide-ranging discussion is man- 
 aged, and often concealed. No one can or should read the 
 " Republic " in a spirit of unquestioning approval. The furi- 
 ous assault by this great poet, myth-maker, and imaginative 
 artist generally, upon his fellow-craftsmen in that guild must 
 remind us that he is at times a perverse, even a self -contradic- 
 tory doctrinaire. The proposal to dissolve all true family ties 
 is a still more atrocious attack on the holiest and most helpful 
 of human institutions. In regarding our earthly life as a 
 mere purgatorial transition between two other and infinitely 
 more important states of being, Plato again broke boldly with 
 the prevailing Hellenic sentiments of his day. Here, however, 
 the large Hebraic and Oriental element in the creeds of Chris- 
 tendom enables us to understand, often to sympathize with, 
 utterances which then seemed novel and startling. In gen- 
 eral, no thoughtful man or woman can turn the pages of the 
 " Republic " without infinite enrichment and widening of
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION xl 
 
 mental range. It has had a great influence on all later visions 
 of ideal States: but especially is this true, and indeed freely 
 and frequently avowed, in the Utopia of Sir Thomas More. 
 
 The version of all Plato's works by Professor Jowett is the 
 most important piece of translation made during the last gen- 
 eration, at least; it has added to our own literature a master- 
 piece of artistic form and manifold wisdom. The rendering 
 is not slavishly literal, but all the more faithful to the spirit. 
 In the " Republic " the style of Plato himself is usually so 
 transparent that very little need of annotation will be felt. 
 We may, however, in closing, mention a few helps for the 
 special student of Plato. The chief standard work in Eng- 
 lish is Grote's " Plato and the other Companions of Socrates," 
 in which each dialogue is carefully discussed. Walter Pater's 
 " Plato and Platonism " is the best of brief compendiums. 
 Zeller's " History of Ancient Philosophy," in German, or in 
 English translation, is indispensable to the thorough student. 
 
 ir . &..<.vw Cn-4S***J*sCoT**' ~fcx
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of Wealth, Justice, Moderation, and their Opposites i 
 
 BOOK II 
 The Individual, the State, and Education 35 
 
 BOOK III 
 The Arts in Education 66 
 
 BOOK IV 
 Wealth, Poverty, and Virtue 105 
 
 BOOK V 
 On Matrimony and Philosophy 137 
 
 BOOK VI 
 The Philosophy of Government 176 
 
 BOOK VII 
 On Shadows and Realities in Education 209 
 
 BOOK VIII 
 Four Forms of Government 240 
 
 BOOK IX 
 On Wrong or Right Government, and the Pleasures of Each 272 
 
 BOOK X 
 The Recompense of Life 299
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 A READING FROM HOMER .... Frontispiece 
 
 Photogravure from the original painting 
 
 EARLY VENETIAN PRINTING . . . . . .136 
 
 Facsimile of a frontispiece printed at Venice in 1521 
 
 GEMMA AUGUSTEA ........ 209 
 
 Photo-engraving from a sardonyx cameo
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE " Republic " of Plato is the longest of his works, 
 with the exception of the " Laws," and is certainly the 
 greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to 
 modern metaphysics in the " Philebus " and in the " Sophist " ; 
 the " Politicus," or " Statesman," is more ideal ; the form and 
 institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the 
 " Laws " ; as works of art, the " Symposium " and the " Protag- 
 oras " are of higher excellence. But no other dialogue of 
 Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection 
 of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, 
 or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as 
 old, and not of one age only, but of all. Nowhere in Plato is 
 there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humor or imagery, 
 or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his writings is 
 the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to con- 
 nect politics with philosophy. The " Republic " is the centre 
 around which the other dialogues may be grouped; here 
 philosophy reaches the highest point (cp. especially in Books 
 V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato 
 among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the 
 first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither 
 of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from 
 the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content 
 with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He 
 was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen ; 
 and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs 
 of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and 
 psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of 
 thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates 
 and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contra- 
 diction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction be- 
 tween the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between
 
 xviii PLATO 
 
 means and ends, between causes and conditions ; also the divis- 
 ion of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible 
 elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and un- 
 necessary these and other great forms of thought are all of 
 them to be found in the " Republic," and were probably first 
 invented by Plato. The greatest of all logical truths, and the 
 one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight, 
 the difference between words and things, has been most strenu- 
 ously insisted on by him (cp. " Rep." 454 A ; " Polit." 261 E ; 
 " Cratyl." 435, 436 ff.)*, although he has not always avoided 
 the confusion of them in his own writings. But he does not 
 bind up truth in logical formulas logic is still veiled in meta- 
 physics ; and the science which he imagines to " contemplate all 
 truth and all existence " is very unlike the doctrine of the 
 syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. 
 "Elenchi," 33. 18). 
 
 Neither must we forget that the " Republic " is but the 
 third part of a still larger design which was to have included 
 an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical 
 philosophy. The fragment of the " Critias " has given birth 
 to a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the 
 tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact 
 to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth 
 century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a his- 
 tory of the wars of the Athenians against the island of Atlantis, 
 is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, 
 to which it would have stood in the same relation as the writ- 
 ings of the logographers to the poems of Homer. It would 
 have told of a struggle for liberty (cp. " Tim." 25 C), intended 
 to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge 
 from the noble commencement of the " Timseus," from the 
 fragment of the " Critias " itself, and from the third book of 
 the " Laws," in what manner Plato would have treated this 
 high argument. We can only guess why the great design was 
 abandoned ; perhaps because Plato became sensible of some 
 incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had lost his 
 interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the com- 
 pletion of it ; and we may please ourselves with the fancy that 
 had this imaginary narrative ever been finished, we should have 
 
 * In this Introduction the translator refers to his Oxford Edition of Plato.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 found Plato himself sympathizing with the struggle for Hel- 
 lenic independence (cp. " Laws," iii. 698 ff.), singing a hymn 
 of triumph over Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the 
 reflection of Herodotus (v. 78) where he contemplates the 
 growth of the Athenian Empire " How brave a thing is free- 
 dom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed 
 every other State of Hellas in greatness ! " or, more probably, 
 attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and 
 to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to " Critias "). 
 
 Again, Plato may be regarded as the " captain " (o/>%?pyo9) 
 or leader of a goodly band of followers ; for in the " Republic " 
 is to be found the original of Cicero's " De Republica," of St. 
 Augustine's " City of God," of the " Utopia " of Sir Thomas 
 More, and of the numerous other imaginary States which are 
 framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle 
 or the Aristotelian school was indebted to him in the " Poli- 
 tics " has been little recognized, and the recognition is the 
 more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. 
 The two philosophers had more in common than they were con- 
 scious of; and probably some elements of Plato remain still 
 undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy, too, many 
 affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge 
 Platonists, but in great original writers like Berkeley or Cole- 
 ridge, to Plato and his ideas. That there is a truth higher 
 than experience, of which the mind bears witness to herself, 
 is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusi- 
 astically asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the 
 Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into 
 the world Plato has had the greatest influence. The " Re- 
 public " of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of 
 which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, 
 and Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or 
 Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life ; like Bacon, he 
 is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge ; in the 
 early Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and 
 at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments 
 of his words when " repeated at second-hand " (" Symp." 215 
 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen 
 reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of 
 idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of
 
 xx PLATO 
 
 the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such 
 as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality 
 of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him. 
 
 The argument of the " Republic " is the search after justice, 
 the nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and 
 blameless old man then discussed on the basis of proverbial 
 morality by Socrates and Polemarchus then caricatured by 
 Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates reduced 
 to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having be- 
 come invisible in the individual reappears at length in the ideal 
 State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the 
 rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after 
 the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved re- 
 ligion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gym- 
 nastics, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the 
 individual and the State. We are thus led on to the concep- 
 tion of a higher State, in which " no man calls anything his 
 own," and in which there is neither " marrying nor giving in 
 marriage," and " kings are philosophers " and " philosophers 
 are kings ; " and there is another and higher education, intel- 
 lectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as 
 of art, and not of youth only, but of the whole of life. Such 
 a State is hardly to be realized in this world, and quickly 
 degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of 
 the soldier and the lover of honor, this again declining into 
 democracy, and democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but 
 regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts. 
 When " the wheel has come full circle " we do not begin again 
 with a new period of human life; but we have passed from 
 the best to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then 
 changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which 
 had been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the " Re- 
 public " is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry 
 is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, 
 and Homer, as well as the dramatic poets, having been con- 
 demned as an imitator, is sent into banishment along with 
 them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the revela- 
 tion of a future life. 
 
 The division into books, like all similar divisions, 1 is prob- 
 
 1 Cp. Sir G. C. Lewis, in the " Classical Museum," vol. ii. p. i.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 ably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are 
 five in number: (i) Book I and the first half of Book II 
 down to p. 368, which is introductory ; the first book contain- 
 ing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of jus- 
 tice, and concluding, like some of the earlier dialogues, with- 
 out arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a 
 restatement of the nature of justice according to common opin- 
 ion, and an answer is demanded to the question, What is jus- 
 tice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) in- 
 cludes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third 
 and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the con- 
 struction of the first State and the first education. The third 
 division (3) consists of the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, 
 in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of in- 
 quiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of 
 communism and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation 
 of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political 
 virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the perversions of 
 States and of the individuals who correspond to them are re- 
 viewed in succession ; and the nature of pleasure and the prin- 
 ciple of tyranny are further analyzed in the individual man. 
 The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of the whole, in which 
 the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and 
 the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been 
 assured, is crowned by the vision of another. 
 
 Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; 
 the first (Books I-IV) containing the description of a State 
 framed generally in accordance with Hellenic notions of re- 
 ligion and morality, while in the second (Books V-X) the 
 Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philos- 
 ophy, of which all other governments are the perversions. 
 These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposi- 
 tion is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The " Republic," 
 like the " Phaedrus " (see Introduction to " Phaedrus "), is an 
 imperfect whole ; the higher light of philosophy breaks through 
 the regularity of the Hellenic temple, which at last fades away 
 into the heavens (592 B). Whether this imperfection of struct- 
 ure arises from an enlargement of the plan, or from the im- 
 perfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the strug- 
 gling elements of thought which are now first brought to-
 
 xxii PLATO 
 
 gether by him, or, perhaps, from the composition of the work 
 at different times are questions, like the similar question about 
 the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey," which are worth asking, but 
 which cannot have a distinct answer. In the age of Plato there 
 was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have 
 the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was 
 known only to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in 
 supposing that he may have laid his labors aside for a time, 
 or turned from one work to another; and such interruptions 
 would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a 
 short writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological 
 order of the Platonic writings on internal evidence, this uncer- 
 tainty about any single dialogue being composed at one time 
 is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect 
 longer works, such as the " Republic " and the " Laws," more 
 than shorter ones. But, on the other hand, the seeming dis- 
 crepancies of the " Republic " may only arise out of the dis- 
 cordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite 
 in a single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recog- 
 nize the inconsistency which is obvious to us. For there is a 
 judgment of after-ages which few great writers have ever been 
 able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive the 
 want of connection in their own writings, or the gaps in their 
 systems which are visible enough to those who come after 
 them. In the beginnings of literature and philosophy, amid 
 the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies 
 occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn 
 and the meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, 
 too, is the growth of time ; and some of the greatest creations 
 of the human mind have been wanting in unity. Tried by 
 this test, several of the Platonic dialogues, according to our 
 modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no 
 proof that they were composed at different times or by dif- 
 ferent hands. And the supposition that the " Republic " was 
 written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in some 
 degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part 
 of the work to another. 
 
 The second title, " Concerning Justice," is not the one by 
 which the " Republic " is quoted, either by Aristotle or gen- 
 erally in antiquity, and, like the other second titles of the Pla-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 tonic dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date. 
 Morgensterri and others have asked whether the definition of 
 justice, which is the professed aim, or the construction of the 
 State is the principal argument of the work. The answer is 
 that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same truth ; 
 for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible 
 embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society. 
 The one is the soul and the other is the body, and the Greek 
 ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair mind in a fair 
 body. In Hegelian phraseology the State is the reality of 
 which justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, 
 the kingdom of God is within, and yet develops into a Church 
 or external kingdom ; " the house not made with hands, eternal 
 in the heavens," is reduced to the proportions of an earthly 
 building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State 
 are the warp and the woof which run through the whole text- 
 ure. And when the constitution of the State is completed, the 
 conception of justice is not dismissed, but reappears under 
 the same or different names throughout the work, both as the 
 inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of 
 rewards and punishments in another life. The virtues are 
 based on justice, of which common honesty in buying and 
 selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of good, 
 which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the 
 institutions of States and in motions of the heavenly bodies 
 (cp. "Tim." 47). The " Timseus," which takes up the polit- 
 ical rather than the ethical side of the " Republic," and is 
 chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, 
 yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed 
 to reign over the State, over nature, and over man. 
 
 Too much, however, has been made of this question both in 
 ancient and modern times. There is a stage of criticism in 
 which all works, whether of nature or of art, are referred to 
 design. Now in ancient writings, and, indeed, in literature gen- 
 erally, there remains often a large element which was not com- 
 prehended in the original design. For the plan grows under 
 the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of 
 writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end be- 
 fore he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea 
 under which the whole may be conceived, must necessarily
 
 xxiv PLATO 
 
 seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Staimaum, who 
 is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument 
 of the " Republic," imagines himself to have found the true 
 argument " in the representation of human life in a State per- 
 fected by justice, and governed according to the idea of good." 
 There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they 
 can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The 
 truth is that we may as well speak of many designs as of one ; 
 nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work 
 to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas, 
 and which does not interfere with the general purpose. What 
 kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in 
 the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to 
 be determined relatively to the subject-matter. To Plato him- 
 self, the inquiry, What was the intention of the writer? or, 
 What was the principal argument of the " Republic " ( ?) would 
 have been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at 
 once dismissed (cp. the Introduction to the " Phsedrus," 
 vol. i.). 
 
 Is not the " Republic " the vehicle of three or four great 
 truths which, to Plato's own mind, are most naturally repre- 
 sented in the form of the State ? Just as in the Jewish prophets 
 the reign of Messiah, or " the day of the Lord," or the suffer- 
 ing servant or people of God, or the " Sun of righteousness 
 with healing in his wings," only convey, to us at least, their 
 great spiritual ideals, so through the Greek State Plato re- 
 veals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which 
 is the idea of good like the sun in the visible world; about 
 human perfection, which is justice about education begin- 
 ning in youth and continuing in later years about poets and 
 sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers 
 of mankind about " the world " which is the embodiment of 
 them about a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth, but 
 is laid up in heaven, to be the pattern and rule of human life. 
 No such inspired creation is at unity with itself, any more 
 than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces through them. 
 Every shade of light and dark, of truth, and of fiction which 
 is the veil of truth, is allowable in a work of philosophical 
 imagination. It is not all on the same plane ; it easily passes 
 from ideas to myths and fancies, from facts to figures of speech.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 It is not prose but poetry, at least a great part of it, and ought 
 not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of 
 history. The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic 
 whole ; they take possession of him and are too much for him. 
 We have no need, therefore, to discuss whether a State such 
 as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the 
 outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of 
 the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to 
 do with their truth (v. 472 D) ; and the highest thoughts to 
 which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest " marks 
 of design " justice more than the external frame-work of the 
 State, the idea of good more than justice. The great science 
 of dialectic, or the organization of ideas, has no real content, 
 but is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher 
 knowledge is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and 
 all existence. It is in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books that 
 Plato reaches the " summit of speculation," and these, although 
 they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker, may 
 therefore be regarded as the most important, as they are also 
 the most original, portions of the work. 
 
 It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question 
 which has been raised by Boeckh, respecting the imaginary date 
 at which the conversation was held (the year 411 B.C., which 
 is proposed by him, will do as well as any other) ; for a writer 
 of fiction, and especially a writer who, like Plato, is notoriously 
 careless of chronology (cp. "Rep." i. 336; " Symp." 193 A, 
 etc.), only aims at general probability. Whether all the per- 
 sons mentioned in the " Republic " could ever have met at any 
 one time is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an 
 Athenian reading the work forty years later, or to Plato him- 
 self at the time of writing (any more than to Shakespeare 
 respecting one of his own dramas), and need not greatly 
 trouble us now. Yet this may be a question having no answer 
 " which is still worth asking," because the investigation shows 
 that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato; it 
 would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far- 
 fetched reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological 
 difficulties, such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Her- 
 mann, that Glaucon and Adeimantus are not the brothers, but 
 the uncles, of Plato (cp. " Apol." 34 A), or the fancy of Stall-
 
 xxvi PLATO 
 
 baum that Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the 
 dates at which some of his dialogues were written. 
 
 The principal characters in the " Republic " are Cephalus, 
 Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeiman- 
 tus. Cephalus appears in the Introduction only, Polemarchus 
 drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is 
 reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main 
 discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. 
 Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus, 
 the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown 
 Charmantides these are mute auditors; also there is Cleito- 
 phon, who once interrupts (340 A), where, as in the dialogue 
 which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of 
 Thrasymachus. 
 
 Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropri- 
 ately engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an 
 old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with 
 himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing 
 nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the 
 memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come 
 to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy 
 in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having es- 
 caped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of con- 
 versation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his gar- 
 rulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not one of 
 those who have nothing to say, because their whole mind has 
 been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that 
 riches have the advantage of placing men above the tempta- 
 tion to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful attention 
 shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less 
 than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him 
 to ask questions of all men, young and old alike (cp. i. 328 A), 
 should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question 
 of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the ex- 
 pression of it? The moderation with which old age is pict- 
 ured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is 
 characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, 
 and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in the " De 
 Senectute." The evening of life is described by Plato in the
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. 
 As Cicero remarks (" Ep. ad Attic." iv. 16), the aged Cephalus 
 would have been out of place in the discussion which follows, 
 and which he could neither have understood nor taken part 
 in without a violation of dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus 
 in the " Laches," 89). 
 
 His " son and heir " Polemarchus has the frankness and im- 
 petuousness of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force 
 in the opening scene, and will not " let him off " (v. 449 B) on 
 the subject of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is lim- 
 ited in his point of view, and represents the proverbial stage 
 of morality which has rules of life rather than principles ; and 
 he quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph. " Clouds," 1355 ff.) as 
 his father had quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more 
 to say; the answers which he makes are only elicited from 
 him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced 
 the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor 
 is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs 
 to the pre-Socratic or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of 
 arguing, and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that 
 he does not know what he is saying. He is made to admit 
 that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy 
 of the arts (i. 333 E). From his brother Lysias (contra 
 " Eratosth." p. 121) we learn that he fell a victim to the Thirty 
 Tyrants, but no allusion is here made to his fate, nor to the cir- 
 cumstance that Cephalus and his family were of Syracusan 
 origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens. 
 
 The " Chalcedonian giant," Thrasymachus, of whom we have 
 already heard in the " Phsedrus " (267 D), is the personifica- 
 tion of the Sophists, according to Plato's conception of them, 
 in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and bluster- 
 ing, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making 
 an oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates, 
 but a mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the 
 next " move " (to use a Platonic expression) will " shut him 
 up" (vi. 487 B). He has reached the stage of framing gen- 
 eral notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and 
 Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a dis- 
 cussion, and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter 
 and insolence. Whether such doctrines as are attributed to
 
 xxviii PLATO 
 
 him by Plato were really held either by him or by any other 
 Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy serious 
 errors about morality might easily grow up they are cer- 
 tainly put into the mouths ol speakers in Thucydides; but 
 we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him, 
 and not with the historical reality. The inequality of the con- 
 test adds greatly to the humor of the scene. The pompous 
 and empty Sophirt is utterly helpless in the hands of the great 
 master oi dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs 
 of vanity and weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by 
 the irony of Socrates, but his noisy and imbecile rage only lays 
 him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His 
 determination to cram down their throats, or put " bodily into 
 their souls " his own words, elicits a cry of horror from 
 Socrates. The state of his temper is quite as worthy of re- 
 mark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amus- 
 ing than his complete submission when he has been once thor- 
 oughly beaten. At first he seems to continue the discussion 
 with reluctance, but soon with apparent good-will, and he even 
 testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional 
 remarks (v. 450 A, B). When attacked by Glaucon (vi. 498 
 C, D) he is humorously protected by Socrates "as one who 
 has never been his enemy and is now his friend." From Cicero 
 and Quintilian and from Aristotle's "Rhetoric" (iii. i. 7; 
 ii. 23. 29) we learn that the Sophist whom Plato has made so 
 ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved 
 in later ages. The play on his name which was made by his 
 contemporary Herodicus (Aris. " Rhet." ii. 23, 29), " thou 
 wast ever bold in battle," seems to show that the description 
 of him is not devoid of verisimilitude. 
 
 When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal 
 respondents, Glaucon and Adeimantus, appear on the scene; 
 here, as in Greek tragedy (cp. Introd. to "Phaedo"), three 
 actors are introduced. At first sight the two sons of Ariston 
 may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends Sim- 
 mias and Cebes in the " Phaedo." But on a nearer examina- 
 tion of them the similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be 
 distinct characters. Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can 
 " just never have enough of fechting " (cp. the character of 
 him in Xen. " Mem." iii. 6) ; the man of pleasure who is
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 acquainted with the mysteries of love (v. 474 D) ; the " juvenis 
 qui gaudet canibus," and who improves the breed of animals 
 (v. 459 A) ; the lover of art and music (iii. 398 D, E) who 
 has all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quick- 
 ness and penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy plati- 
 tudes of Thrasymachus to the real difficulty; he turns out to 
 the light the seamy side of human life, and yet does not lose 
 faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who seizes what may 
 be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world, 
 to whom a state of simplicity is " a city of pigs," who is al- 
 ways prepared with a jest (iii. 398 C, 407 A; v. 450, 451, 468 
 C; vi. 509 C; ix. 586) when the argument offers him an op- 
 portunity, and who is ever ready to second the humor of 
 Socrates and to apprecate the ridiculous, whether in the con- 
 noisseurs of music (vii. 531 A) or in the lovers of theatricals 
 (v. 475 D) or in the fantastic behavior of the citizens of de- 
 mocracy (viii. 557 foil.). His weaknesses are several times 
 alluded to by Socrates (iii. 402 E; v. 474 D, 475 E), who, 
 however, will not allow him to be attacked by his brother 
 Adeimantus (viii. 548 D, E). He is a soldier, and, like Adei- 
 mantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara (368 
 A, anno 456?). . . . The character of Adeimantus is deeper 
 and graver, and the pro founder objections are commonly put 
 into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally 
 opens the game ; Adeimantus pursues the argument furthf r. 
 Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of 
 youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up 
 man of the world. In the second book, when Glaucon insists 
 that justice and injustice shall be considered without regard 
 to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that they are re- 
 garded by mankind in general O'lly for the sake of their conse- 
 quences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the 
 beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his 
 citizens happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first, 
 but the second thing, not the direct aim, but the indirect con- 
 sequence of the good government of a State. In the discus- 
 sion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the re- 
 spondent (iii. 376-398) ; but at p. 398 C, Glaucon breaks in 
 with a slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter 
 tone about music and gymnastics to the end of the book. It
 
 xxx PLATO 
 
 is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common- 
 sense on the Socratic method of argument (vi. 487 B), and 
 who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of 
 women and children (v. 449). It is Adeimantus who is the 
 respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the 
 lighter and more imaginative, portions of the dialogue. For 
 example, throughout the greater part of the sixth book, the 
 causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of 
 the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. At p. 506 C, 
 Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent ; but he has 
 a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, 
 and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion (526 
 D, 527 D). Once more Adeimantus returns (viii. 548) with 
 the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the 
 contentious State; in the next book (ix. 576) he is again 
 superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end (x. 621 B). 
 
 Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the suc- 
 cessive stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gen- 
 tleman of the olden time, who is followed by the practical man 
 of that day regulating his life by proverbs and saws; to him 
 succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists, and lastly 
 come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the 
 sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and 
 desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These, too, like 
 Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distin- 
 guished from one another. Neither in the " Republic," nor in 
 any other dialogue of Plato, is a single character repeated. 
 
 The delineation of Socrates in the " Republic " is not wholly 
 consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, 
 such as he is depicted in the " Memorabilia " of Xenophon, in 
 the earliest dialogues of Plato, and in the " Apology." He 
 is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the 
 Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to 
 argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity toward the 
 Sophists abates ; he acknowledges that they are the represen- 
 tatives rather than the corrupters of the world (vi. 492 A). 
 He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing be- 
 yond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas 
 of the real Socrates. In one passage (vi. 506 C) Plato him- 
 self seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates,
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own 
 opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other 
 men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or 
 the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the 
 Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of 
 the universal and of final causes (cp. Xen. " Mem." i. 4 ; 
 " Phaedo " 97;) ; and a deep thinker like him, in his thirty or 
 forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to 
 touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also 
 some positive evidence in the " Memorabilia " (" Mem." i. 2, 
 51 foil.). The Socratic method is nominally retained; and 
 every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent 
 or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. 
 But anyone can see that this is a mere form, of which the affec- 
 tation grows wearisome as the work advances. The method 
 of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by 
 the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from vari- 
 ous points of view. The nature of the process is truly charac- 
 terized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a compan- 
 ion who is not good for much in an investigation, but can 
 see what he is shown (iv. 432 C), and may, perhaps, give the 
 answer to a question more fluently than another (v. 474 A; 
 cp. 389 A). 
 
 Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself 
 taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to the 
 disciple Glaucon in the "Republic" (x. 608 D; cp. vi. 498 
 D, E ; " Apol." 40, 41 ) ; nor is there any reason to suppose 
 that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle 
 of instruction, or that he wot Id have banished poetry or have 
 denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, 
 and a slight mention is made of the d&monium, or internal 
 sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar 
 to himself (vi. 496 C). A real element of Socratic teaching, 
 which is more prominent in the " Republic " than in any of 
 the other dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illus- 
 tration (T^ <f>opTLKa avT& Trpoa-^epovre^, iv. 442 E) : " Let 
 us apply the test of common instances." " You," says Adei- 
 mantus, ironically, in the sixth book, " are so unaccustomed 
 to speak in images." And this use of examples, or images, 
 though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of
 
 xxxii PLATO 
 
 Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies 
 in the concrete what has been already described, or is about 
 to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave 
 in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge 
 in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory 
 of the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and 
 the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the 
 people to the philosophers in the State which has been de- 
 scribed. Other figures, such as the dog (ii. 375 A, D; iii. 404 
 A, 416 A; v. 451 D), or the marriage of the portionless mai- 
 den (vi. 495, 496), or the drones and wasps in the eighth and 
 ninth books, also form links of connection in long passages, or 
 are used to recall previous discussions. 
 
 Plato is most true to the character of his master when he 
 describes him as "not of this world." And with this repre- 
 sentation of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of 
 the " Republic " are quite in accordance, though they cannot 
 be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as 
 to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when 
 they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment 
 of error and evil. The common-sense of mankind has revolted 
 againstxthis view, or has only partially admitted it. And even 
 in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the multitude at 
 times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in gen- 
 eral are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity 
 with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is 
 unavoidable (vi. 494 foil.; ix. 589 D) : for they have never 
 seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only ac- 
 quainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of 
 truth words which admit of many applications. Their lead- 
 ers have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant 
 of their own stature. But they are to be pitied or laughed 
 at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their 
 nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off 
 a hydra's head (iv. 426 D, E). This moderation toward those 
 who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of 
 Socrates in the " Republic" (vi. 499-502). In all the differ- 
 ent representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, 
 and amid the differences of the earlier or later dialogues, he 
 always retains the character of the unwearied and disinter-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 ested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased 
 to be Socrates. 
 
 There still remain to be considered some points which have 
 been intentionally reserved to the end: (I) The Janus-like 
 character of the " Republic," which presents two faces one 
 a Hellenic State, the other a kingdom of philosophers. Con- 
 nected with the latter of the two aspects are (II) the para- 
 doxes of the " Republic," as they have been termed by Mor- 
 genstern: (a) the community of property; (/3) of families; 
 (7) the rule of philosophers; (8) the analogy of the individ- 
 ual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the " Re- 
 public," is carried too far. We may then proceed to con- 
 sider (III) the subject of education as conceived by Plato, 
 bringing together in a general view the education of youth 
 and the education of after-life; (IV) we may note further 
 some essential differences between ancient and modern politics 
 which are suggested by the "Republic"; (V) we may com- 
 pare the " Politicus " and the "Laws"; (VI) we may ob- 
 serve the influence exercised by Plato on his imitators; and 
 (VII) take occasion to consider the nature and value of polit- 
 ical, and (VIII) of religious ideals. 
 
 I. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found a Hel- 
 lenic State (Book v. 470 E). Many of his regulations are 
 characteristically Spartan ; such as the prohibition of gold and 
 silver, the common meals of the men, the military training of 
 the youth, the gymnastic exercises of the women. The life 
 of Sparta was the life of a camp ("Laws" ii. 666 E), en- 
 forced even more rigidly in time of peace than in war; the 
 citizens of Sparta, like Plato's, were forbidden to trade they 
 were to be soldiers and not shopkeepers. Nowhere else in 
 Greece was the individual so completely subjected to the State ; 
 the time when he was to marry, the education of his children, 
 the clothes which he was to wear, the food which he was to 
 eat, were all prescribed by law. Some of the best enactments 
 in the " Republic," such as the reverence to be paid to parents 
 and elders, and some of the worst, such as the exposure of 
 deformed children, are borrowed from the practice of Sparta. 
 The encouragement of friendships between men and youth, or
 
 xxxiv PLATO 
 
 of men with one another, as affording incentives to bravery, 
 is also Spartan; in Sparta, too, a nearer approach was 
 made than in any other Greek State to equality of the 
 sexes, and to community of property; and while there was 
 probably less of licentiousness in the sense of immorality, 
 the tie of marriage was regarded more lightly than in the rest 
 of Greece. The suprema lex was the preservation of the fam- 
 ily and the interest of the State. The coarse strength of a 
 military government was not favorable to purity and refine- 
 ment; and the excessive strictness of some regulations seems 
 to have produced a reaction. Of all Hellenes the Spartans were 
 most accessible to bribery; several of the greatest of them 
 might be described in the words of Plato as having a " fierce 
 secret longing after gold and silver." Though not in the strict 
 sense communists, the principle of communism was maintained 
 among them in their division of lands, in their common meals, 
 in their slaves, and in the free use of one another's goods. 
 Marriage was a public institution; and the women were edu- 
 cated by the State, and sang and danced in public with the 
 men. 
 
 Many traditions were preserved at Sparta of the severity 
 with which the magistrates had maintained the primitive rule 
 of music and poetry ; as in the " Republic " of Plato, the new- 
 fangled poet was to be expelled. Hymns to the gods, which 
 are the only kind of music admitted into the ideal State, were 
 the only kind which was permitted at Sparta. The Spartans, 
 though an unpoetical race, were nevertheless lovers of poetry; 
 they had been stirred by the Elegiac strains of Tyrtaeus, they 
 had crowded around Hippias to hear his recitals of Homer; 
 but in this they resembled the citizens of the timocratic rather 
 than of the ideal State (548 E). The council of elder men 
 also corresponds to the Spartan gerousia; and the freedom 
 with which they are permitted to judge about matters of de- 
 tail agrees with what we are told of that institution. Once 
 more, the military rule of not despoiling the dead or offering 
 arms at the temples ; the moderation in the pursuit of enemies ; 
 the importance attached to the physical well-being of the citi- 
 zens ; the use of warfare for the sake of defence rather than 
 of aggression are features probably suggested by the spirit 
 and practice of Sparta.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 To the Spartan type the ideal State reverts in the first de- 
 cline; and the character of the individual timocrat is bor- 
 rowed from the Spartan citizen. The love of Lacedsemon not 
 only affected Plato and Xenophon, but was shared by many 
 undistinguished Athenians; there they seemed to find a prin- 
 ciple which was wanting in their own democracy. The evKocr/jiia 
 of the Spartans attracted them, that is to say, not the good- 
 ness of their laws, but the spirit of order and loyalty which 
 prevailed. Fascinated by the idea, citizens of Athens would 
 imitate the Lacedaemonians in their dress and manners; they 
 were known to the contemporaries of Plato as " the persons 
 who had their ears bruised," like the Roundheads of the com- 
 monwealth. The love of another church or country when seen 
 at a distance only, the longing for an imaginary simplicity in 
 civilized times, the fond desire of a past which never has been, 
 or of a future which never will be these are aspirations of 
 the human mind which are often felt among ourselves. Such 
 feelings meet with a response in the " Republic " of Plato. 
 
 But there are other features of the Platonic " Republic," as, 
 for example, the literary and philosophical education, and the 
 grace and beauty of life, which are the reverse of Spartan. 
 Plato wishes to give his citizens a taste of Athenian freedom 
 as well as of Lacedaemonian discipline. His individual genius 
 is purely Athenian, although in theory he is a lover of Sparta ; 
 and he is something more than either he has also a true Hel- 
 lenic feeling. He is desirous of humanizing the wars of Hel- 
 lenes against one another ; he acknowledges that the Delphian 
 god is the grand hereditary interpreter of all Hellas. The 
 spirit of harmony and the Dorian mode are to prevail, and 
 the whole State is to have an external beauty which is the 
 reflex of the harmony within. But he has not yet found out 
 the truth which he afterwards enunciated in the "Laws" (i. 
 628 D) that he was a better legislator who made men to be 
 of one mind than he who trained them for war. The citizens, 
 as in other Hellenic States, democratic as well as aristocratic, 
 are really an upper class ; for, although no mention is made 
 of slaves, the lower classes are allowed to fade away into the 
 distance, and are represented in the individual by the passions. 
 Plato has no idea either of a social State in which all classes 
 are harmonized, or of a federation of Hellas or the world in
 
 xxxvi PLATO 
 
 which different nations or States have a place. His city is 
 equipped for war rather than for peace, and this would seem 
 to be justified by the ordinary condition of Hellenic States. 
 The myth of the earth-born men is an embodiment of the 
 orthodox tradition of Hellas, and the allusion to the four ages 
 of the world is also sanctioned by the authority of Hesiod and 
 the poets. Thus we see that the Republic is partly founded 
 on the ideal of the old Greek polis, partly on the actual cir- 
 cumstances of Hellas in that age. Plato, like the old painters, 
 retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision 
 of a city in the clouds. 
 
 There is yet another thread which is interwoven in the text- 
 ure of the work ; for the Republic is not only a Dorian State, 
 but a Pythagorean league. The " way of life " which was 
 connected with the name of Pythagoras, like the Catholic 
 monastic orders, showed the power which the mind of an indi- 
 vidual might exercise over his contemporaries, and may have 
 naturally suggested to Plato the possibility of reviving such 
 " mediaeval institutions." The Pythagoreans, like Plato, en- 
 forced a rule of life and a moral and intellectual training. The 
 influence ascribed to music, which to us seems exaggerated, 
 is also a Pythagorean feature ; it is not to be regarded as rep- 
 resenting the real influence of music in the Greek world. More 
 nearly than any other government of Hellas, the Pythagorean 
 league of 300 was an aristocracy of virtue. For once in the. 
 history of mankind the philosophy of order or /coo-pos, ex- 
 pressing and consequently enlisting on its side the combined 
 endeavors of the better part of the people, obtained the man- 
 agement of public affairs and held possession of it for a con- 
 siderable time (until about B.C. 500). Probably only in States 
 prepared by Dorian institutions would such a league have been 
 possible. The rulers, like Plato's </>uXa/ce<?, were required to 
 submit to a severe training in order to prepare the way for 
 the education of the other members of the community. Long 
 after the dissolution of the order, eminent Pythagoreans, such 
 as Archytas of Tarentum, retained their political influence over 
 the cities of Magna Graecia. There was much here that was 
 suggestive to the kindred spirit of Plato, who had doubtless 
 meditated deeply on the " way of life of Pythagoras " (" Rep." 
 x. 600 B) and his followers. Slight traces of Pythagorean-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 ism are to-be found in the mystical number of the State, in 
 the number which expresses the interval between the king and 
 the tyrant, in the doctrine of transmigration, in the music of 
 the spheres, as well as in the great though secondary importance 
 ascribed to mathematics in education. 
 
 But as in his philosophy, so also in the form of his State, 
 he goes far beyond the old Pythagoreans. He attempts a task 
 really impossible, which is to unite the past of Greek history 
 with the future of philosophy, analogous to that other impossi- 
 bility, which has often been the dream of Christendom, the 
 attempt to unite the past history of Europe with the kingdom 
 of Christ. Nothing actually existing in the world at all resem- 
 bles Plato's ideal State; nor does he himself imagine that 
 such a State is possible. This he repeats again and again; 
 e.g., in the " Republic " (ix. sub fin.~), or in the " Laws " (Book 
 v. 739), where, casting a glance back on the "Republic," he 
 admits that the perfect state of communism and philosophy 
 was impossible in his own age, though still to be retained as 
 a pattern. The same doubt is implied in the earnestness with 
 which he argues in the "Republic" (v. 472 D) that ideals 
 are none the worse because they cannot be realized in fact, 
 and in the chorus of laughter, which like a breaking wave 
 will, as he anticipates, greet the mention of his proposals; 
 though like other writers of fiction, he uses all his art to give 
 reality to his inventions. When asked how the ideal polity 
 can come into being, he answers ironically, " When one son 
 of a king becomes a philosopher ; " he designates the fiction 
 of the earth-born men as " a noble lie " ; and when the struct- 
 ure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his republic is 
 a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not 
 in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth. It 
 has been said that Plato flies as well as walks, but this falls 
 short of the truth; for he flies and walks at the same time, 
 and is in the air and on firm ground in successive instants. 
 
 Niebuhr has asked a trifling question, which may be briefly 
 noticed in this place Was Plato a good citizen? If by this 
 is meant, Was he loyal to Athenian institutions? he can 
 hardly be said to be the friend of democracy: but neither is 
 he the friend of any other existing form of government; 
 all of them he regarded as " states of faction " (" Laws " viii.
 
 xxxviii PLATO 
 
 832 C) ; none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over volun- 
 tary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe de- 
 mocracy than any other; and the worst of them is tyranny. 
 The truth is that the question has hardly any meaning when 
 applied to a great philosopher whose writings are not meant 
 for a particular age and country, but for all time and all man- 
 kind. The decline of Athenian politics was probably the mo- 
 tive which led Plato to frame an ideal State, and the Republic 
 may be regarded as reflecting the departing glory of Hellas. 
 As well might we complain of St. Augustine, whose great 
 work " The City of God " originated in a similar motive, for 
 not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel 
 might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly 
 be charged with being bad citizens because, though " subject 
 to the higher powers," they were looking forward to a city 
 which is in heaven. 
 
 II. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when 
 judged of according to the ordinary notions of mankind. The 
 paradoxes of one age have been said to become the common- 
 places of the next ; but the paradoxes of Plato are at least as 
 paradoxical to us as they were to his contemporaries. The 
 modern world has either sneered at them as absurd, or de- 
 nounced them as unnatural and immoral; men have been 
 pleased to find in Aristotle's criticisms of them the anticipation 
 of their own good sense. The wealthy and cultivated classes 
 have disliked and also dreaded them ; they ha\e pointed with 
 satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in prac- 
 tice. Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of 
 human intelligences, and of one who has done most to elevate 
 morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment 
 at our hands. We may have to address the public, as Plato 
 does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to exist- 
 ing institutions. There are serious errors which have a side 
 of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful con- 
 sideration : there are truths mixed with error of which we 
 may indeed say, " The half is better than the whole." Yet 
 " the half " may be an important contribution to the study of 
 human nature. 
 
 (a) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 mentioned slightly at the end of the third book, and seemingly, 
 as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians; at least 
 no mention is made of the other classes. But the omission is 
 not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the 
 plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering 
 into details. 
 
 Aristotle censures the community of property much in the 
 spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress in- 
 dustry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence. 
 Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which 
 is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opin- 
 ion of mankind. But it must be remembered that the sacred- 
 ness of property is a notion far more fixed in modern than in 
 ancient times. The world has grown older, and is therefore 
 more conservative. Primitive society offered many examples 
 of land held in common, either by a tribe or by a township, 
 and such may probably have been the original form of landed 
 tenure. Ancient legislators had invented various modes of 
 dividing and preserving the divisions of land among the citi- 
 zens; according to Aristotle there were nations who held the 
 land in common and divided the produce, and there were others 
 who divided the land and stored the produce in common. The 
 evils of debt and the inequality of property were far greater 
 in ancient than in modern times, and the accidents to which 
 property was subject from war, or revolution, or taxation, or 
 other legislative interference, were also greater. All these cir- 
 cumstances gave property a less fixed and sacred character. 
 The early Christians are believed to have held their property 
 in common, and the principle is sanctioned by the words of 
 Christ himself, and has been maintained as a counsel of per- 
 fection in almost all ages of the Church. Nor have there been 
 wanting instances of modern enthusiasts who have made a 
 religion of communism ; in every age of religious excitement 
 notions like Wycliffe's " Inheritance of Grace " have tended to 
 prevail. A like spirit, but fiercer and more violent, has ap- 
 peared in politics. " The preparation of the gospel of peace " 
 soon becomes the red flag of republicanism. 
 
 We can hardly judge what effect Plato's views would have 
 upon his own contemporaries; they would perhaps have 
 seemed to them only an exaggeration of the Spartan Common-
 
 xl PLATO 
 
 wealth. Even modern writers would acknowledge that the 
 right of private property is based on expediency, and may be 
 interfered with in a variety of ways for the public good. Any 
 other mode of vesting property which was found to be more 
 advantageous, would in time acquire the same basis of right; 
 " the most useful," in Plato's words, " would be the most 
 sacred." The lawyers and ecclesiastics of former ages would 
 have spoken of property as a sacred institution. But they only 
 meant by such language to oppose the greatest amount of re- 
 sistance to any invasion of the rights of individuals and of 
 the Church. 
 
 When we consider the question, without any fear of imme- 
 diate application to practice, in the spirit of Plato's " Republic," 
 are we quite sure that the received notions of property are the 
 best? Is the distribution of wealth which is customary in 
 civilized countries the most favorable that can be conceived 
 for the education and development of the mass of mankind? 
 Can " the spectator of all time and all existence " be quite con- 
 vinced that one or two thousand years hence, great changes will 
 not have taken place in the rights of property, or even that the 
 very notion of property, beyond what is necessary for personal 
 maintenance, may not have disappeared? This was a dis- 
 tinction familiar to Aristotle, though likely to be laughed at 
 among ourselves. Such a change would not be greater than 
 some other changes through which the world has passed in the 
 transition from ancient to modern society, for example, the 
 emancipation of the serfs in Russia, or the abolition of slavery 
 in America and the West Indies ; and not so great as the dif- 
 ference which separates the Eastern village community from 
 the Western world. To accomplish such a revolution in the 
 course of a few centuries, would imply a rate of progress not 
 more rapid than has actually taken place during the last 
 fifty or sixty years. The Empire of Japan underwent more 
 change in five or six years than Europe in five or six hundred. 
 Many opinions and beliefs which have been cherished among 
 ourselves quite as strongly as the sacredness of property have 
 passed away; and the most untenable propositions respecting 
 the right of bequests or entail have been maintained with as 
 much fervor as the most moderate. Someone will be heard to 
 ask whether a state of society can be final in which the inter-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 ests of thousands are perilled on the life or character of a 
 single person. And many will indulge the hope that our pres- 
 ent condition may, after all, be only transitional, and may con- 
 duct to a higher, in which property, beside ministering to the 
 enjoyment of the few, may also furnish the means of the high- 
 est culture to all, and will be a greater benefit to the public 
 generally, and also more under the control of public authority. 
 There may come a time when the saying, " Have I not a right 
 to do what I will with my own?" will appear to be a bar- 
 barous relic of individualism; when the possession of a part 
 may be a greater blessing to each and all than the possession 
 of the whole is now to anyone. 
 
 Such reflections appear visionary to the eye of the practical 
 statesman, but they are within the range of possibility to the 
 philosopher. He can imagine that in some distant age or 
 clime, and through the influence of some individual, the notion 
 of common property may or might have sunk as deep into the 
 heart of a race, and have become as fixed to them, as private 
 property is to ourselves. He knows that this latter institu- 
 tion is not more than four or five thousand years old: may 
 not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even 
 Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea 
 may exercise a great influence on practical politics. 
 
 The objections that would be generally urged against Plato's 
 community of property are the old ones of Aristotle, that mo- 
 tives for exertion would be taken away, and that disputes 
 would arise when each was dependent upon all. Every man 
 would produce as little and consume as much as he liked. The 
 experience of civilized nations has hitherto been adverse to 
 socialism. The effort is too great for human nature; men 
 try to live in common, but the personal feeling is always break- 
 ing in. On the other hand it may be doubted whether our 
 present notions of property are not conventional, for they dif- 
 fer in different countries and in different states of society. We 
 boast of an individualism which is not freedom, but rather an 
 artificial result of the industrial state of modern Europe. The 
 individual is nominally free, but he is also powerless in a world 
 bound hand and foot in the chains of economic necessity. Even 
 if we cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinter- 
 ested, at any rate we observe in them a power of organization
 
 xlii PLATO 
 
 which fifty years ago would never have been suspected. The 
 same forces which have revolutionized the political system of 
 Europe may effect a similar change in the social and indus- 
 trial relations of mankind. And if we suppose the influence 
 of some good as well as neutral motives working in the com- 
 munity, there will be no absurdity in expecting that the mass 
 of mankind having power, and becoming enlightened about the 
 higher possibilities of human life, when they learn how much 
 more is attainable for all than is at present the possession of 
 a favored few, may pursue the common interest with an intel- 
 ligence and persistency which mankind have hitherto never 
 seen. 
 
 Now that the world has once been set in motion, and is no 
 longer held fast under the tyranny of custom and ignorance; 
 now that criticism has pierced the veil of tradition and the 
 past no longer overpowers the present the progress of civili- 
 zation may be expected to be far greater and swifter than here- 
 tofore. Even at our present rate of speed the point at which 
 we may arrive in two or three generations is beyond the power 
 of imagination to foresee. There are forces in the world 
 which work, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio 
 of increase. Education, to use the expression of Plato, moves 
 like a wheel with an ever-multiplying rapidity. Nor can we 
 say how great may be its influence, when it becomes universal 
 when it has been inherited by many generations- when it is 
 freed from the trammels of superstition and rightly adapted 
 to the wants and capacities of different classes of men and 
 women. Neither do we know how much more the co-opera- 
 tion of minds or of hands may be capable of accomplishing, 
 whether in labor or in study. The resources of the natural 
 sciences are not half developed as yet; the soil of the earth, 
 instead of growing more barren, may become many times more 
 fertile than hitherto ; the uses of machinery far greater and 
 also more minute than at present. New secrets of physiology 
 may be revealed, deeply affecting human nature in its inner- 
 most recesses. The standard of health may be raised and the 
 lives of men prolonged by sanitary and medical knowledge. 
 There may be peace, there may be leisure, there may be inno- 
 cent refreshments of many kinds. The ever-increasing power 
 of locomotion may join the extremes of earth. There may
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 be mysterious workings of the human mind, such as occur 
 only at great crises of history. The East and the West may 
 meet together, and all nations may contribute their thoughts 
 and their experience to the common stock of humanity. Many 
 other elements enter into a speculation of this kind. But it 
 is better to make an end of them. For such reflections appear 
 to the majority far-fetched, and, to men of science, common- 
 place. 
 
 ($) Neither to the mind of Plato nor of Aristotle did the 
 doctrine of community of property present at all the same dif- 
 ficulty, or appear to be the same violation of the common Hel- 
 lenic sentiment, as the community of wives and children. This 
 paradox he prefaces by another proposal, that the occupations 
 of men and women shall be the same, and that to this end they 
 shall have a common training and education. Male and female 
 animals have the same pursuits why not also the two sexes 
 of man? 
 
 But have we not here fallen into a contradiction? for we 
 were saying that different natures should have different pur- 
 suits. How then can men and women have the same? And 
 is not the proposal inconsistent with our notion of the divis- 
 ion of labor? These objections are no sooner raised than an- 
 swered; for, according to Plato, there is no organic differ- 
 ence between men and women, but only the accidental one that 
 men beget and women bear children. Following the analogy 
 of the other animals, he contends that all natural gifts are scat- 
 tered about indifferently among both sexes, though there may 
 be a superiority of degree on the part of the men. The objec- 
 tion on the score of decency to their taking part in the same 
 gymnastic exercises, is met by Plato's assertion that the exist- 
 ing feeling is a matter of habit. 
 
 That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas 
 of his own country and from the example of the East, shows 
 a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that 
 women are half the human race, in some respects the more 
 important half ("Laws" vi. 781 B) ; and for the sake both 
 of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher 
 level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but philosophy 
 to bear upon a question which both in ancient and modern times 
 has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or feeling.
 
 xliv PLATO 
 
 The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the god- 
 desses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and 
 Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual 
 life. The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her 
 husband ; she was not the entertainer of his guests or the 
 mistress of his house, but only his housekeeper and the mother 
 of his children. She took no part in military or political mat- 
 ters; nor is there any instance in the later ages of Greece of 
 a woman becoming famous in literature. " Hers is the greatest 
 glory who has the least renown among men " is the historian's 
 conception of feminine excellence. A very different ideal of 
 womanhood is held up by Plato to the world; she is to be 
 the companion of the man, and to share with him in the toils 
 of war and in the cares of government. She is to be similarly 
 trained both in bodily and mental exercises. She is to lose as 
 far as possible the incidents of maternity and the characteris- 
 tics of the female sex. 
 
 The modern antagonist of the equality of the sexes would 
 argue that the differences between men and women are not 
 confined to the single point urged by Plato; that sensibility, 
 gentleness, grace are the qualities of women, while energy, 
 strength, higher intelligence are to be looked for in men. And 
 the criticism is just: the differences affect the whole nature, 
 and are not, as Plato supposes, confined to a single point. But 
 neither can we say how far these differences are due to edu- 
 cation and the opinions of mankind, or physically inherited from 
 the habits and opinions of former generations. Women have 
 been always taught, not exactly that they are slaves, but that 
 they are in an inferior position, which is also supposed to have 
 compensating advantages ; and to this position they have con- 
 formed. It is also true that the physical form may easily change 
 in the course of generations through the mode of life ; and the 
 weakness or delicacy, which was once a matter of opinion, may 
 become a physical fact. The characteristics of sex vary greatly 
 in different countries and ranks of society, and at different 
 ages in the same individuals. Plato may have been right in 
 denying that there was any ultimate difference in the sexes 
 of man other than that which exists in animals, because all 
 other differences may be conceived to disappear in other states 
 of society, or under different circumstances of life and training.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 The first wave having been passed, we proceed to the second 
 community of wives and children. "Is it possible? Is it 
 desirable ? " For, as Glaucon intimates, and as we far more 
 strongly insist, " great doubts may be entertained about both 
 these points." Any free discussion of the question is impos- 
 sible, and mankind are perhaps right in not allowing the ulti- 
 mate bases of social life to be examined. Few of us can safely 
 inquire into the things which nature hides, any more than we 
 can dissect our own bodies. Still, the manner in which Plato 
 arrived at his conclusions should be considered. For here, as 
 Mr. Grote has remarked, is a wonderful thing, that one of 
 the wisest and best of men should have entertained ideas of 
 morality which are wholly at variance with our own. And if 
 we would do Plato justice, we must examine carefully the char- 
 acter of his proposals. First, we may observe that the rela- 
 tions of the sexes supposed by him are the reverse of licen- 
 tious: he seems rather to aim at an impossible strictness. 
 Secondly, he conceives the family to be the natural enemy of 
 the State; and he entertains the serious hope that a universal 
 brotherhood may take the place of private interests an aspira- 
 tion which, although not justified by experience, has possessed 
 many noble minds. On the other hand, there is no sentiment 
 or imagination in the connections which men and women are 
 supposed by him to form; human beings return to the level 
 of the animals, neither exalting to heaven nor yet abusing the 
 natural instincts. All that world of poetry and fancy which 
 the passion of love has called forth in modern literature and 
 romance would have been banished by Plato. The arrange- 
 ments of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object 
 the improvement of the race. In successive generations a 
 great development both of bodily and mental qualities might 
 be possible. The analogy of animals tends to show that man- 
 kind can within certain limits receive a change of nature. And 
 as in animals we should commonly choose the best for breed- 
 ing, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made 
 of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved. 
 
 We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the be- 
 lief, first, that the higher feelings of humanity are far too 
 strong to be crushed out; secondly, that if the plan could be 
 carried into execution we should be poorly recompensed by
 
 xlvi PLATO 
 
 improvements in the breed for the loss of the best things in life. 
 The greatest regard for the weakest and meanest of human 
 beings the infant, the criminal, the insane, the idiot truly 
 seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We have 
 learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has 
 an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honor Him 
 when we honor the darkened and disfigured image of Him 
 (cp. "Laws" xi. 931 A). This is the lesson which Christ 
 taught in a parable when he said, " Their angels do always be- 
 hold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Such lessons 
 are only partially realized in any age; they were foreign to 
 the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength 
 in different countries or ages of the Christian world. To the 
 Greek the family was a religious and customary institution 
 binding the members together by a tie inferior in strength to 
 that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred sound 
 than that of country. The relationship which existed on the 
 lower level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to 
 the higher level of nature and reason ; while from the modern 
 and Christian point of view we regard him as sanctioning mur- 
 der and destroying the first principles of morality. 
 
 The great error in these and similar speculations is that 
 the difference between man and the animals is forgotten in 
 them. The human being is regarded with the eye of a dog 
 or bird-fancier (v. 459 A), or at best of a slave-owner; the 
 higher or human qualities are left out. The breeder of animals 
 aims chiefly at size or speed or strength ; in a few cases at 
 courage or temper ; most often the fitness of the animal for 
 food is the great desideratum. But mankind are not bred to 
 be eaten, nor yet for their superiority in fighting or in running 
 or in drawing carts. Neither does the improvement of the 
 human race consist merely in the increase of the bones and 
 flesh, but in the growth and enlightenment of the mind. Hence 
 there must be " a marriage of true minds " as well as of bodies, 
 of imagination and reason as well as of lusts and instincts. 
 Men and women without feeling or imagination are justly 
 called brutes ; yet Plato takes away these qualities and puts 
 nothing in their place, not even the desire of a noble offspring, 
 since parents are not to know their own children. The most 
 important transaction of social life, he who is the idealist philos-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 opher converts into the most brutal. For the pair are to have 
 no relation to one another, except at the hymeneal festival; 
 their children are not theirs, but the State's; nor is any tie 
 of affection to unite them. Yet here the analogy of the animals 
 might have saved Plato from a gigantic error, if he had " not 
 lost sight of his own illustration " (ii. 375 D) . For the " nobler 
 sort of birds and beasts " (v. 459 A) nourish and protect their 
 offspring and are faithful to one another. 
 
 An eminent physiologist thinks it worth while " to try and 
 place life on a physical basis." But should not life rest on the 
 moral rather than upon the physical? The higher comes first, 
 then the lower; first the human and rational, afterward the 
 animal. Yet they are not absolutely divided ; and in times of 
 sickness or moments of self-indulgence they seem to be only 
 different aspects of a common human nature which includes 
 them both. Neither is the moral the limit of the physical, but 
 the expansion and enlargement of it the highest form which 
 the physical is capable of receiving. As Plato would say, the 
 body does not take care of the body, and still less of the mind, 
 but the mind takes care of both. In all human action not that 
 which is common to man and the animals is the characteristic 
 element, but that which distinguishes him from them. Even 
 if we admit the physical basis, and resolve all virtue into health 
 of body " le faqon que notre sang circule," still on merely 
 physical grounds we must come back to ideas. Mind and rea- 
 son and duty and conscience, under these or other names, are 
 always reappearing. There cannot be health of body with- 
 out health of mind; nor health of mind without the sense of 
 duty and the love of truth (cp. " Charm." 156 D, E). 
 
 That the greatest of ancient philosophers should in his regu- 
 lations about marriage have fallen into the error of separating 
 body and mind, does, indeed, appear surprising. Yet the won- 
 der is not so much that Plato should have entertained ideas of 
 morality which to our own age are revolting, but that he should 
 have contradicted himself to an extent which is hardly credible, 
 falling in an instant from the heaven of idealism into the 
 crudest animalism. Rejoicing in the newly found gift of re- 
 flection, he appears to have thought out a subject about which 
 he had better have followed the enlightened feeling of his own 
 age. The general sentiment of Hellas was opposed to his
 
 xlviii PLATO 
 
 monstrous fancy. The old poets, and in later time the trage- 
 dians, showed no want of respect for the family, on which much 
 of their religion was based. But the example of Sparta, and 
 perhaps in some degree the tendency to defy public opinion, 
 seem to have misled him. He will make one family out of all 
 the families of the State. He will select the finest specimens 
 of men and women, and breed from these only. 
 
 Yet because the illusion is always returning (for the animal 
 part of human nature will from time to time assert itself in 
 the disguise of philosophy as well as of poetry), and also be- 
 cause any departure from established morality, even where this 
 is not intended, is apt to be unsettling, it may be worth while 
 to draw out a little more at length the objections to the Platonic 
 marriage. In the first place, history shows that wherever 
 polygamy has been largely allowed the race has deteriorated. 
 One man to one woman is the law of God and nature. Nearly 
 all the civilized peoples of the world at some period before the 
 age of written records have become monogamists; and the 
 step when once taken has never been retraced. The excep- 
 tions occurring among Brahmins or Mahometans or the ancient 
 Persians, are of that sort which may be said to prove the rule. 
 The connections formed between superior and inferior races 
 hardly ever produce a noble offspring, because they are licen- 
 tious; and because the children in such cases usually despise 
 the mother, and are neglected by the father, who is ashamed of 
 them. Barbarous nations when they are introduced by Euro- 
 peans to vice die out; polygamist peoples either import and 
 adopt children from other countries, or dwindle in numbers, 
 or both. Dynasties and aristocracies which have disregarded 
 the laws of nature have decreased in numbers and degenerated 
 in stature ; manages de convenance leave their enfeebling stamp 
 on the offspring of them (cp. " King Lear," Act i. Sc. 2). The 
 marriage of near relations, or the marrying in and in of the 
 same family, tends constantly to weakness or idiocy in the 
 children, sometimes assuming the form as they grow older of 
 passionate licentiousness. The common prostitute rarely has 
 any offspring. By such unmistakable evidence is the authority 
 of morality asserted in the relations of the sexes : and so many 
 more elements enter into this " mystery " than are dreamed of 
 by Plato and some other philosophers.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 Recent inquiries have, indeed, arrived at the conclusion that 
 among primitive tribes there existed a community of wives as 
 of property, and that the captive taken by the spear was the 
 only wife or slave whom any man was permitted to call his 
 own. The partial existence of such customs among some of 
 the lower races of man, and the survival of peculiar ceremonies 
 in the marriages of some civilized nations, are thought to fur- 
 nish a proof of similar institutions having been once universal. 
 There can be no question that the study of anthropology has 
 considerably changed our views respecting the first appearance 
 of man upon the earth. We know more about the aborigines 
 of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge shows 
 above all things how little we know. With all the helps which 
 written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the con- 
 dition of man 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. Of what his con- 
 dition was when removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 
 years, when the majority of mankind were lower and nearer 
 the animals than any tribe now existing upon the earth, 
 we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (" Laws " iii. 
 676 foil.) and Aristotle (" Metaph." xi. 8, 19, 20) may 
 have been more right than we imagine in supposing that 
 some forms of civilization were discovered and lost several 
 times over. If we cannot argue that all barbarism is a de- 
 graded civilization, neither can we set any limits to the depth 
 of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, 
 disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about 
 the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, 
 we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. 
 Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only 
 one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seem to be 
 natural are inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. 
 If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost 
 animals and the companions of them, we have as much right 
 to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the bar- 
 barous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the 
 globe is fragmentary the connecting links are wanting and 
 cannot be supplied ; the record of social life is still more frag- 
 mentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first an- 
 cestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by 
 which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative
 
 1 PLATO 
 
 civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the an- 
 cient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. 
 
 Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem 
 to show that an institution which was thought to be a revelation 
 from heaven, is only the growth of history and experience. 
 We ask, What is the origin of marriage ? and we are told that 
 like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has 
 gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians. We 
 stand face to face with human nature in its primitive nakedness. 
 We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest ac- 
 count of the origin of human society. But on the other hand 
 we may truly say that every step in human progress has been 
 in the same direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of 
 marriage and of the family has been more and more defined 
 and consecrated. The civilized East is immeasurably in ad- 
 vance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and Romans have im- 
 proved upon the East ; the Christian nations have been stricter 
 in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients. 
 In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back with 
 regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the 
 future. We must consecrate that which we believe to be the 
 most holy, and that " which is the most holy will be the most 
 useful." There is more reason for maintaining the sacredness 
 of the marriage tie, when we see the benefit of it, than when we 
 only felt a vague religious horror about the violation of it. 
 But in all times of transition, when established beliefs are 
 being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from 
 the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, 
 finding an excuse for listening to the voice of passion in the 
 uncertainty of knowledge, or the fluctuations of opinion. And 
 there are many persons in our own day who, enlightened by 
 the study of anthropology, and fascinated by what is new and 
 strange, some using the language of fear, others of hope, are 
 inclined to believe that a time will come when through the self- 
 assertion of women, or the rebellious spirit of children, by the 
 analysis of human relations, or by the force of outward cir- 
 cumstances, the ties of family life may be broken or greatly 
 relaxed. They point to societies in America and elsewhere 
 which tend to show that the destruction of the family need 
 not necessarily involve the overthrow of all morality. What-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION li 
 
 ever we may think of such speculations, we can hardly deny 
 that they have been more rife in this generation than in any 
 other ; and whither they are tending who can predict ? 
 
 To the doubts and queries raised by these " social reformers " 
 respecting the relation of the sexes and the moral nature of 
 man, there is a sufficient answer, if any is needed. The differ- 
 ence between them and us is really one of fact. They are 
 speaking of man as they wish or fancy him to be, but we are 
 speaking of him as he is. They isolate the animal part of his 
 nature ; we regard him as a creature having many sides, or 
 aspects, moving between good and evil, striving to rise above 
 himself and to become " a little lower than the angels." We 
 also, to use a Platonic formula, are not ignorant of the dissatis- 
 factions and incompatibilities of family life, of the meannesses 
 of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of 
 the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty 
 aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are 
 evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are 
 not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. 
 What a condition of man would that be, in which human pas- 
 sions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in 
 which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection over- 
 coming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule 
 of health ! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the 
 civilization which is the growth of ages? 
 
 For strength and health are not the only qualities to be de- 
 sired ; there are the more important considerations of mind and 
 character and soul. We know how human nature may be de- 
 graded ; we do not know how by artificial means any improve- 
 ment in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex 
 one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter 
 into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty pro- 
 genitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely 
 admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of 
 disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the 
 physical resemblances of parents and children in the same 
 family 
 
 " Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic or a ferebat " ; 
 
 but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish chil- 
 dren both from their parents and from one another. We are
 
 Hi PLATO 
 
 told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and 
 again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common 
 or original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing 
 what is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what 
 is mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great 
 men and great women have rarely had great fathers and 
 mothers. Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of 
 their birth or lineage will explain their appearance. Of the 
 English poets of the last and two preceding centuries scarcely 
 a descendant remains none have ever been distinguished. So 
 deeply has nature hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the 
 fancy which has been entertained by some that we might in 
 time by suitable marriage arrangements or, as Plato would 
 have said, " by an ingenious system of lots," produce a Shake- 
 speare or a Milton. Even supposing that we could breed men 
 having the tenacity of bulldogs, or, like the Spartans, " lacking 
 the wit to run away in battle," would the world be any the bet- 
 ter? Many of the noblest specimens of the human race have 
 been among the weakest physically. Tyrtseus or /Esop, or our 
 own Newton, would have been exposed at Sparta; and some 
 of the fairest and strongest men and women have been among 
 the wickedest and worst. Not by the Platonic device of unit- 
 ing the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless 
 of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of com- 
 bining dissimilar natures ("Statesman" 310 A), have man- 
 kind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of 
 primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. 
 
 Few persons would deny that we bring into the world an 
 inheritance of mental and physical qualities derived first from 
 our parents, or through them from some remoter ancestor, 
 secondly from our race, thirdly from the general condition of 
 mankind into which we are born. Nothing is commoner than 
 the remark that " So-and-so is like his father or his uncle " ; 
 and an aged person may not unfrequently note a resemblance in 
 a youth to a long- forgotten ancestor, observing that " Nature 
 sometimes skips a generation." It may be true also that if we 
 knew more about our ancestors, these similarities would be 
 even more striking to us. Admitting the facts which are thus 
 described in a popular way, we may, however, remark that 
 there is no method of difference by which they can be defined
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 or estimated, and that they constitute only a small part of each 
 individual. The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of 
 our hands the conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not 
 the fact, which is really terrible to us. For what we have re- 
 ceived from our ancestors is only a fraction of what we are or 
 may become. The knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has 
 been prevalent in a family may be the best safeguard against 
 their recurrence in a future generation. The parent will be 
 most awake to the vices or diseases in his child of which he is 
 most sensible within himself. The whole of life may be di- 
 rected to their prevention or cure. The traces of consumption 
 may become fainter, or be wholly effaced : the inherent tendency 
 to vice or crime may be eradicated. And so heredity, from 
 being a curse, may become a blessing. We acknowledge that 
 in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are 
 previous circumstances which affect us. But upon this plat- 
 form of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have 
 still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing 
 energy of the human will. 
 
 There is another aspect of the marriage question to which 
 Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his State are 
 foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of 
 them, according to universal experience, would have perished. 
 For children can only be brought up in families. There is a 
 subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which can- 
 not be supplied by other mothers, or by " strong nurses one or 
 more " (" Laws " vii. 789 E). If Plato's " pen " was as fatal 
 as the creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, 
 more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. 
 There would have been no need to expose or put out of the 
 way the weaklier children, for they would have died of them- 
 selves. So emphatically does nature protest against the de- 
 struction of the family. 
 
 What Plato had heard or seen of Sparta was applied by him 
 in a mistaken way to his ideal commonwealth. He probably 
 observed that both the Spartan men and women were superior 
 in form and strength to the other Greeks ; and this superiority 
 he was disposed to attribute to the laws and customs relating 
 to marriage. He did not consider that the desire of a noble 
 offspring was a passion among the Spartans, or that their
 
 liv PLATO 
 
 physical superiority was to be attributed chiefly, not to their 
 marriage customs, but to their temperance and training. He 
 did not reflect that Sparta was great, not in consequence of the 
 relaxation of morality, but in spite of it, by virtue of a polit- 
 ical principle stronger far than existed in any other Grecian 
 State. Least of all did he observe that Sparta did not really 
 produce the finest specimens of the Greek race. The genius, 
 the political inspiration of Athens, the love of liberty all that 
 has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among 
 the Spartans. They had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or ^Es- 
 chylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato. The individual 
 was not allowed to appear above the State ; the laws were fixed, 
 and he had no business to alter or reform them. Yet whence 
 has the progress of cities and nations arisen, if not from re- 
 markable individuals, coming into the world we know not how, 
 and from causes over which we have no control? Something 
 too much may have been said in modern times of the value of 
 individuality. But we can hardly condemn too strongly a sys- 
 tem which, instead of fostering the scattered seeds or sparks 
 of genius and character, tends to smother and extinguish them. 
 Still, while condemning Plato, we must acknowledge that 
 neither Christianity nor any other form of religion and society 
 has hitherto been able to cope with this most difficult of social 
 problems, and that the side from which Plato regarded it is 
 that from which we turn away. Population is the most un- 
 tamable force in the political and social world. Do we not find, 
 especially in large cities, that the greatest hindrance to the 
 amelioration of the poor is their improvidence in marriage? 
 a small fault truly, if not involving endless consequences. 
 There are whole countries, too, such as India, or, nearer home, 
 Ireland, in which a right solution of the marriage question 
 seems to lie at the foundation of the happiness of the com- 
 munity. There are too many people on a given space, or they 
 marry too early and bring into the world a sickly and half- 
 developed offspring; or owing to the very conditions of their 
 existence, they become emaciated and hand on a similar life to 
 their descendants. But who can oppose the voice of prudence 
 to the " mightiest passions of mankind " (" Laws " viii. 835 C), 
 especially when they have been licensed by custom and re- 
 ligion ? In addition to the influences of education, we seem to
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Iv 
 
 require some new principles of right and wrong in these mat- 
 ters, some force of opinion, which may, indeed, be already heard 
 whispering in private, but has never affected the moral senti- 
 ments of mankind in general. We unavoidably lose sight of 
 the principle of utility, just in that action of our lives in which 
 we have the most need of it. The influences which we can 
 bring to bear upon this question are chiefly indirect. In a gen- 
 eration or two, education, emigration, improvements in agri- 
 culture and manufactures, may have provided the solution. 
 The State physician hardly likes to probe the wound : it is be- 
 yond his art; a matter which he cannot safely let alone, but 
 which he dare not touch : 
 
 " We do but skin and film the ulcerous place." 
 
 When again in private life we see a whole family one by one 
 dropping into the grave under the Ate of some inherited malady, 
 and the parents perhaps surviving them, do our minds ever go 
 back silently to that day twenty-five or thirty years before on 
 which under the fairest auspices, amid the rejoicings of friends 
 and acquaintances, a bride and bridegroom joined hands with 
 one another ? In making such a reflection we are not opposing 
 physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we 
 are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us 
 back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common- 
 sense. The late Dr. Combe is said by his biographer to have 
 resisted the temptation to marriage, because he knew that he 
 was subject to hereditary consumption. One who deserved 
 to be called a man of genius, a friend of my youth, was in 
 the habit of wearing a black ribbon on his wrist, in order to 
 remind him that, being liable to outbreaks of insanity, he must 
 not give way to the natural impulses of affection: he died 
 unmarried in a lunatic asylum. These two little facts suggest 
 the reflection that a .very few persons have done from a sense 
 of duty what the rest of mankind ought to have done under 
 like circumstances, if they had allowed themselves to think of 
 all the misery which they were about to bring into the world. 
 If we could prevent such marriages without any violation of 
 feeling or propriety, we clearly ought ; and the prohibition in 
 the course of time would be protected by a horror naturalis 
 similar to that which, in all civilized ages and countries, has
 
 Ivi PLATO 
 
 prevented the marriage of near relations by blood. Mankind 
 would have been the happier if some things which are now 
 allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the 
 sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to 
 health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been 
 invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far 
 on in the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at 
 once with the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free 
 agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the 
 execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to 
 the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be for- 
 bidden. Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune, against health, 
 or moral and mental qualities against bodily? Who can 
 measure probabilities against certainties? There has been 
 some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and 
 there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised 
 a refining and softening influence on the character. Youth is 
 too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations; par- 
 ents do not often think of them, or think of them too late. They 
 are at a distance and may probably be averted ; change of place, 
 a new state of life, the interests of a home may be the cure of 
 them. So persons vainly reason when their minds are already 
 made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor 
 is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any 
 great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem 
 unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of 
 individual attachment. 
 
 Lastly, no one can have observed the first rising flood of 
 the passions in youth, the difficulty of regulating them, and 
 the effects on the whole mind and nature which follow from 
 them, the stimulus which is given to them by the imagination, 
 without feeling that there is something unsatisfactory in our 
 method of treating them. That the most important influence 
 on human life should be wholly left to chance or shrouded in 
 mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood should 
 be required to conform only to an external standard of propriety, 
 cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfac- 
 tory condition of human things. And still those who have the 
 charge of youth may find a way by watchfulness, by affec- 
 tion, by the manliness and innocence of their own lives, by
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ivii 
 
 occasional hints, by general admonitions which everyone can 
 apply for himself, to mitigate this terrible evil which eats out 
 the heart of individuals and corrupts the moral sentiments of 
 nations. In no duty toward others is there more need of 
 reticence and self-restraint. So great is the danger lest he 
 who would be the counsellor of another should reveal the 
 secret prematurely, lest he should get another too much into 
 his power, or fix the passing impression of evil by demanding 
 the confession of it. 
 
 Nor is Plato wrong in asserting that family attachments may 
 interfere with higher aims. If there have been some who " to 
 party gave up what was meant for mankind," there have cer- 
 tainly been others who to family gave up what was meant for 
 mankind or for their country. The cares of children, the 
 necessity of procuring money for their support, the flatteries 
 of the rich by the poor, the exclusiveness of caste, the pride 
 of birth or wealth, the tendency of family life to divert men 
 from the pursuit of the ideal or the heroic, are as lowering in 
 our own age as in that of Plato. And if we prefer to look 
 at the gentle influences of home, the development of the affec- 
 tions, the amenities of society, the devotion of one member of 
 a family to the good of the others, which form one side of 
 the picture, we must not quarrel with him, or perhaps ought 
 rather to be grateful to him, for having presented to us the re- 
 verse. Without attempting to defend Plato on grounds of 
 morality, we may allow that there is an aspect of the world 
 which has not unnaturally led him into error. 
 
 We hardly appreciate the power which the idea of the State, 
 like all other abstract ideas, exercised over the mind of Plato. 
 To us the State seems to be built up out of the family, or 
 sometimes to be the framework in which family and social life 
 is contained. But to Plato in his present mood of mind the 
 family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling 
 up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No 
 organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from 
 another point of view, is a military one. The State is all-suf- 
 ficing for the wants of man, and, like the idea of the Church 
 in later ages, absorbs all other desires and affections. In time 
 of war the thousand citizens are to stand like a rampart im- 
 pregnable against the world or the Persian host; in time of
 
 Iviii PLATO 
 
 peace the preparation for war and their duties to the State, 
 which are also their duties to one another, take up their whole 
 life and time. The only other interest which is allowed to 
 them besides that of war is the interest of philosophy. When 
 they are too old to be soldiers they are to retire from active 
 life and to have a second novitiate, of study and contemplation. 
 There is an element of monasticism even in Plato's com- 
 munism. If he could have done without children, he might 
 have converted his republic into a religious order. Neither in 
 the " Laws " (v. 739 B), when the daylight of common-sense 
 breaks in upon him, does he retract his error. In the State 
 of which he would be the founder, there is no marrying or 
 giving in marriage: but because of the infirmity of mankind, 
 he condescends to allow the law of nature to prevail. 
 
 (7) But Plato has an equal, or, in his own estimation, even 
 greater paradox in reserve, which is summed up in the famous 
 text, " Until kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings, 
 cities will never cease from ill." And by philosophers he ex- 
 plains himself to mean those who are capable of apprehend- 
 ing ideas, especially the idea of good. To the attainment of 
 this higher knowledge the second education is directed. 
 Through a process of training which has already made them 
 good citizens they are now to be made good legislators. We 
 find with some surprise (not unlike the feeling which Aristotle 
 in a well-known passage describes the hearers of Plato's lect- 
 ures as experiencing, when they went to a discourse on the 
 idea of good, expecting to be instructed in moral truths, and 
 received instead of them arithmetical and mathematical for- 
 mulae) that Plato does not propose for his future legislators 
 any study of finance or law or military tactics, but only of 
 abstract mathematics, as a preparation for the still more ab- 
 stract conception of good. We ask, with Aristotle, What is 
 the use of a man knowing the idea of good, if he does not 
 know what is good for this individual, this State, this condi- 
 tion of society? We cannot understand how Plato's legisla- 
 tors or guardians are to be fitted for their work of statesmen 
 by the study of the five mathematical sciences. We vainly 
 search in Plato's own writings for any explanation of this 
 seeming absurdity. 
 
 The discovery of a great metaphysical conception seems to
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION lix 
 
 ravish the mind with a prophetic consciousness which takes 
 away the power of estimating its value. No metaphysical in- 
 quirer has ever fairly criticised his own speculations; in his 
 own judgment they have been above criticism; nor has he 
 understood that what to him seemed to be absolute truth may 
 reappear in the next generation as a form of logic or an in- 
 strument of thought. And posterity have also sometimes 
 equally misapprehended the real value of his speculations. 
 They appear to them to have contributed nothing to the stock 
 of human knowledge. The idea of good is apt to be regarded 
 by the modern thinker as an unmeaning abstraction; but he 
 forgets that this abstraction is waiting ready for use, and 
 will hereafter be filled up by the divisions of knowledge. 
 When mankind do not as yet know that the world is subject 
 to law, the introduction of the mere conception of law or de- 
 sign or final cause, and the far-off anticipation of the harmony 
 of knowledge, are great steps onward. Even the crude gen- 
 eralization of the unity of all things leads men to view the 
 world with different eyes, and may easily affect their con- 
 ception of human life and of politics, and also their own con- 
 duct and character ("Tim." 90 A). We can imagine how 
 a great mind like that of Pericles might derive elevation from 
 his intercourse with Anaxagoras (" Phaedr." 270 A). To be 
 struggling toward a higher but unattainable conception is a 
 more favorable intellectual condition than to rest satisfied in 
 a narrow portion of ascertained fact. And the earlier, which 
 have sometimes been the greater ideas of science, are often 
 lost sight of at a later period. How rarely can we say of 
 any modern inquirer, in the magnificent language of Plato, 
 that " He is the spectator of all time and of all existence ! " 
 
 Nor is there anything unnatural in the hasty application 
 of these vast metaphysical conceptions to practical and polit- 
 ical life. In the first enthusiasm of ideas men are apt to see 
 them everywhere, and to apply them in the most remote 
 sphere. They do not understand that the experience of ages 
 is required to enable them to fill up " the intermediate axioms." 
 Plato himself seems to have imagined that the truths of psy- 
 chology, like those of astronomy and harmonics, would be 
 arrived at by a process of deduction, and that the method 
 which he has pursued in the fourth book, of inferring them
 
 Ix PLATO 
 
 from experience and the use of language, was imperfect and 
 only provisional. But when, after having arrived at the idea 
 of good, which is the end of the science of dialectic, he is 
 asked, What is the nature, and what are the divisions of the 
 science? he refuses to answer, as if intending by the refusal 
 to intimate that the state of knowledge which then existed 
 was not such as would allow the philosopher to enter into 
 his final rest. The previous sciences must first be studied, 
 and will, we may add, continue to be studied till the end of 
 time, although in a sense different from any which Plato 
 could have conceived. But we may observe, that while he 
 is aware of the vacancy of his own ideal, he is full of enthu- 
 siasm in the contemplation of it. Looking into the orb of 
 light, he sees nothing, but he is warmed and elevated. The 
 Hebrew prophet believed that faith in God would enable him 
 to govern the world; the Greek philosopher imagined that 
 contemplation of the good would make a legislator. There 
 is as much to be filled up in the one case as in the other, and 
 the one mode of conception is to the Israelite what the other 
 is to the Greek. Both find a repose in a divine perfection, 
 which, whether in a more personal or impersonal form, exists 
 without them and independently of them, as well as within 
 them. 
 
 There is no mention of the idea of good in the " Timaeus," 
 nor of the divine Creator of the world in the " Republic " ; 
 and we are naturally led to ask in what relation they stand 
 to one another. Is God above or below the idea of good? or 
 is the Idea of Good another mode of conceiving God? The 
 latter appears to be the truer answer. To the Greek philos- 
 opher the perfection and unity of God was a far higher con- 
 ception than his personality, which he hardly found a word 
 to express, and which to him would have seemed to be bor- 
 rowed from mythology. To the Christian, on the other hand, 
 or to the modern thinker in general, it is difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to attach reality to what he terms mere abstraction; 
 while to Plato this very abstraction is the truest and most 
 real of all things. Hence, from a difference in forms of 
 thought, Plato appears to be resting on a creation of his own 
 mind only. But if we may be allowed to paraphrase the idea 
 of good by the words " intelligent principle of law and order
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixi 
 
 in the universe, embracing equally man and nature," we be- 
 gin to find a meeting-point between him and ourselves. 
 
 The question whether the ruler or statesman should be a 
 philosopher is one that has not lost interest in modern times. 
 In most countries of Europe and Asia there has been someone 
 in the course of ages who has truly united the power of com- 
 mand with the power of thought and reflection, as there have 
 been also many false combinations of these qualities. Some 
 kind of speculative power is necessary both in practical and 
 political life ; like the rhetorician in the " Phaedrus," men re- 
 quire to have a conception of the varieties of human character, 
 and to be raised on great occasions above the commonplaces of 
 ordinary life. Yet the idea of the philosopher-statesman has 
 never been popular with the mass of mankind; partly because 
 he cannot take the world into his confidence or make them 
 understand the motives from which he acts, and also because 
 they are jealous of a power which they do not understand. The 
 revolution which human nature desires to effect step by step in 
 many ages is likely to be precipitated by him in a single year 
 or life. They are afraid that in the pursuit of his greater aims 
 he may disregard the common feelings of humanity. He is too 
 apt to be looking into the distant future or back into the remote 
 past, and unable to see actions or events which, to use an ex- 
 pression of Plato's, " are tumbling out at his feet." Besides, 
 as Plato would say, there are other corruptions of these philo- 
 sophical statesmen. Either " the native hue of resolution is 
 sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and at the moment 
 when action above all things is required he is undecided, or gen- 
 eral principles are enunciated by him in order to cover some 
 change of policy ; or his ignorance of the world has made him 
 more easily fall a prey to the arts of others ; or in some cases he 
 has been converted into a courtier, who enjoys the luxury of 
 holding liberal opinions, but was never known to perform a lib- 
 eral action. No wonder that mankind have been in the habit of 
 calling statesmen of this class pedants, sophisters, doctrinaires, 
 visionaries. For, as we may be allowed to say, a little parody- 
 ing the words of Plato, " they have seen bad imitations of the 
 philosopher-statesman." But a man in whom the powers of 
 thought and action are perfectly balanced, equal to the present, 
 reaching forward to the future, " such a one," ruling in a con- 
 stitutional State, " they have never seen."
 
 Ixii PLATO 
 
 But as the philosopher is apt to fail in the routine of political 
 life, so the ordinary statesman is also apt to fail in extraordinary 
 crises. When the face of the world is beginning to alter, and 
 thunder is heard in the distance, he is still guided by his old 
 maxims, and is the slave of his inveterate party prejudices; he 
 cannot perceive the signs of the times ; instead of looking for- 
 ward he looks back; he learns nothing and forgets nothing; 
 with " wise saws and modern instances " he would stem the 
 rising tide of revolution. He lives more and more within the 
 circle of his own party, as the world without him becomes 
 stronger. This seems to be the reason why the old order of 
 things makes so poor a figure when confronted with the new, 
 why churches can never reform, why most political changes 
 are made blindly and convulsively. The great crises in the 
 history of nations have often been met by an ecclesiastical posi- 
 tiveness, and a more obstinate reassertion of principles, which 
 have lost their hold upon a nation. The fixed ideas of a reac- 
 tionary statesman may be compared to madness; they grow 
 upon him, and he becomes possessed by them; no judgment of 
 others is ever admitted by him to be weighed in the balance 
 against his own. 
 
 (8) Plato, laboring under what to modern readers appears 
 to have been a confusion of ideas, assimilates the State to the 
 individual, and fails to distinguish ethics from politics. He 
 thinks that to be most of a State which is most like one man, 
 and in which the citizens have the greatest uniformity of char- 
 . acter. He does not see that the analogy is partly fallacious, 
 and that the will or character of a State or nation is really the 
 balance or rather the surplus of individual wills, which are 
 limited by the condition of having to act in common. The 
 movement of a body of men can never have the pliancy or facil- 
 ity of a single man ; the freedom of the individual, which is al- 
 ways limited, becomes still more straitened when transferred 
 to a nation. The powers of action and feeling are necessarily 
 weaker and more balanced when they are diffused through a 
 community ; whence arises the often-discussed question, " Can 
 a nation, like an individual, have a conscience? " We hesitate 
 to say that the characters of nations are nothing more than the 
 sum of the characters of the individuals who compose them ; 
 because there may be tendencies in individuals which react upon
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixiii 
 
 one another. A whole nation may be wiser than any one man 
 in it ; or may be animated by some common opinion or feeling 
 which could not equally have affected the mind of a single per- 
 son, or may have been inspired by a leader of genius to perform 
 acts more than human. Plato does not appear to have analyzed 
 the complications which arise out of the collective action of 
 mankind. Neither is he capable of seeing that analogies, 
 though specious as arguments, may often have no foundation 
 in fact, or of distinguishing between what is intelligible or viv- 
 idly present to the mind, and what is true. In this respect he 
 is far below Aristotle, who is comparatively seldom imposed 
 upon by false analogies. He cannot disentangle the arts from 
 the virtues at least he is always arguing from one to the other. 
 His notion of music is transferred from harmony of sounds to 
 harmony of life: in this he is assisted by the ambiguities of 
 language as well as by the prevalence of Pythagorean notions. 
 And having once assimilated the State to the individual, he im- 
 agines that he will find the succession of States paralleled in the 
 lives of the individuals. 
 
 Still, through this fallacious medium, a real enlargement of 
 ideas is attained. When the virtues as yet presented no dis- 
 tinct conception to the mind, a great advance was made by the 
 comparison of them with the arts ; for virtue is partly art, and 
 has an outward form as well as an inward principle. The har- 
 mony of music affords a lively image of the harmonies of the 
 world and of human life, and may be regarded as a splendid 
 illustration which was naturally mistaken for a real analogy. 
 In the same way the identification of ethics with politics has a 
 tendency to give definiteness to ethics, and also to elevate and 
 ennoble men's notions of the aims of government and of the 
 duties of citizens; for ethics from one point of view may be 
 conceived as an idealized law and politics ; and politics, as ethics 
 reduced to the conditions of human society. There have been 
 evils which have arisen out of the attempt to identify them, and 
 this has led to the separation or antagonism of them, which has 
 been introduced by modern political writers. But we may like- 
 wise feel that something has been lost in their separation, and 
 that the ancient philosophers who estimated the moral and in- 
 tellectual well-being of mankind first, and the wealth of nations 
 and individuals second, may have a salutary influence on the
 
 Ixiv PLATO 
 
 speculations of modern times. Many political maxims origi- 
 nate in a reaction against an opposite error ; and when the errors 
 against which they were directed have passed away, they in turn 
 become errors. 
 
 III. Plato's views of education are in several respects re- 
 markable ; like the rest of the " Republic," they are partly Greek 
 and partly ideal, beginning with the ordinary curriculum of the 
 Greek youth, and extending to after-life. Plato is the first 
 writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the 
 whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which edu- 
 cation begins again (vi. 498 D). This is the continuous thread 
 which runs through the " Republic," and which more than any 
 other of his ideas admits of an application to modern life. 
 
 He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught ; 
 and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the " Protagoras," 
 that the virtues are one, and not many. He is not unwilling to 
 admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does 
 he assert in the " Republic " the involuntariness of vice, which 
 is maintained by him in the " Timaeus," " Sophist," and 
 "Laws" (cp. "Protag." 345 foil, 352, 355; " Apol." 25 E; 
 " Gorg." 468, 509 E). Nor do the so-called Platonic ideas re- 
 covered from a former state of existence affect his theory of 
 mental improvement. Still we observe in him the remains of 
 the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited 
 from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars 
 of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of 
 intelligence which is better than 10,000 eyes. The paradox 
 that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue 
 is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in 
 the supremacy given to justice over the rest ; the second in the 
 tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to 
 centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. 
 The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opin- 
 ion, though admitted to be a shadow of the true. In the " Re- 
 public " he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice 
 arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education ; 
 the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what 
 they do (v. 499 E). A faint allusion to the doctrine of remin- 
 iscence occurs in the tenth book (621 A) ; but Plato's views of
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION l x > 
 
 education have no more real connection with a previous state 
 of existence than our own ; he only proposes to elicit from the 
 mind that which is there already. Education is represented by 
 him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of 
 the soul toward the light. 
 
 He treats first of music or literature, which he divides into 
 true and false, and then goes on to gymnastics ; of infancy in 
 the " Republic " he takes no notice, though in the " Laws " he 
 gives sage counsels about the nursing of children and the man- 
 agement of the mothers, and would have an education which 
 is even prior to birth. But in the " Republic " he begins with 
 the age at which the child is capable of receiving ideas, and 
 boldly asserts, in language which sounds paradoxical to modern 
 ears, that he must be taught the false before he can learn the 
 true. The modern and ancient philosophical world are not 
 agreed about truth and falsehood; the one identifies truth al- 
 most exclusively with fact, the other with ideas. This is the 
 difference between ourselves and Plato, which is, however, 
 partly a difference of words (cp. supra, p. xxxviii). For we 
 too should admit that a child must receive many lessons which 
 he imperfectly understands ; he must be taught some things in 
 a figure only, some, too, which he can hardly be expected to be- 
 lieve when he grows older ; but we should limit the use of fiction 
 by the necessity of the case. Plato would draw the line differ- 
 ently ; according to him the aim of early education is not truth 
 as a matter of fact, but truth as a matter of principle ; the child 
 is to be taught first simple religious truths, and then sim- 
 ple moral truths, and insensibly to learn the lesson of good 
 manners and good taste. He would make an entire refor- 
 mation of the old mythology; like Xenophanes and Hera- 
 cleitus he is sensible of the deep chasm which separates his 
 own age from Homer and Hesiod, whom he quotes and in- 
 vests with an imaginary authority, but only for his own pur- 
 poses. The lusts and treacheries of the gods are to be ban- 
 ished ; the terrors of the world below are to be dispelled ; the 
 misbehavior of the Homeric heroes is not to be a model for 
 youth. But there is another strain heard in Homer which may 
 teach our youth endurance; and something may be learned in 
 medicine from the simple practice of the Homeric age. The 
 principles on which religion is to be based are two only: first,
 
 Ixvi PLATO 
 
 that God is true ; secondly, that he is good. Modern and Chris- 
 tian writers have often fallen short of these; they can hardly 
 be said to have gone beyond them. 
 
 The young are to be brought up in happy surroundings, out 
 of the way of sights or sounds which may hurt the character 
 or vitiate the taste. They are to live in an atmosphere of health ; 
 the breeze is always to be wafting to them the impressions of 
 truth and goodness. Could such an education be realized, or if 
 our modern religious education could be bound up with truth 
 and virtue and good manners and good taste, that would be the 
 best hope of human improvement. Plato, like ourselves, is 
 looking forward to changes in the moral and religious world, 
 and is preparing for them. He recognizes the danger of un- 
 settling young men's minds by sudden changes of laws and 
 principles, by destroying the sacredness of one set of ideas when 
 there is nothing else to take their place. He is afraid, too, of 
 the influence of the drama, on the ground that it encourages 
 false sentiment, and therefore he would not have his children 
 taken to the theatre ; he thinks that the effect on the spectators 
 is bad, and on the actors still worse. His idea of education is 
 that of harmonious growth, in which are insensibly learned 
 the lessons of temperance and endurance, and the body and 
 mind develop in equal proportions. The first principle which 
 runs through all art and nature is simplicity ; this also is to be 
 the rule of human life. 
 
 The second stage of education is gymnastics, which answers 
 to the period of muscular growth and development. The sim- 
 plicity which is enforced in music is extended to gymnastics; 
 Plato is aware that the training of the body may be inconsistent 
 with the training of the mind, and that bodily exercise may be 
 easily overdone. Excessive training of the body is apt to give 
 men a headache or to render them sleepy at a lecture on philoso- 
 phy, and this they attribute not to the true cause, but to the 
 nature of the subject. Two points are noticeable in Plato's 
 treatment of gymnastics : First, that the time of training is en- 
 tirely separated from the time of literary education. He seems 
 to have thought that two things of an opposite and different 
 nature could not be learned at the same time. Here we can 
 hardly agree with him; and, if we may judge by experience, 
 the effect of spending three years between the ages of fourteen
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixvii 
 
 and seventeen in mere bodily exercise would be far from im- 
 proving to the intellect. Secondly, he affirms that music and 
 gymnastics are not, as common opinion is apt to imagine, in- 
 tended, the one for the cultivation of the mind and the other of 
 the body, but that they are both equally designed for the im- 
 provement of the mind. The body, in his view, is the servant 
 of the mind ; the subjection of the lower to the higher is for the 
 advantage of both. And doubtless the mind may exercise a very 
 great and paramount influence over the body, if exerted not at 
 particular moments and by fits and starts, but continuously, in 
 making preparation for the whole of life. Other Greek writers 
 saw the mischievous tendency of Spartan discipline (Arist. 
 " Pol." viii. 4, i foil. ; Thuc. ii. 37, 39). But only Plato rec- 
 ognized the fundamental error on which the practice was based. 
 The subject of gymnastics leads Plato to the sister-subject 
 of medicine, which he further illustrates by the parallel of law. 
 The modern disbelief in medicine has led in this, as in some 
 other departments of knowledge, to a demand for greater sim- 
 plicity; physicians are becoming aware that they often make 
 diseases " greater and more complicated " by their treatment of 
 them (" Rep." iv. 426 A). In 2,000 years their art has made 
 but slender progress ; what they have gained in the analysis 
 of the parts is in a great degree lost by their feebler conception 
 of the human frame as a whole. They have attended more to 
 the cure of diseases than to the conditions of health ; and the 
 improvements in medicine have been more than counterbal- 
 anced by the disuse of regular training. Until lately they have 
 hardly thought of air and water, the importance of which was 
 well understood by the ancients ; as Aristotle remarks, " Air 
 and water, being the elements which we most use, have the 
 greatest effect upon health " (" Polit." vii. n, 4). For ages 
 physicians have been under the dominion of prejudices which 
 have only recently given way ; and now there are as many opin- 
 ions in medicine as in theology, and an equal degree of scepti- 
 cism and some want of toleration about both. Plato has several 
 good notions about medicine ; according to him, " the eye can- 
 not be cured without the rest of the body, nor the body without 
 the mind " (" Charm." 156 E). No man of sense, he says in 
 the " Timaeus," would take physic ; and we heartily sympathize 
 with him in the " Laws " when he declares that " the limbs of the
 
 Ixviii PLATO 
 
 rustic worn with toil will derive more benefit from warm baths 
 than from the prescriptions of a not over wise doctor " (vi. 
 761 C). But we can hardly praise him when, in obedience to 
 the authority of Homer, he depreciates diet, or approves of the 
 inhuman spirit in which he would get rid of invalid and useless 
 lives by leaving them to die. He does not seem to have con- 
 sidered that the " bridle of Theages " might be accompanied 
 by qualities which were of far more value to the State than the 
 health or strength of the citizens ; or that the duty of taking care 
 of the helpers might be an important element of education in a 
 State. The physician himself (this is a delicate and subtle ob- 
 servation) should not be a man in robust health ; he should have, 
 in modern phraseology, a nervous temperament ; he should have 
 experience of disease in his own person, in order that his powers 
 of observation may be quickened in the case of others. 
 
 The perplexity of medicine is paralleled by the perplexity of 
 law ; in which, again, Plato would have men follow the golden 
 rule of simplicity. Greater matters are to be determined by the 
 legislator or by the oracle of Delphi, lesser matters are to be 
 left to the temporary regulation of the citizens themselves. 
 Plato is aware that laissez faire is an important element of gov- 
 ernment. The diseases of a State are like the heads of a hydra ; 
 they multiply when they are cut off. The true remedy for them 
 is not extirpation, but prevention. And the way to prevent 
 them is to take care of education, and education will take care 
 of all the rest. So in modern times men have often felt that 
 the only political measure worth having the only one which 
 would produce any certain or lasting effect, was a measure of 
 national education. And in our own more than in any previous 
 age the necessity has been recognized of restoring the ever- 
 increasing confusion of law to simplicity and common-sense. 
 
 When the training in music and gymnastics is completed, 
 there follows the first stage of active and public life. But soon 
 education is to begin again from a new point of view. In the 
 interval between the fourth and seventh books we have dis- 
 cussed the nature of knowledge, and have thence been led to 
 form a higher conception of what was required of us. For 
 true knowledge, according to Plato, is of abstractions, and has 
 to do, not with particulars or individuals, but with universals 
 only; not with the beauties of poetry, but with the ideas of
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixix 
 
 philosophy. And the great aim of education is the cultivation 
 of the habit of abstraction. This is to be acquired through the 
 study of the mathematical sciences. They alone are capable of 
 giving ideas of relation, and of arousing the dormant energies 
 of thought. 
 
 Mathematics in the age of Plato comprehended a very small 
 part of that which is now included in them; but they bore a 
 much larger proportion to the sum of human knowledge. They 
 were the only organon of thought which the human mind at that 
 time possessed, and the only measure by which the chaos of par- 
 ticulars could be reduced to rule and order. The faculty which 
 they trained was naturally at war with the poetical or imagina- 
 tive ; and hence to Plato, who is everywhere seeking for abstrac- 
 tions and trying to get rid of the illusions of sense, nearly the 
 whole of education is contained in them. They seemed to have 
 an inexhaustible application, partly because their true limits 
 were not yet understood. These Plato himself is beginning to 
 investigate ; though not aware that number and figure are mere 
 abstractions of sense, he recognizes that the forms used by ge- 
 ometry are borrowed from the sensible world (vi. 510,511). He 
 seeks to find the ultimate ground of mathematical ideas in the 
 idea of good, though he does not satisfactorily explain the con- 
 nection between them ; and in his conception of the relation of 
 ideas to numbers, he falls very far short of the definiteness at- 
 tributed to him by Aristotle (" Met." i. 8, 24 ; ix. 17). But if 
 he fails to recognize the true limits of mathematics, he also 
 reaches a point beyond them ; in his view, ideas of number be- 
 come secondary to a higher conception of knowledge. The 
 dialectician is as much above the mathematician as the mathe- 
 matician is above the ordinary man (cp. vii. 526 D, 531 E). The 
 one, the self-proving, the good which is the higher sphere of 
 dialectic, is the perfect truth to which all things ascend, and in 
 which they finally repose. 
 
 This self-proving unity or idea of good is a mere vision of 
 which no distinct explanation can be given, relative only to a 
 particular stage in Greek philosophy. It is an abstraction under 
 which no individuals are comprehended, a whole which has no 
 parts (cf. Arist. " Nic. Eth." i. 4). The vacancy of such a 
 form was perceived by Aristotle, but not by Plato. Nor did he 
 recognize that in the dialectical process are included two or
 
 Ixx PLATO 
 
 more methods of investigation which are at variance with each 
 other. He did not see that whether he took the longer or the 
 shorter road, no advance could be made in this way. And yet 
 such visions often have an immense effect; for although the 
 method of science cannot anticipate science, the idea of science, 
 not as it is, but as it will be in the future, is a great and inspir- 
 ing principle. In the pursuit of knowledge we are always 
 pressing forward to something beyond us ; and as a false con- 
 ception of knowledge, for example the scholastic philosophy, 
 may lead men astray during many ages, so the true ideal, though 
 vacant, may draw all their thoughts in a right direction. It 
 makes a great difference whether the general expectation of 
 knowledge, as this indefinite feeling may be termed, is based 
 upon a sound judgment. For mankind may often entertain a 
 true conception of what knowledge ought to be when they have 
 but a slender experience of facts. The correlation of the sci- 
 ences, the consciousness of the unity of nature, the idea of clas- 
 sification, the sense of proportion, the unwillingness to stop 
 short of certainty or to confound probability with truth, are im- 
 portant principles of the higher education. Although Plato 
 could tell us nothing, and perhaps knew that he could tell us 
 nothing, of the absolute truth, he has exercised an influence on 
 the human mind which even at the present day is not exhausted ; 
 and political and social questions may yet arise in which the 
 thoughts of Plato may be read anew and receive a fresh 
 meaning. 
 
 The Idea of good is so called only in the " Republic," but 
 there are traces of it in other dialogues of Plato. It is a cause 
 as well as an idea, and from this point of view may be compared 
 with the creator of the " Timseus," who out of his goodness 
 created all things. It corresponds to a certain extent with the 
 modern conception of a law of nature, or of a final cause, or of 
 both in one, and in this regard may be connected with the meas- 
 ure and symmetry of the " Philebus." It is represented in the 
 Symposium under the aspect of beauty, and is supposed to be 
 attained there by stages of initiation, as here by regular grada- 
 tions of knowledge. Viewed subjectively, it is the process or 
 science of dialectic. This is the science which, according to 
 the " Phaedrus," is the true basis of rhetoric, which alone is able 
 to distinguish the natures and classes of men and things ; which
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxi 
 
 divides a whole into the natural parts, and reunites the scattered 
 parts into a natural or organized whole ; which defines the ab- 
 stract essences or universal ideas of all things, and connects 
 them ; which pierces the veil of hypotheses and reaches the final 
 cause or first principle of all ; which regards the sciences in re- 
 lation to the idea of good. This ideal science is the highest 
 process of thought, and may be described as the soul conversing 
 with herself or holding communion with eternal truth and 
 beauty, and in another form is the everlasting question and an- 
 swer the ceaseless interrogative of Socrates. The dialogues 
 of Plato are themselves examples of the nature and method of 
 dialectic. Viewed objectively, the idea of good is a power or 
 cause which makes the world without us correspond with the 
 world within. Yet this world without us is still a world of 
 ideas. With Plato the investigation of nature is another de- 
 partment of knowledge, and in this he seeks to attain only prob- 
 able conclusions (cp. " Timaeus," 44 D). 
 
 If we ask whether this science of dialectic which Plato only 
 half explains to us is more akin to logic or to metaphysics, the 
 answer is that in his mind the two sciences are not as yet dis- 
 tinguished, any more than the subjective and objective aspects 
 of the world and of man, which German philosophy has revealed 
 to us. Nor has he determined whether his science of dialectic 
 is at rest or in motion, concerned with the contemplation of ab- 
 solute being, or with a process of development and evolution. 
 Modern metaphysics may be described as the science of abstrac- 
 tions, or as the science of the evolution of thought; modern 
 logic, when passing beyond the bounds of mere Aristotelian 
 forms, may be defined as the science of method. The germ of 
 both of them is contained in the Platonic dialectic; all meta- 
 physicians have something in common with the ideas of Plato ; 
 all logicians have derived something from the method of Plato. 
 The nearest approach in modern philosophy to the universal 
 science of Plato, is to be found in the Hegelian " succession of 
 moments in the unity of the idea." Plato and Hegel alike seem 
 to have conceived the world as the correlation of abstractions ; 
 and not impossibly they would have understood one another 
 better than any of their commentators understand them (cp. 
 Swift's " Voyage to Laputa," c. 8 1 ). There is, however, a dif- 
 
 1 " Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for wit and learning, 
 I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that Homer and Aristotle might appear at
 
 Ixxii PLATO 
 
 ference between them : for whereas Hegel is thinking of all the 
 minds of men as one mind, which develops the stages of the idea 
 in different countries or at different times in the same country, 
 with Plato these gradations are regarded only as an order of 
 thought or ideas; the history of the human mind had not yet 
 dawned upon him. 
 
 Many criticisms may be made on Plato's theory of education. 
 While in some respects he unavoidably falls short of modern 
 thinkers, in others he is in advance of them. He is opposed to 
 the modes of education which prevailed in his own time; but 
 he can hardly be said to have discovered new ones. He does 
 not see that education is relative to the characters of individ- 
 uals ; he only desires to impress the same form of the state on 
 the minds of all. He has no sufficient idea of the effect of lit- 
 erature on the formation of the mind, and greatly exaggerates 
 that of mathematics. His aim is above all things to train the 
 reasoning faculties ; to implant in the mind the spirit and power 
 of abstraction; to explain and define general notions, and, if 
 possible, to connect them. No wonder that in the vacancy of 
 actual knowledge his followers, and at times even he himself, 
 should have fallen away from the doctrine of ideas, and have 
 returned to that branch of knowledge in which alone the rela- 
 tion of the one and many can be truly seen the science of num- 
 ber. In his views both of teaching and training he might be 
 styled, in modern language, a doctrinaire; after the Spartan 
 fashion he would have his citizens cast in one mould ; he does 
 not seem to consider that some degree of freedom, " a little 
 wholesome neglect," is necessary to strengthen and develop the 
 character and to give play to the individual nature. His citi- 
 zens would not have acquired that knowledge which in the 
 vision of Er is supposed to be gained by the pilgrims from their 
 experience of evil. 
 
 the head of all their commentators; but these were so numerous that some hundreds 
 were forced to attend in the court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could 
 distinguish these two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other. 
 Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his 
 age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld. Aristotle stooped 
 much, and made use of a staff. His visage was meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his 
 voice hollow. I soon discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of 
 the company, and had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a 
 ghost, who shall be nameless, 'That these commentators always kept in the most distant 
 quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame and 
 guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning of these authors to pos- 
 terity.' I introduced Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat 
 them better than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to enter 
 into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience with the account I gave 
 him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to him ; and he asked them ' whether the 
 rest of the tribe were as great dunces as themselves.' "
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxiii 
 
 On the other hand, Plato is far in advance of modern philos- 
 ophers and theologians when he teaches that education is to be 
 continued through life and will begin again in another. He 
 would never allow education of some kind to cease; although 
 he was aware that the proverbial saying of Solon, " I grow old 
 learning many things," cannot be applied literally. Himself 
 ravished with the contemplation of the idea of good, and de- 
 lighting in solid geometry ("Rep." vii. 528), he has no diffi- 
 culty in imagining that a lifetime might be passed happily in 
 such pursuits. We who know how many more men of business 
 there are in the world than real students or thinkers, are not 
 equally sanguine. The education which he proposes for his 
 citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of gen- 
 ius, interrupted, but only for a time, by practical duties a life 
 not for the many, but for the few. 
 
 Yet the thought of Plato may not be wholly incapable of ap- 
 plication to our own times. Even if regarded as an ideal which 
 can never be realized, it may have a great effect in elevating the 
 characters of mankind, and raising them above the routine of 
 their ordinary occupation or profession. It is the best form 
 under which we can conceive the whole of life. Nevertheless 
 the idea of Plato is not easily put into practice. For the educa- 
 tion of after-life is necessarily the education which each one 
 gives himself. Men and women cannot be brought together 
 in schools or colleges at forty or fifty years of age ; and if they 
 could the result would be disappointing. The destination of 
 most men is what Plato would call " the Den " for the whole of 
 life, and with that they are content. Neither have they teachers 
 or advisers with whom they can take counsel in riper years. 
 There is no " schoolmaster abroad " who will tell them of their 
 faults, or inspire them with the higher sense of duty, or with 
 the ambition of a true success in life ; no Socrates who will con- 
 vict them of ignorance ; no Christ, or follower of Christ, who 
 will reprove them of sin. Hence they have a difficulty in re- 
 ceiving the first element of improvement, which is self-knowl- 
 edge. The hopes of youth no longer stir them ; they rather 
 wish to rest than to pursue high objects. A few only who have 
 come across great men and women, or eminent teachers of re- 
 ligion and morality, have received a second life from them, and 
 have lighted a candle from the fire of their genius.
 
 Ixxiv PLATO 
 
 The want of energy is one of the main reasons why so few 
 persons continue to improve in later years. They have not the 
 will, and do not know the way. They " never try an experi- 
 ment," or look up a point of interest for themselves ; they make 
 no sacrifices for the sake of knowledge ; their minds, like their 
 bodies, at a certain age become fixed. Genius has been defined 
 as " the power of taking pains " ; but hardly anyone keeps up 
 his interest in knowledge throughout a whole life. The troub- 
 les of a family, the business of making money, the demands of 
 a profession, destroy the elasticity of the mind. The waxen 
 tablet of the memory which was once capable of receiving " true 
 thoughts and clear impressions " becomes hard and crowded ; 
 there is not room for the accumulations of a long life (" Theaet." 
 194 ff.). The student, as years advance, rather makes an ex- 
 change of knowledge than adds to his stores. There is no 
 pressing necessity to learn ; the stock of classics or history or 
 natural science which was enough for a man at twenty-five is 
 enough for him at fifty. Neither is it easy to give a definite 
 answer to anyone who asks how he is to improve. For self- 
 education consists in a thousand things, commonplace in them- 
 selves in adding to what we are by nature something of what 
 we are not ; in learning to see ourselves as others see us ; in judg- 
 ing, not by opinion, but by the evidence of facts ; in seeking out 
 the society of superior minds ; in a study of the lives and writ- 
 ings of great men ; in observation of the world and character ; 
 in receiving kindly the natural influence of different times of 
 life; in any act or thought which is raised above the practice 
 or opinions of mankind ; in the pursuit of some new or original 
 inquiry; in any effort of mind which calls forth some latent 
 power. 
 
 If anyone is desirous of carrying out in detail the Platonic 
 education of after-life, some such counsels as the following may 
 be offered to him : That he shall choose the branch of knowl- 
 edge to which his own mind most distinctly inclines, and in 
 which he takes the greatest delight, either one which seems to 
 connect with his own daily employment, or, perhaps, furnishes 
 the greatest contrast to it. He may study from the speculative 
 side the profession or business in which he is practically en- 
 gaged. He may make Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, 
 Bacon the friends and companions of his life. He may find op-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxv 
 
 portunities of hearing the living voice of a great teacher. He 
 may select for inquiry some point of history or some unex- 
 plained phenomenon of nature. An hour a day passed in such 
 scientific or literary pursuits will furnish as many facts as the 
 memory can retain, and will give him " a pleasure not to be re- 
 pented of " (" Timseus," 59 D). Only let him beware of being 
 the slave of crotchets, or of running after a will-o'-the-wisp in 
 his ignorance, or in his vanity of attributing to himself the gifts 
 of a poet or assuming the air of a philosopher. He should 
 know the limits of his own powers. Better to build up the 
 mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to 
 another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in 
 knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined 
 to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, " This is part 
 of another subject " (" Tim." 87 B) ; though we may also de- 
 fend our digression by his example (" Theset." 72, 77). 
 
 IV. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or 
 the natural growth of institutions which fill modern treatises on 
 political philosophy seem hardly ever to have attracted the at- 
 tention of Plato and Aristotle. The ancients were familiar 
 with the mutability of human affairs ; they could moralize over 
 the ruins of cities and the fall of empires (cp. Plato, " States- 
 man " 301, 302, and Sulpicius's " Letter to Cicero, ad Fam," 
 iv. 5) ; by them fate and chance were deemed to be real powers, 
 almost persons, and to have had a great share in political 
 events. The wiser of them like Thucydides believed that " what 
 had been would be again," and that a tolerable idea of the future 
 could be gathered from the past. Also they had dreams of a 
 golden age which existed once upon a time and might still exist 
 in some unknown land, or might return again in the remote 
 future. But the regular growth of a state enlightened by ex- 
 perience, progressing in knowledge, improving in the arts, of 
 which the citizens were educated by the fulfilment of political 
 duties, appears never to have come within the range of their 
 hopes and aspirations. Such a state had never been seen, and 
 therefore could not be conceived by them. Their experience 
 (cp. Aristot. " Metaph." xi. 21 ; Plato, " Laws " iii. 676-679) 
 led them to conclude that there had been cycles of civilization in 
 which the arts had been discovered and lost many times over,
 
 Ixxvi PLATO 
 
 and cities had been overthrown and rebuilt again and again, and 
 deluges and volcanoes and other natural convulsions had altered 
 the face of the earth. Tradition told them of many destruc- 
 tions of mankind and of the preservation of a remnant. The 
 world began again after a deluge and was reconstructed out of 
 the fragments of itself. Also they were acquainted with em- 
 pires of unknown antiquity, like the Egyptian or Assyrian ; but 
 they had never seen them grow, and could not imagine, any 
 more than we can, the state of man which preceded them. They 
 were puzzled and awestricken by the Egyptian monuments, of 
 which the forms, as Plato says, not in a figure, but literally, were 
 10,000 years old (" Laws " ii. 656 E), and they contrasted the 
 antiquity of Egypt with their own short memories. 
 
 The early legends of Hellas have no real connection with the 
 later history : they are at a distance, and the intermediate region 
 is concealed from view; there is no road or path which leads 
 from one to the other. At the beginning of Greek history, in 
 the vestibule of the temple, is seen standing first of all the figure 
 of the legislator, himself the interpreter and servant of the God. 
 The fundamental laws which he gives are not supposed to 
 change with time and circumstances. The salvation of the 
 State is held rather to depend on the inviolable maintenance of 
 them. They were sanctioned by the authority of heaven, and 
 it was deemed impiety to alter them. The desire to maintain 
 them unaltered seems to be the origin of what at first sight is 
 very surprising to us the intolerant zeal of Plato against inno- 
 vators in religion or politics (cp. "Laws" x. 907-909); al- 
 though with a happy inconsistency he is also willing that the 
 laws of other countries should be studied and improvements in 
 legislation privately communicated to the Nocturnal Council 
 (" Laws " xii. 951, 952). The additions which were made to 
 them in later ages in order to meet the increasing complexity of 
 affairs were still ascribed by a fiction to the original legislator ; 
 and the words of such enactments at Athens were disputed over 
 as if they had been the words of Solon himself. Plato hopes 
 to preserve in a later generation the mind of the legislator ; he 
 would have his citizens remain within the lines which he has 
 laid down for them. He would not harass them with minute 
 regulations, and he would have allowed some changes in the 
 laws : but not changes which would affect the fundamental in-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxvii 
 
 stitutions of the State, such for example as would convert an 
 aristocracy into a timocracy, or a timocracy into a popular form 
 of government. 
 
 Passing from speculations to facts, we observe that progress 
 has been the exception rather than the law of human history. 
 And therefore we are not surprised to find that the idea of prog- 
 ress is of modern rather than of ancient date ; and, like the idea 
 of a philosophy of history, is not more than a century or two 
 old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the 
 human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the 
 Christian Church, and to be due to the political and social im- 
 provements which they introduced into the world; and still 
 more in our own century to the idealism of the first French 
 Revolution and the triumph of American Independence ; and in 
 a yet greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth 
 of population in England and her colonies and in America. It 
 is also to be ascribed in a measure to the greater study of the 
 philosophy of history. The optimistic temperament of some 
 great writers has assisted the creation of it, while the opposite 
 character has led a few to regard the future of the world as 
 dark. The " spectator of all time and of all existence " sees 
 more of " the increasing purpose which through the ages ran " 
 than formerly : but to the inhabitant of a small State of Hellas 
 the vision was necessarily limited like the valley in which he 
 dwelt. There was no remote past on which his eye could rest, 
 nor any future from which the veil was partly lifted up by the 
 analogy of history. The narrowness of view, which to ourselves 
 appears so singular, was to him natural, if not unavoidable. 
 
 V. For the relation of the " Republic " to the " Statesman " 
 and the " Laws," the two other works of Plato which directly 
 treat of politics, see the introductions to the two latter ; a few 
 general points of comparison may be touched upon in this place. 
 
 And first of the "Laws." (i) The "Republic," though 
 probably written at intervals, yet, speaking generally and judg- 
 ing by the indications of thought and style, may be reasonably 
 ascribed to the middle period of Plato's life : the " Laws " are 
 certainly the work of his declining years, and some portions of 
 them at any rate seem to have been written in extreme old age. 
 (2) The "Republic" is full of hope and aspiration: the
 
 Ixxviii PLATO 
 
 " Laws " bear the stamp of failure and disappointment. The 
 one is a finished work which received the last touches of the 
 author: the other is imperfectly executed, and apparently un- 
 finished. The one has the grace and beauty of youth : the other 
 has lost the poetical form, but has more of the severity and 
 knowledge of life which are characteristic of old age. (3) The 
 most conspicuous defect of the " Laws " is the failure of dra- 
 matic power, whereas the " Republic " is full of striking con- 
 trasts of ideas and oppositions of character. (4) The " Laws " 
 may be said to have more the nature of a sermon, the " Repub- 
 lic " of a poem ; the one is more religious, the other more intel- 
 lectual. (5) Many theories of Plato, such as the doctrine of 
 ideas, the government of the world by philosophers, are not 
 found in the " Laws " ; the immortality of the soul is first men- 
 tioned in xii. 959, 967; the person of Socrates has altogether 
 disappeared. The community of women and children is re- 
 nounced ; the institution of common or public meals for women 
 (" Laws " vi. 781) is for the first time introduced (Ar. " Pol." 
 n - 6, 5). (6) There remains in the " Laws " the old enmity 
 to the poets (vii. 817), who are ironically saluted in high-flown 
 terms, and, at the same time, are peremptorily ordered out of 
 the city, if they are not willing to submit their poems to the cen- 
 sorship of the magistrates (cp. " Rep." iii. 398). (7) Though 
 the work is in most respects inferior, there are a few passages 
 in the " Laws," such as v. 727 ff. (the honor due to the soul), 
 viii. 835 ff. (the evils of licentious or unnatural love), the whole 
 of Book X. (religion), xi. 918 ff. (the dishonesty of retail 
 trade), and 923 ff. (bequests), which come more home to us, 
 and contain more of what may be termed the modern element 
 in Plato than almost anything in the " Republic." 
 
 The relation of the two works to one another is very well 
 given : 
 
 (i) By Aristotle in the " Politics " (ii. 6, 1-5) from the 
 side of the " Laws " : 
 
 " The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato's 
 later work, the ' Laws,' and therefore we had better examine 
 briefly the constitution which is therein described. In the ' Re- 
 public,' Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions 
 only ; such as the community of women and children, the com- 
 munity of property, and the constitution of the State. The
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxix 
 
 population is divided into two classes one of husbandmen, and 
 the other of warriors ; from this latter is taken a third class of 
 counsellors and rulers of the State. But Socrates has not de- 
 termined whether the husbandmen and artists are to have a 
 share in the government, and whether they too are to carry arms 
 and share in military service or not. He certainly thinks that 
 the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, 
 and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is filled 
 up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with dis- 
 cussions about the education of the guardians. In the ' Laws ' 
 there is hardly anything but laws ; not much is said about the 
 constitution. This, which he had intended to make more of the 
 ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal 
 form. For with the exception of the community of women and 
 property, he supposes everything to be the same in both states ; 
 there is to be the same education ; the citizens of both are to live 
 free from servile occupations, and there are to be common meals 
 in both. The only difference is that in the ' Laws ' the com- 
 mon meals are extended to women, and the warriors number 
 about 5,000, but in the ' Republic ' only 1,000." 
 
 (ii) By Plato in the " Laws " (Book v. 739 B-E), from the 
 side of the " Republic " : 
 
 " The first and highest form of the State and of the govern- 
 ment and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely 
 the ancient saying that ' Friends have all things in common.' 
 Whether there is now, or ever will be, this communion of 
 women and children and of property, in which the private and 
 individual is altogether banished from life, and things which 
 are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have be- 
 come common, and all men express praise and blame, and feel 
 joy and sorrow, on the same occcasions, and the laws unite the 
 city to the utmost whether all this is possible or not, I say that 
 no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a 
 State more exalted in virtue, or truer or better than this. Such 
 a State, whether inhabited by gods or sons of gods, will make 
 them blessed who dwell therein; and therefore to this we are 
 to look for the pattern of the State, and to cling to this, and, as 
 far as possible, to seek for one which is like this. The State 
 which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to 
 immortality and unity in the next degree ; and after that, by the
 
 Ixxx PLATO 
 
 grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will 
 begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second." 
 
 The comparatively short work called the " Statesman," or 
 " Politicus," in its style and manner is more akin to the " Laws," 
 while in its idealism it rather resembles the " Republic." As 
 far as we can judge by various indications of language and 
 thought, it must be later than the one and of course earlier than 
 the other. In both the " Republic " and " Statesman " a close 
 connection is maintained between politics and dialectic. In the 
 " Statesman," inquiries into the principles of method are inter- 
 spersed with discussions about politics. The comparative ad- 
 vantages of the rule of law and of a person are considered, and 
 the decision given in favor of a person (Arist. " Pol." Hi. 15, 
 16). But much may be said on the other side, nor is the oppo- 
 sition necessary ; for a person may rule by law, and law may be 
 so applied as to be the living voice of the legislator. As in the 
 " Republic," there is a myth, describing, however, not a future, 
 but a former existence of mankind. The question is asked, 
 " Whether the state of innocence which is described in the myth, 
 or a state like our own which possesses art and science and dis- 
 tinguishes good from evil, is the preferable condition of man." 
 To this question of the comparative happiness of civilized and 
 primitive life, which was so often discussed in the last century 
 and in our own, no answer is given. The " Statesman," though 
 less perfect in style than the " Republic " and of far less range, 
 may justly be regarded as one of the greatest of Plato's dia- 
 logues. 
 
 VI. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal republic to 
 be the vehicle of thoughts which they could not definitely ex- 
 press, or which went beyond their own age. The classical writ- 
 ing which approaches most nearly to the " Republic " of Plato 
 is the " De Republica " of Cicero ; but neither in this nor in any 
 other of his dialogues does he rival the art of Plato. The man- 
 ners are clumsy and inferior ; the hand of the rhetorician is ap- 
 parent at every turn. Yet noble sentiments are constantly re- 
 curring : the true note of Roman patriotism " We Romans are 
 a great people " resounds through the whole work. Like 
 Socrates, Cicero turns away from the phenomena of the heavens 
 to civil and political life. He would rather not discuss the " two
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxi 
 
 suns " of which all Rome was talking, when he can converse 
 about " the two nations in one " which had divided Rome ever 
 since the days of the Gracchi. Like Socrates again, speaking 
 in the person of Scipio, he is afraid lest he should assume too 
 much the character of a teacher, rather than of an equal who 
 is discussing among friends the two sides of a question. He 
 would confine the terms " king " or " state " to the rule of 
 reason and justice, and he will not concede that title either 
 to a democracy or to a monarchy. But under the rule of rea- 
 son and justice he is willing to include the natural superior 
 ruling over the natural inferior, which he compares to the 
 soul ruling over the body. He prefers a mixture of forms 
 of government to any single one. The two portraits of the 
 just and the unjust, which occur in the second book of the 
 " Republic," are transferred to the State Philus, one of the 
 interlocutors, maintaining against his will the necessity of in- 
 justice as a principle of government, while the other, Laelius, 
 supports the opposite thesis. His views of language and num- 
 ber are derived from Plato ; like him he denounces the drama. 
 He also declares that if his life were to be twice as long he 
 would have no time to read the lyric poets. The picture of 
 democracy is translated by him word for word, though he has 
 hardly shown himself able to " carry the jest " of Plato. He 
 converts into a stately sentence the humorous fancy about 
 the animals, who " are so imbued with the spirit of democracy 
 that they make the passers-by get out of their way" (i. 42). 
 His description of the tyrant is imitated from Plato, but is 
 far inferior. The second book is historical, and claims for 
 the Roman Constitution (which is to him the ideal) a founda- 
 tion of fact such as Plato probably intended to have given 
 to the Republic in the " Critias." His most remarkable im- 
 itation of Plato is the adaptation of the vision of Er, which 
 is converted by Cicero into the " Somnium Scipionis " ; he 
 has " romanized " the myth of the " Republic," adding an 
 argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the 
 " Phsedrus," and some other touches derived from the 
 " Phaedo" and the " Timseus." Though a beautiful tale and 
 containing splendid passages, the " Somnium Scipionis" is 
 very inferior to the vision of Er; it is only a dream, and 
 hardly allows the reader to suppose that the writer believes
 
 Ixxxii PLATO 
 
 in his own creation. Whether his dialogues were framed on 
 the model of the lost dialogues of Aristotle, as he himself tells 
 us, or of Plato, to which they bear many superficial resem- 
 blances, he is still the Roman orator; he is not conversing, 
 but making speeches, and is never able to mould the intractable 
 Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek Platonic dialogue. 
 But if he is defective in form, much more is he inferior to 
 the Greek in matter ; he nowhere in his philosophical writings 
 leaves upon our minds the impression of an original thinker. 
 
 Plato's " Republic " has been said to be a church and not 
 a State ; and such an ideal of a city in the heavens has always 
 hovered over the Christian world, and is embodied in St. Au- 
 gustine's " De Civitate Dei," which is suggested by the decay 
 and fall of the Roman Empire, much in the same manner in 
 which we may imagine the " Republic " of Plato to have been 
 influenced by the decline of Greek politics in the writer's own 
 age. The difference is that in the time of Plato the degen- 
 eracy, though certain, was gradual and insensible: whereas 
 the taking of Rome by the Goths stirred like an earthquake 
 the age of St. Augustine. Men were inclined to believe that 
 the overthrow of the city was to be ascribed to the anger 
 felt by the old Roman deities at the neglect of their worship. 
 St. Augustine maintains the opposite thesis; he argues that 
 the destruction of the Roman Empire is due, not to the rise 
 of Christianity, but to the vices of paganism. He wanders 
 over Roman history, and over Greek philosophy and myth- 
 ology, and finds everywhere crime, impiety, and falsehood. 
 He compares the worst parts of the gentile religions with the 
 best elements of the faith of Christ. He shows nothing of 
 the spirit which led others of the early Christian fathers to 
 recognize in the writings of the Greek philosophers the power 
 of the divine truth. He traces the parallel of the kingdom 
 of God, that is, the history of the Jews, contained in their 
 scriptures, and of the kingdoms of the world, which are found 
 in gentile writers, and pursues them both into an ideal future. 
 It need hardly be remarked that his use both of Greek and 
 of Roman historians and of the sacred writings of the Jews 
 is wholly uncritical. The heathen mythology, the Sybilline 
 oracles, the myths of Plato, the dreams of Neo-Platonists are 
 equally regarded by him as matter of fact. He must be ac-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxiii 
 
 knowledged to be a strictly polemical or controversial writer 
 who makes the best of everything on one side and the worst 
 of everything on the other. He has no sympathy with the old 
 Roman life as Plato has with Greek life, nor has he any idea 
 of the ecclesiastical kingdom which was to arise out of the 
 ruins of the Roman Empire. He is not blind to the defects 
 of the Christian Church, and looks forward to a time when 
 Christian and pagan shall be alike brought before the judg- 
 ment-seat, and the true City of God shall appear. . . . 
 The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of anti- 
 quarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Chris- 
 tian ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender 
 knowledge of the Greek literature and language. He was a 
 great genius and a noble character, yet hardly capable of 
 feeling or understanding anything external to his own theol- 
 ogy. Of all the ancient philosophers he is most attracted by 
 Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted with his writings. 
 He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation in the 
 " Timaeus " is derived from the narrative in Genesis ; and he 
 is strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato's saying 
 that " the philosopher is the lover of God," and the words of 
 the book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses 
 (Exod. iii. 14). He dwells at length on miracles performed 
 in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by him 
 as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of 
 the beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, 
 which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state 
 and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really 
 what to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs 
 to an age which has passed away. But it contains many fine 
 passages and thoughts which are for all time. 
 
 The short treatise " De Monarchia," of Dante, is by far the 
 most remarkable of mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of 
 the great genius in whom Italy and the Middle Ages are so 
 vividly reflected. It is the vision of a universal empire, which 
 is supposed to be the natural and necessary government of 
 the world, having a divine authority distinct from the papacy, 
 yet coextensive with it. It is not " the ghost of the dead 
 Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof," but 
 the legitimate heir and successor of it, justified by the ancient
 
 Ixxxiv PLATO 
 
 virtues of the Romans and the beneficence of their ru/e. Their 
 right to be the governors of the world is also confirmed by 
 the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged by St. Paul when 
 he appealed to Caesar, and even more emphatically by Christ 
 himself, who could not have made atonement for the sins of 
 men if he had not been condemned by a divinely authorized 
 tribunal. The necessity for the establishment of a universal 
 empire is proved partly by a priori arguments such as the unity 
 of God and the unity of the family or nation; partly by per- 
 versions of Scripture and history, by false analogies of nature, 
 by misapplied quotations from the classics, and by odd scraps 
 and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by no 
 means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). 
 But a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of 
 the world, which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope 
 of happiness or peace for mankind until all nations of the 
 earth are comprehended in a single empire. The whole trea- 
 tise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire was fixed 
 in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was 
 needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own 
 contemporaries seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, 
 or rather preaches, from the point of view, not of the eccle- 
 siastic, but of the layman, although, as a good Catholic, he 
 is willing to acknowledge that in certain respects the empire 
 must submit to the Church. The beginning and 'end of all 
 his noble reflections and of his arguments, good and bad, is 
 the aspiration " that in this little plot of earth belonging to 
 mortal man life may pass in freedom and peace." So inex- 
 tricably is his vision of the future bound up with the beliefs 
 and circumstances of his own age. 
 
 The " Utopia " of Sir Thomas More is a surprising monu- 
 ment of his genius, and shows a reach of thought far beyond 
 his contemporaries. The book was written by him at the 
 age of about thirty-four or thirty-five, and is full of the gen- 
 erous sentiments of youth. He brings the light of Plato to 
 bear upon the miserable state of his own country. Living 
 not long after the Wars of the Roses, and in the dregs of 
 the Catholic Church in England, he is indignant at the cor- 
 ruption of the clergy, at the luxury of the nobility and gentry, 
 at the sufferings of the poor, at the calamities caused by war.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxv 
 
 To the eye of More the whole world was in dissolution and 
 decay, and side by side with the misery and oppression which 
 he has described in the first book of the " Utopia," he places 
 in the second book the ideal State which by the help of Plato 
 he had constructed. The times were full of stir and intel- 
 lectual interest. The distant murmur of the Reformation was 
 beginning to be heard. To minds like More's, Greek litera- 
 ture was a revelation: there had arisen an art of interpreta- 
 tion, and the New Testament was beginning to be understood 
 as it had never been before, and has not often been since, 
 in its natural sense. The life there depicted appeared to him 
 wholly unlike that of Christian commonwealths, in which " he 
 saw nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring 
 their own commodities under the name and title of the Com- 
 monwealth." He thought that Christ, like Plato, " instituted 
 all things common," for which reason, he tells us, the citi- 
 zens of Utopia were the more willing to receive his doctrines. 1 
 The community of property is a fixed idea with him, though 
 he is aware of the arguments which may be urged on the 
 other side. 2 We wonder how in the reign of Henry VIII, 
 though veiled in another language and published in a foreign 
 country, such speculations could have been endured. 
 
 He is gifted with far greater dramatic invention than any- 
 one who succeeded him, with the exception of Swift. In the 
 art of feigning he is a worthy disciple of Plato. Like him, 
 starting from a small portion of fact, he founds his tale with 
 admirable skill on a few lines in the Latin narrative of the 
 voyages of Amerigo Vespucci. He is very precise about 
 dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that 
 the narrator of the tale must have been an eye-witness. We 
 are fairly puzzled by his manner of mixing up real and im- 
 aginary persons; his boy John Clement and Peter Giles, the 
 citizen of Antwerp, with whom he disputes about the precise 
 words which are supposed to have been used by the (imagi- 
 nary) Portuguese traveller, Raphael Hythloday. " I have the 
 
 1 " Howbeit, I think this was no small help and furtherance in the matter, that they 
 heard us say that Christ instituted among his, all things common, and that the same com- 
 munity doth yet remain in the Tightest Christian communities." "Utopia," English Re- 
 prints, p. 144. 
 
 a " These things (I say), when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, and do 
 nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refuse those laws, whereby all 
 men should have and enjoy equal portions of riches and commodities. For the wise man 
 did easily foresee this to be the one and only way to the wealth of a community, if 
 equality of all things should be brought in and established." " Utopia," English Re- 
 prints, pp. 67, 68.
 
 Ixxxvi PLATO 
 
 more cause," says Hythloday, " to fear that my words shall 
 not be believed, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I 
 myself would have believed another man telling the same, if 
 I had not myself seen it with mine own eyes." Or again : "If 
 you had been with me in Utopia, and had presently seen their 
 fashions and laws as I did which lived there five years and 
 more, and would never have come thence, but only to make 
 the new land known here," etc. More greatly regrets that 
 he forgot to ask Hythloday in what part of the world Utopia 
 is situated ; he " would have spent no small sum of money 
 rather than it should have escaped him," and he begs Peter 
 Giles to see Hythloday or write to him and obtain an answer 
 to the question. After this we are not surprised to hear that 
 a professor of divinity (perhaps " a late famous vicar of Croy- 
 don in Surrey," as the translator thinks) is desirous of being 
 sent thither as a missionary by the high-bishop, " yea, and 
 that he may himself be made Bishop of Utopia, nothing doubt- 
 ing that he must obtain this bishopric with suit; and he 
 counteth that a godly suit which proceedeth not of the desire 
 of honor or lucre, but only of a godly zeal." The design may 
 have failed through the disappearance of Hythloday, concern- 
 ing whom we have " very uncertain news " after his departure. 
 There is no doubt, however, that he had told More and Giles 
 the exact situation of the island, but unfortunately at the same 
 moment More's attention, as he is reminded in a letter from 
 Giles, was drawn off by a servant, and one of the company 
 from a cold caught on shipboard coughed so loud as to pre- 
 vent Giles from hearing. And " the secret has perished " 
 with him; to this day the place of Utopia remains unknown. 
 The words of Phsedrus (275 B), "O Socrates, you can 
 easily invent Egyptians or anything," are recalled to our mind 
 as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the 
 work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. 
 More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and 
 far more tolerant. The Utopians do not allow him who be- 
 lieves not in the immortality of the soul to share in the admin- 
 istration of the State (cp. "Laws" x. 908 foil.), " howbeit 
 they put him to no punishment, because they be persuaded that 
 it is in no man's power to believe what he list " ; and " no 
 man is to be blamed for reasoning in support of his own re-
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxvii 
 
 ligion." * In the public services " no prayers be used, but such 
 as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to 
 any sect." He says significantly (p. 143), "There be that 
 give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of 
 famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and high- 
 est God. But the most and the wisest part, rejecting all these, 
 believe that there is a certain godly power unknown, far 
 above the capacity and reach of man's wit, dispersed through- 
 out all the world, not in bigness, but in virtue and power. 
 Him they call the Father of All. To him alone they attribute 
 the beginnings, the increasings, the proceedings, the changes, 
 and the ends of all things. Neither give they any divine hon- 
 ors to any other than him." So far was More from sharing 
 the popular beliefs of his time. Yet at the end he reminds 
 us that he does not in all respects agree with the customs and 
 opinions of the Utopians which he describes. And we should 
 let him have the benefit of this saving clause, and not rudely 
 withdraw the veil behind which he has been pleased to con- 
 ceal himself. 
 
 Nor is he less in advance of popular opinion in his political 
 and moral speculations. He would like to bring military 
 glory into contempt; he would set all sorts of idle people to 
 profitable occupation, including in the same class, priests, 
 women, noblemen, gentlemen, and " sturdy and valiant beg- 
 gars," that the labor of all may be reduced to six hours a day. 
 His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reforma- 
 tion of offenders ; his detestation of priests and lawyers ; 2 
 his remark that " although everyone may hear of ravenous 
 dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find 
 States that are well and wisely governed," are curiously at 
 variance with the notions of his age and, indeed, with his own 
 life. There are many points in which he shows a modern feel- 
 ing and a prophetic insight like Plato. He is a sanitary re- 
 former; he maintains that civilized States have a right to the 
 
 1 " One of our company in my presence was sharply punished. He, as soon as he was 
 baptized, began against our wills, with more earnest affection than wisdom to reason of 
 Christ's religion, and began to wax so hot in this matter, that he did not only prefer our 
 religion before all other, but also did despise and condemn all other, calling them profane, 
 and the followers of them wicked and devilish, and the children of the everlasting damna- 
 tion. When he had thus longreasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and 
 condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a 
 raiser up of dissension among the people " (p. 145). 
 
 y Compare his satirical observation : " They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding 
 holiness, and therefore very few " (p. 150).
 
 Ixxxviii PLATO 
 
 soil of waste countries ; he is inclined to the opinion which 
 places happiness in virtuous pleasures, but herein, as he thinks, 
 not disagreeing from those other philosophers who define 
 virtue to be a life according to nature. He extends the idea 
 of happiness so as to include the happiness of others ; and 
 he argues ingeniously, " All men agree that we ought to make 
 others happy ; but if others, how much more ourselves ! " 
 And still he thinks that there may be a more excellent way, 
 but to this no man's reason can attain unless heaven should 
 inspire him with a higher truth. His ceremonies before mar- 
 riage ; his humane proposal that war should be carried on 
 by assassinating the leaders of the enemy, may be compared 
 to some of the paradoxes of Plato. He has a charming fancy, 
 like the affinities of Greeks and barbarians in the " Timaeus," 
 that the Utopians learned the language of the Greeks with the 
 more readiness because they were originally of the same race 
 with them. He is penetrated with the spirit of Plato, and 
 quotes or adapts many thoughts both from the " Republic " 
 and from the " Timaeus." He prefers public duties to private, 
 and is somewhat impatient of the importunity of relations. 
 His citizens have no silver or gold of their own, but are ready 
 enough to pay them to their mercenaries (cp. " Rep." iv. 422, 
 423). There is nothing of which he is more contemptuous 
 than the love of money. Gold is used for fetters of criminals, 
 and diamonds and pearls for children's necklaces. 1 
 
 Like Plato he is full of satirical reflections on governments 
 and princes ; on the state of the world and of knowledge. 
 The hero of his discourse (Hythloday) is very unwilling to 
 become a minister of state, considering that he would lose his 
 independence, and his advice would never be heeded. 2 He 
 ridicules the new logic of his time ; the Utopians could never 
 be made to understand the doctrine of Second Intentions. 3 He 
 
 1 When the ambassadors came arrayed in gold and peacocks' feathers, " to the eyes of 
 all the Utopians except very few, which had been in other countries for some reasonable 
 cause, all that gorgeousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproachful. In so much 
 that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords passing 
 over the ambassadors themselves without any honor, judging them by their wearing of 
 golden chains to be bondmen. You should have seen children also, that have cast away 
 their pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassador's 
 caps, dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them' Look, mother, 
 how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a little 
 child still.' But the mother; yea and that also in good earnest: ' Peace, son,' saith she, 
 ' I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools ' " (p. 102). 
 
 a Cp. an exquisite passage at p. 35, of which the conclusion is as follows : " And verily 
 it is naturally given . . . suppressed and ended." 
 
 1 " For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Ixxxix 
 
 is very severe on the sports of the gentry ; the Utopians count 
 " hunting the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject part of 
 butchery." He quotes the words of the " Republic " in which 
 the philosopher is described " standing out of the way under 
 a wall until the driving storm of sleet and rain be overpast," 
 which admit of a singular application to More's own fate; 
 although, writing twenty years before (about the year 1514), 
 he can hardly be supposed to have foreseen this. There is 
 no touch of satire which strikes deeper than his quiet remark 
 that the greater part of the precepts of Christ are more at 
 variance with the lives of ordinary Christians than the dis- 
 course of Utopia. 1 
 
 The " New Atlantis " is only a fragment, and far inferior 
 in merit to the " Utopia." The work is full of ingenuity, but 
 wanting in creative fancy, and by no means impresses the 
 reader with a sense of credibility. In some places Lord Bacon 
 is characteristically different from Sir Thomas More, as, for 
 example, in the external state which he attributes to the gov- 
 ernor of Salomon's House, whose dress he minutely describes, 
 while to Sir Thomas More such trappings appear simply 
 ridiculous. Yet, after this program of dress, Bacon adds 
 the beautiful trait, " that he had a look as though he pitied 
 men." Several things are borrowed by him from the 
 " Timaeus " ; but he has injured the unity of style by adding 
 thoughts and passages which are taken from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The " City of the Sun," written by Campanella (1568-1639), 
 a Dominican friar, several years after the " New Atlantis " 
 of Bacon, has many resemblances to the " Republic " of Plato. 
 The citizens have wives and children in common ; their mar- 
 riages are of the same temporary sort, and are arranged by 
 the magistrates from time to time. They do not, however, 
 adopt his system of lots, but bring together the best natures, 
 male and female, " according to philosophical rules." The 
 
 suppositions, very wittily invented in the small logicals, which here our children in every 
 place do learn. Furthermore, they were never yet able to find out the second intentions ; 
 insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, as they call him, 
 though he be (as you know) bigger than was ever any giant, yea, and pointed to us even 
 with our finger " (p. 105). 
 
 1 " And yet the most part of them is more dissident from the manners of the world now- 
 adays than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your 
 counsel (as I suppose) because they saw men evil-willing to frame their manners to 
 Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried h : doctrine, and, like a rule of lead, have ap- 
 plied it to men's mantiers, that by some means at the least way, they might agree to- 
 gether " (p. 66).
 
 XC PLATO 
 
 infants until two years of age are brought up by their mothers 
 in public temples; and since individuals for the most part 
 educate their children badly, at the beginning of their third 
 year they are committed to the care of the State, and are 
 taught at first, not out of books, but from paintings of all 
 kinds, which are emblazoned on the walls of the city. The 
 city has six interior circuits of walls, and an outer wall which 
 is the seventh. On this outer wall are painted the figures of 
 legislators and philosophers, and on each of the interior walls 
 the symbols or forms of some one of the sciences are deline- 
 ated. The women are, for the most part, trained, like the 
 men, in warlike and other exercises ; but they have two special 
 occupations of their own. After a battle, they and the boys 
 soothe and relieve the wounded warriors ; also they encourage 
 them with embraces and pleasant words (cp. Plato " Rep." v. 
 468). Some elements of the Christian or Catholic religion 
 are preserved among them. The life of the apostles is greatly 
 admired by this people because they had all things in com- 
 mon; and the short prayer which Jesus Christ taught men 
 is used in their worship. It is a duty of the chief magistrates 
 to pardon sins, and therefore the whole people make secret 
 confession of them to the magistrates, and they to their chief, 
 who is a sort of Rector Metaphysicus ; and by this means 
 he is well informed of all that is going on in the minds of 
 men. After confession, absolution is granted to the citizens 
 collectively, but no one is mentioned by name. There also 
 exists among them a practice of perpetual prayer, performed 
 by a succession of priests, who change every hour. Their 
 religion is a worship of God in trinity, that is of Wisdom, 
 Love, and Power, but without any distinction of persons. 
 They behold in the sun the reflection of his glory; mere 
 graven images they reject, refusing to fall under the " tyr- 
 anny " of idolatry. 
 
 Many details are given about their customs of eating and 
 drinking, about their mode of dressing, their employments, 
 their wars. Campanella looks forward to a new mode of edu- 
 cation, which is to be a study of nature, and not of Aristotle. 
 He would not have his citizens waste their time in the con- 
 sideration of what he calls " the dead signs of things." He 
 remarks that he who knows one science only, does not really
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xci 
 
 know that one any more than the rest, and insists strongly 
 on the necessity of a variety of knowledge. More scholars 
 are turned out in the City of the Sun in one year than by 
 contemporary methods in ten or fifteen. He evidently be- 
 lieves, like Bacon, that henceforward natural science will play 
 a great part in education, a hope which seems hardly to have 
 been realized, either in our own or in any former age; at 
 any rate the fulfilment of it has been long deferred. 
 
 There is a good deal of ingenuity and even originality in 
 this work, and a most enlightened spirit pervades it. But it 
 has little or no charm of style, and falls very far short of 
 the " New Atlantis " of Bacon, and still more of the " Utopia " 
 of Sir Thomas More. It is full of inconsistencies, and though 
 borrowed from Plato, shows but a superficial acquaintance 
 with his writings. It is a work such as one might expect to 
 have been written by a philosopher and man of genius who 
 was also a friar, and who had spent twenty-seven years of his 
 life in a prison of the Inquisition. The most interesting feature 
 of the book, common to Plato and Sir Thomas More, is the 
 deep feeling which is shown by the writer, of the misery and 
 ignorance prevailing among the lower classes in his own 
 time. Campanella takes note of Aristotle's answer to Plato's 
 community of property, that in a society where all things are 
 common, no individual would have any motive to work (Arist. 
 " Pol." ii. 5, 6) ; he replies that his citizens being happy 
 and contented in themselves (they are required to work only 
 four hours a day), will have greater regard for their fellows 
 than exists among men at present. He thinks, like Plato, that 
 if he abolishes private feelings and interests, a great public 
 feeling will take their place. 
 
 Other writings on ideal States, such as the " Oceana " of 
 Harrington, in which the Lord Archon, meaning Cromwell, 
 is described, not as he was, but as he ought to have been ; or 
 the " Argenis " of Barclay, which is a historical allegory of 
 his own time, are too unlike Plato to be worth mentioning. 
 More interesting than either of these, and far more Platonic 
 in style and thought, is Sir John Eliot's " Monarchy of Man," 
 in which the prisoner of the Tower, no longer able " to be a 
 politician in the land of his birth," turns away from politics 
 to view " that other city which is within him," and finds on
 
 xcii PLATO 
 
 the very threshold of the grave that the secret of human hap- 
 piness is the mastery of self. The change of government in 
 the time of the English Commonwealth set men thinking 
 about first principles, and gave rise to many works of this 
 class. . . . The great original genius of Swift owes noth- 
 ing to Plato; nor is there any trace in the conversation or 
 in the works of Dr. Johnson of any acquaintance with his 
 writings. He probably would have refuted Plato without 
 reading him, in the same fashion in which he supposed him- 
 self to have refuted Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non- 
 existence of matter. If we except the so-called English Plat- 
 onists, or rather Neo-Platonists, who never understood their 
 master, and the writings of Coleridge, who was to some ex- 
 tent a kindred spirit, Plato has left no permanent impression 
 on English literature. 
 
 VII. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the 
 same way that they are affected by the examples of eminent 
 men. Neither the one nor the other is immediately applicable 
 to practice, but there is a virtue flowing from them which 
 tends to raise individuals above the common routine of so- 
 ciety or trade, and to elevate States above the mere interests 
 of commerce or the necessities of self-defence. Like the ideals 
 of art they are partly framed by the omission of particulars ; 
 they require to be viewed at a certain distance, and are apt 
 to fade away if we attempt to approach them. They gain 
 an imaginary distinctness when embodied in a State or in a 
 system of philosophy, but they still remain the visions of " a 
 world unrealized." More striking and obvious to the ordinary 
 mind are the examples of great men, who have served their 
 own generation and are remembered in another. Even in our 
 own family circle there may have been someone, a woman, 
 or even a child, in whose face has shone forth a goodness more 
 than human. The ideal then approaches nearer to us, and 
 we fondly cling to it. The ideal of the past, whether of our 
 own past lives or of former states of society, has a singular fas- 
 cination for the minds of many. Too late we learn that such 
 ideals cannot be recalled, though the recollection of them may 
 have a humanizing influence on other times. But the abstrac- 
 tions of philosophy are to most persons cold and vacant ; they 
 give light without warmth; they are like the full moon in
 
 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION xciii 
 
 the heavens when there are no stars appearing. Men cannot 
 live by thought alone ; the world of sense is always breaking 
 in upon them. They are for the most part confined to a cor- 
 ner of earth, and see but a little way beyond their own home 
 or place of abode ; they " do not lift up their eyes to the 
 hills " ; they are not awake when the dawn appears. But in 
 Plato we have reached a height from which a man may look 
 into the distance ("Rep." iv. 445 C) and behold the future 
 of the world and of philosophy. The ideal of the State and 
 of the life of the philosopher; the ideal of an education con- 
 tinuing through life and extending equally to both sexes; 
 the ideal of the unity and correlation of knowledge ; the faith 
 in good and immortality are the vacant forms of light on 
 which Plato is seeking to fix the eye of mankind. 
 
 VIII. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the 
 horizon in Greek philosophy, float before the minds of men 
 in our own day: one seen more clearly than formerly, as 
 though each year and each generation brought us nearer to 
 some great change ; the other almost in the same degree retir- 
 ing from view behind the laws of nature, as if oppressed by 
 them, but still remaining a silent hope of we know not what 
 hidden in the heart of man. The first ideal is the future of 
 the human race in this world ; the second the future of the 
 individual in another. The first is the more perfect realiza- 
 tion of our own present life ; the second, the abnegation of 
 it : the one, limited by experience, the other, transcending it. 
 Both of them have been and are powerful motives of action j 
 there are a few in whom they have taken the place of all 
 earthly interests. The hope of a future for the human race 
 at first sight seems to be the more disinterested, the hope of 
 Individual existence the more egotistical, of the two motives. 
 But when men have learned to resolve their hope of a future 
 either for themselves or for the world into the will of God 
 " not my will, but thine," the difference between them falls 
 away; and they may be allowed to make either of them the 
 basis of their lives, according to their own individual charac- 
 ter or temperament. There is as much faith in the willing- 
 ness to work for an unseen future in this world as in an- 
 other. Neither is it inconceivable that some rare nature may 
 feel his duty to another generation, or to another century, al-
 
 xciv PLATO 
 
 most as strongly as to his own, or that, living always in the 
 presence of God, he may realize another world as vividly as 
 he does this. 
 
 The greatest of all ideals may, or rather must be conceived 
 by us under similitudes derived from human qualities; al- 
 though sometimes, like the Jewish prophets, we may dash 
 away these figures of speech and describe the nature of God 
 only in negatives. These again by degrees acquire a posi- 
 tive meaning. It would be well if, when meditating on the 
 higher truths either of philosophy or religion, we sometimes 
 substituted one form of expression for another, lest through 
 the necessities of language we should become the slaves of 
 mere words. 
 
 There is a third ideal, not the same, but akin to these, which 
 has a place in the home and heart of every believer in the 
 religion of Christ, and in which men seem to find a nearer 
 and more familiar truth, the Divine man, the Son of Man, 
 the Saviour of mankind, who is the first-born and head of 
 the whole family in heaven and earth, in whom the divine and 
 human, that which is without and that which is within the 
 range of our earthly faculties, are indissolubly united. Neither 
 is this divine form of goodness wholly separable from the 
 ideal of the Christian Church, which is said in the New Testa- 
 ment to be " his body," or at variance with those other images 
 of good which Plato sets before us. We see him in a figure 
 only, and of figures of speech we select but a few, and those 
 the simplest, to be the expression of him. We behold him 
 in a picture, but he is not there. We gather up the fragments 
 of his discourses, but neither do they represent him as he 
 truly was. His dwelling is neither in heaven nor earth, but 
 in the heart of man. This is that image which Plato saw 
 dimly in the distance, which, when existing among men, he 
 called, in the language of Homer, " the likeness of God " 
 ("Rep." vi. 501 B), the likeness of a nature which in all 
 ages men have felt to be greater and better than themselves, 
 and which in endless forms, whether derived from Scripture 
 or nature, from the witness of history or from the human 
 heart, regarded as a person or not as a person, with or with- 
 out parts or passions, existing in space or not in space, is 
 and will always continue to be to mankind the Idea of Good. 
 
 B..J.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 OF WEALTH, JUSTICE, MODERATION, AND THEIR 
 OPPOSITES 
 
 PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE 
 
 SOCRATES, who is the narrator. CEPHALUS. 
 
 GLAUCON. THRASYMACHUS. 
 
 ADEIMANTUS. CLEITOPHON. 
 
 POLEMARCHUS. 
 
 And others who are mute auditors. 
 
 The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus ; and the whole dia- 
 logue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus 
 Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the 
 Timseus. 
 
 1WENT down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon, the 
 son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the 
 goddess ; * and also because I wanted to see in what man- 
 ner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. 
 I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but 
 that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. 
 When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, 
 we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant 
 Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, chanced to catch sight of 
 us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and 
 told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant 
 took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said, Polemarchus 
 desires you to wait. 
 
 I turned round, and asked him where his master was. 
 
 There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will 
 only wait. 
 
 1 Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.
 
 2 PLATO 
 
 Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes 
 Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon's 
 brother, Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and several others who 
 had been at the procession. 
 
 Polemarchus said to me, I perceive, Socrates, that you and 
 your companion are already on your way to the city. 
 
 You are not far wrong, I said. 
 
 But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will 
 have to remain where you are. 
 
 May there not be the alternative, I said> that we may per- 
 suade you to let us go? 
 
 But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you? he 
 said. 
 
 Certainly not, replied Glaucon. 
 
 Then we are not going to listen ; of that you may be assured. 
 
 Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race 
 on horseback in honor of the goddess which will take place 
 in the evening? 
 
 With horses ! I replied. That is a novelty. Will horsemen 
 carry torches and pass them one to another during the race? 
 
 Yes, said Polemarchus; and not only so, but a festival will 
 be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let 
 us rise soon after supper and see this festival; there will be 
 a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. 
 Stay then, and do not be perverse. 
 
 Glaucon said, I suppose, since you insist, that we must. 
 
 Very good, I replied. 
 
 Accordingly we went with Polemarchus to his house; and 
 there we found his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, and 
 with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Charmantides the 
 Paeanian, and Cleitophon, the son of Aristonymus. There too 
 was Cephalus, the father of Polemarchus, whom I had not seen 
 for a long time, and I thought him very much aged. He was 
 seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, 
 for he had been sacrificing in the court ; and there were some 
 other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle, upon which 
 we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said : 
 
 You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought:
 
 THE REPUBLIC 3 
 
 If I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to 
 come to me. But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and 
 therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus. For, let 
 me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, 
 the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation. 
 Do not, then, deny my request, but make our house your re- 
 sort and keep company with these young men; we are old 
 friends, and you will be quite at home with us. 
 
 I replied : There is nothing which for my part I like bet- 
 ter, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard 
 them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may 
 have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way 
 is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. And this is a 
 question which I should like to ask of you, who have arrived 
 at that time which the poets call the " threshold of old age " : 
 Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give of it ? 
 
 I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. 
 Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as 
 the old proverb says ; and at our meetings the tale of my 
 acquaintance commonly is : I cannot eat, I cannot drink ; the 
 pleasures of youth and love are fled away ; there was a good 
 time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. 
 Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by 
 relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their 
 old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers 
 seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old 
 age were the cause, I too, being old, and every other old man 
 would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experi- 
 ence, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I 
 remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the 
 question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles are you 
 still the man you were ? Peace, he replied ; most gladly have 
 I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had 
 escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have 
 often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to 
 me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly 
 old age has a great sense of calm and freedom ; when the pas- 
 sions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed 
 from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. 
 The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the com-
 
 4 PLATO 
 
 plaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, 
 which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for 
 he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the 
 pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition 
 youth and age are equally a burden. 
 
 I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that 
 he might go on Yes, Cephalus, I said; but I rather suspect 
 that people in general are not convinced by you when you 
 speak thus ; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not 
 because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich, 
 and wealth is well known to be a great comforter. 
 
 You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and 
 there is something in what they say; not, however, so much 
 as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles an- 
 swered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that 
 he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was 
 an Athenian : " If you had been a native of my country or 
 I of yours, neither of us would have been famous." And to 
 those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same 
 reply may be made ; for to the good poor man old age can- 
 not be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace 
 with himself. 
 
 May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most 
 part inherited or acquired by you ? 
 
 Acquired ! Socrates ; do you want to know how much I 
 acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway 
 between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather, 
 whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patri- 
 mony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now ; 
 but my father, Lysanias, reduced the property below what it 
 is at present; and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my 
 sons not less, but a little more, than I received. 
 
 That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because 
 I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a charac- 
 teristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of 
 those who have acquired them ; the makers of fortunes have a 
 second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the 
 affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their 
 children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use 
 and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence
 
 THE REPUBLIC 5 
 
 they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing 
 but the praises of wealth. 
 
 That is true, he said. 
 
 Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question? 
 What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you 
 have reaped from your wealth ? 
 
 One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince 
 others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks 
 himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind 
 which he never had before ; the tales of a world below and the 
 punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were 
 once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with 
 the thought that they may be true : either from the weakness of 
 age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, 
 he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms 
 crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider 
 what wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that 
 the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like 
 a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark 
 forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet 
 hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age : 
 
 " Hope," he says, " cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and 
 holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey 
 hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man. " 
 
 How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of 
 riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he 
 has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either in- 
 tentionally or unintentionally ; and when he departs to the world 
 below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the 
 gods or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of 
 mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes ; and there- 
 fore I say, that, setting one thing against another, of the many 
 advantages which wealth has to give, to a man of sense this is 
 in my opinion the greatest. 
 
 Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, 
 what is it ? to speak the truth and to pay your debts no more 
 than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Sup- 
 pose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms 
 with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind,
 
 6 PLATO 
 
 ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I 
 ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than 
 they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one 
 who is in his condition. 
 
 You are quite right, he replied. 
 
 But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts 
 is not a correct definition of justice. 
 
 Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said 
 Polemarchus, interposing. 
 
 I fear, said Cephalus, that I must go now, for I have to look 
 after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Polem- 
 archus and the company. 
 
 Is not Polemarchus your heir? I said. 
 
 To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sac- 
 rifices. 
 
 Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simon- 
 ides say, and according to you, truly say, about justice? 
 
 He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying 
 so he appears to me to be right. 
 
 I shall be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired 
 man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the re- 
 verse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we 
 were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms 
 or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his 
 right senses ; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. 
 
 True. 
 
 Then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I 
 am by no means to make the return ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 When Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was jus- 
 tice, he did not mean to include that case? 
 
 Certainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to 
 to good to a friend, and never evil. 
 
 You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to 
 the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not 
 the repayment of a debt that is what you would imagine him 
 to say? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them ? 
 
 To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them ;
 
 THE REPUBLIC 7 
 
 and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due 
 or proper to him that is to say, evil. 
 
 Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to 
 have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant 
 to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to 
 him, and this he termed a debt. 
 
 That must have been his meaning, he said. 
 
 By heaven ! I replied ; and if we asked him what due or proper 
 thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you 
 think that he would make to us ? 
 
 He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat 
 and drink to human bodies. 
 
 And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to 
 what? 
 
 Seasoning to food. 
 
 And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? 
 
 If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the 
 preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to 
 friends and evil to enemies. 
 
 That is his meaning, then? 
 
 I think so. 
 
 And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his 
 enemies in time of sickness ? 
 
 The physician. 
 
 Or when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea? 
 
 The pilot. 
 
 And in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is 
 the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to 
 his friend? 
 
 In going to war against the one and in making alliances with 
 the other. 
 
 But when a man is well, .my dear Polemarchus, there is no 
 need of a physician? 
 
 No. 
 
 And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? 
 
 No. 
 
 Then in time of peace justice will be of no use? 
 
 I am very far from thinking so. 
 
 You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in 
 war?
 
 8 PLATO 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes that is what 
 you mean ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in 
 time of peace ? 
 
 In contracts, Socrates, justice is of use. 
 
 And by contracts you mean partnerships ? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 But is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and 
 better partner at a game of draughts? 
 
 The skilful player. 
 
 And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more 
 useful or better partner than the builder? 
 
 Quite the reverse. 
 
 Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better 
 partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp- 
 player is certainly a better partner than the just man? 
 
 In a money partnership. 
 
 Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money ; for 
 you do not want a just man to be your counsellor in the pur- 
 chase or sale of a horse ; a man who is knowing about horses 
 would be better for that, would he not ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the 
 pilot would be better? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the 
 just man is to be preferred? 
 
 When you want a deposit to be kept safely. 
 
 You mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to He? 
 
 Precisely. 
 
 That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? 
 
 That is the inference. 
 
 And when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then jus- 
 tice is useful to the individual and to the State ; but when you 
 want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser? 
 
 Clearly.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 9 
 
 And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use 
 them, you would say that justice is useful ; but when you want 
 to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And so of all other things justice is useful when they are 
 useless, and useless when they are useful? 
 
 That is the inference. 
 
 Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this 
 further point : Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing 
 match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping 1 from 
 a disease is best able to create one ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal 
 a march upon the enemy ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good 
 thief? 
 
 That, I suppose, is to be inferred. 
 
 Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good 
 at stealing it. 
 
 That is implied in the argument. 
 
 Then after all, the just man has turned out to be a thief. 
 And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out 
 of Homer ; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grand- 
 father of Odysseus, who is a favorite of his, affirms that 
 
 " He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury. " 
 
 And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice 
 is an art of theft ; to be practised, however, " for the good of 
 friends and for the harm of enemies " that was what you were 
 saying? 
 
 No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I 
 did say ; but I still stand by the latter words. 
 
 Well, there is another question : By friends and enemies do 
 we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming? 
 
 Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom 
 he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil. 
 
 1 Reading $i/Aafacr6ai /ecu AadeiV. OJTO?. K.T.\.
 
 io PLATO 
 
 Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil : many 
 who are not good seem to be so, and conversely? 
 
 That is true. 
 
 Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be 
 their friends ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil 
 and evil to the good ? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 But the good are just and would not do an injustice? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then according to your argument it is just to injure those 
 who do no wrong ? 
 
 Nay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral. 
 
 Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and 
 harm to the unjust? 
 
 I like that better. 
 
 But see the consequence: Many a man who is ignorant of 
 human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case 
 he ought to do harm to them ; and he has good enemies whom 
 he ought to benefit ; but, if so, we shall be saying the very op- 
 posite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simon- 
 ides. 
 
 Very true, he said; and I think that we had better correct 
 an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the 
 words " friend " and " enemy." 
 
 What was the error, Polemarchus? I asked. 
 
 We assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is 
 thought good. 
 
 And how is the error to be corrected ? 
 
 We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as 
 seems, good ; and that he who seems only and is not good, only 
 seems to be and is not a friend ; and of an enemy the same may 
 be said. 
 
 You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad 
 our enemies ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is 
 just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we 
 should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when 
 they are good, and harm to our enemies when they are evil ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC II 
 
 Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. 
 
 But ought the just to injure anyone at all? 
 
 Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked 
 and his enemies. 
 
 When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? 
 
 The latter. 
 
 Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, 
 not of dogs ? 
 
 Yes, of horses. 
 
 And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and 
 not of horses? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that 
 which is the proper virtue of man? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And that human virtue is justice? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? 
 
 That is the result. 
 
 But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking 
 generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? 
 
 Assuredly not. 
 
 Any more than heat can produce cold ? 
 
 It cannot. 
 
 Or drought moisture ? 
 
 Clearly not. 
 
 Nor can the good harm anyone? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And the just is the good? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then to injure a friend or anyone else is not the act of a 
 just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? 
 
 I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. 
 
 Then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of 
 debts, and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his 
 friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies to say
 
 12 PLATO 
 
 this is not wise ; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, 
 the injuring of another can be in no case just. 
 
 I agree with you, said Polemarchus. 
 
 Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against anyone 
 who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, 
 or any other wise man or seer? 
 
 I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. 
 
 Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be ? 
 
 Whose ? 
 
 I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias 
 the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a 
 great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice 
 is " doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies." 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Yes, I said ; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, 
 what other can be offered ? 
 
 Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus 
 had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, 
 and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted 
 to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speak- 
 ing and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace ; 
 and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, 
 seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the 
 sight of him. 
 
 He roared out to the whole company : What folly, Socrates, 
 has taken possession of you all ? And why, sillybillies, do you 
 knock under to one another? I say that if you want really to 
 know what justice is, you should not only ask but answer, and 
 you should not seek honor to yourself from the refutation of an 
 opponent, but have your own answer ; for there is many a one 
 who can ask and cannot answer. And now I will not have you 
 say that justice is duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest, 
 for this sort of nonsense will not do for me ; I must have clear- 
 ness and accuracy. 
 
 I was panic-stricken at his words, and could not look at him 
 without trembling. Indeed I believe that if I had not fixed my 
 eye upon him, I should have been struck dumb : but when I saw 
 his fury rising, I looked at him first, and was therefore able to 
 reply to him. 
 
 Thrasymachus, I said, with a quiver, don't be hard upon us.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 13 
 
 Polemarchus and I may have been guilty of a little mistake in 
 the argument, but I can assure you that the error was not in- 
 tentional. If we were seeking for a piece of gold, you would 
 not imagine that we were " knocking under to one another," 
 and so losing our chance of finding it. And why, when we are 
 seeking for justice, a thing more precious than many pieces of 
 gold, do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another 
 and not doing our utmost to get at the truth ? Nay, my good 
 friend, we are most willing and anxious to do so, but the fact 
 is that we cannot. And if so, you people who know all things 
 should pity us and not be angry with us. 
 
 How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter 
 laugh; that's your ironical style! Did I not foresee have I 
 not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would 
 refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order 
 that he might avoid answering? 
 
 You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well 
 know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, 
 taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering 
 twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times 
 three, " for this sort of nonsense will not do for me " then 
 obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one 
 can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort : " Thra- 
 symachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which 
 you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely 
 to say some other number which is not the right one? is that 
 your meaning? " How would you answer him? 
 
 Just as if the two cases were at all alike ! he said. 
 
 Why should they not be ? I replied ; and even if they are not, 
 but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he 
 not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not ? 
 
 I presume then that you are going to make one of the inter- 
 dicted answers? 
 
 I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon 
 reflection I approve of any of them. 
 
 But what if I give you an answer about justice other and 
 better, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to 
 have done to you ? 
 
 Done to me! as becomes the ignorant, I must learn from 
 the wise that is what I deserve to have done to me.
 
 I 4 PLATO 
 
 What, and no payment ! A pleasant notion ! 
 
 I will pay when I have the money, I replied. 
 
 But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon : and you, Thrasyma- 
 chus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all 
 make a contribution for Socrates. 
 
 Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does 
 refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the 
 answer of someone else. 
 
 Why, my good friend, I said, how can anyone answer who 
 knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even 
 if he has some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of 
 authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the 
 speaker should be someone like yourself who professes to know 
 and can tell what he knows. Will you then kindly answer, for 
 the edification of the company and of myself? 
 
 Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, 
 and Thrasymachus, as anyone might see, was in reality eager 
 to speak ; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and 
 would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist 
 on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, 
 he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, 
 and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says, 
 Thank you. 
 
 That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true ; but that I am 
 ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore 
 I pay in praise, which is all I have ; and how ready I am to 
 praise anyone who appears to me to speak well you will very 
 soon find out when you answer ; for I expect that you will an- 
 swer well. 
 
 Listen, then, he said ; I proclaim that justice is nothing else 
 than the interest of the stronger. And now why do you not 
 praise me? But of course you won't. 
 
 Let me first understand you, I replied. Justice, as you say, 
 is the interest of the stronger. What, Thrasymachus, is the 
 meaning of this ? You cannot mean to say that because Polyd- 
 amas, the pancratiast, is stronger than we are, and finds the 
 eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength, that to eat beef 
 is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is, 
 and right and just for us? 
 
 That's abominable of you, Socrates ; you take the words in 
 the sense which is most damaging to the argument.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 15 
 
 Not at all, my good sir, I said ; I am trying to understand 
 them ; and I wish that you would be a little clearer. 
 
 Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of govern- 
 ment differ there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, 
 and there are aristocracies? 
 
 Yes, I know. 
 
 And the government is the ruling power in each State? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And the different forms of government make laws demo- 
 cratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several 
 interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their 
 own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their sub- 
 jects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker 
 of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say 
 that in all States there is the same principle of justice, which 
 is the interest of the government ; and as the government must 
 be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is 
 that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the 
 interest of the stronger. 
 
 Now I understand you, I said ; and whether you are right or 
 not I will try to discover. But let me remark that in defining 
 justice you have yourself used the word " interest," which you 
 forbade me to use. It is true, however, that in your definition 
 the words " of the stronger " are added. 
 
 A small addition, you must allow, he said. 
 
 Great or small, never mind about that : we must first inquire 
 whether what you are saying is the truth. Now we are both 
 agreed that justice is interest of some sort, but you go on to say 
 " of the stronger " ; about this addition I am not so sure, and 
 must therefore consider further. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 I will ; and first tell me, Do you admit that it is just for sub- 
 jects to obey their rulers? 
 
 I do. 
 
 But are the rulers of States absolutely infallible, or are they 
 sometimes liable to err? 
 
 To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. 
 
 Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them 
 rightly, and sometimes not? 
 
 True.
 
 1 6 PLATO 
 
 When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably 
 to their interest ; when they are mistaken, contrary to their in- 
 terest; you admit that? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their sub- 
 jects and that is what you call justice? 
 
 Doubtless. 
 
 Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedi- 
 ence to the interest of the stronger, but the reverse ? 
 
 What is that you are saying? he asked. 
 
 I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But 
 let us consider : Have we not admitted that the rulers may be 
 mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and 
 also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for 
 the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally 
 command things to be done which are to their own injury. For 
 if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders 
 to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any 
 escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to 
 do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of 
 the stronger? 
 
 Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus. 
 
 Yes, said Cleitophon, interposing, if you are allowed to be 
 his witness. 
 
 But there is no need of any witness, said Polemarchus, for 
 Thrasymachus himself acknowledges that rulers may some- 
 time command what is not for their own interest, and that for 
 subjects to obey them is justice. 
 
 Yes, Polemarchus Thrasymachus said that for subjects to 
 do what was commanded by their rulers is just. 
 
 Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest 
 of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, 
 he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the 
 weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own inter- 
 est ; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as 
 the interest of the stronger. 
 
 But, said Cleitophon, he meant by the interest of the stronger 
 what the stronger thought to be his interest this was what 
 the weaker had to do ; and this was affirmed by him to be justice.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 17 
 
 Those were not his words, rejoined Polemarchus. 
 
 Never mind, I replied, if he now says that they are, let us 
 accept his statement. Tell me, Thrasymachus, I said, did you 
 mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest, 
 whether really so or not? 
 
 Certainly not, he said. Do you suppose that I call him who 
 is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken? 
 
 Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you 
 admitted that the ruler was not infallible, but might be some- 
 times mistaken. 
 
 You argue like an informer, Socrates. Do you mean, for 
 example, that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician 
 in that he is mistaken? or that he who errs in arithmetic or 
 grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when 
 he is making the mistake, in respect of the mistake ? True, we 
 say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made 
 a mistake, but this is only a way of speaking ; for the fact is that 
 neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever 
 makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies ; they 
 none of them err unless their skill fails them, and then they 
 cease to be skilled artists. No artist or sage or ruler errs at the 
 time when he is what his name implies ; though he is commonly 
 said to err, and I adopted the common mode of speaking. But 
 to be perfectly accurate, since you are such a lover of accuracy, 
 we should say that the ruler, in so far as he is a ruler, is unerr- 
 ing, and, being unerring, always commands that which is for 
 his own interest ; and the subject is required to execute his com- 
 mands ; and therefore, as I said at first and now repeat, justice 
 is the interest of the stronger. 
 
 Indeed, Thrasymachus, and do I really appear to you to 
 argue like an informer ? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any de- 
 sign of injuring you in the argument? 
 
 Nay, he replied, " suppose " is not the word I know it ; but 
 you will be found out, and by sheer force of argument you will 
 never prevail. 
 
 I shall not make the attempt, my dear man ; but to avoid any 
 misunderstanding occurring between us in future, let me ask, 
 in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose inter-
 
 i 8 PLATO 
 
 est, as you were saying, he being the superior, it is just that 
 the inferior should execute is he a ruler in the popular or in 
 the strict sense of the term ? 
 
 In the strictest of all senses, he said. And now cheat and 
 play the informer if you can ; I ask no quarter at your hands. 
 But you never will be able, never. 
 
 And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to 
 try and cheat Thrasymachus ? I might as well shave a lion. 
 
 Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you 
 failed. 
 
 Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I 
 should ask you a question : Is the physician, taken in that strict 
 sense of which you are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker 
 of money ? And remember that I am now speaking of the true 
 physician. 
 
 A healer of the sick, he replied. 
 
 And the pilot that is to say, the true pilot is he a captain 
 of sailors or a mere sailor? 
 
 A captain of sailors. 
 
 The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken 
 into account ; neither is he to be called a sailor ; the name pilot 
 by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, 
 but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Now, I said, every art has an interest? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 For which the art has to consider and provide? 
 
 Yes, that is the aim of art. 
 
 And the interest of any art is the perfection of it this and 
 nothing else ? 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I mean what I may illustrate negatively by the example of the 
 body. Suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self- 
 sufficing or has wants, I should reply : Certainly the body has 
 wants ; for the body may be ill and require to be cured, and has 
 therefore interests to which the art of medicine ministers ; and 
 this is the origin and intention of medicine, as you will ac- 
 knowledge. Am I not right? 
 
 Quite right, he replied. 
 
 But is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient
 
 THE REPUBLIC 19 
 
 in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in 
 sight or the ear fail of hearing, and therefore requires another 
 art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing has art 
 in itself, I say, any similar liability to fault or defect, and does 
 every art require another supplementary art to provide for its 
 interests, and that another and another without end ? Or have 
 the arts to look only after their own interests ? Or have they no 
 need either of themselves or of another ? having no faults or 
 defects, they have no need to correct them, either by the exer- 
 cise of their own art or of any other ; they have only to consider 
 the interest of their subject-matter. For every art remains 
 pure and faultless while remaining true that is to say, while 
 perfect and unimpaired. Take the words in your precise sense, 
 and tell me whether I am not right. 
 
 Yes, clearly. 
 
 Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, 
 but the interest of the body? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of 
 the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse ; neither 
 do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs ; 
 they care only for that which is the subject of their art? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 But surely, Thrasymachus, the arts are the superiors and 
 rulers of their own subjects? 
 
 To this he assented with a good deal of reluctance. 
 
 Then, I said, no science or art considers or enjoins the inter- 
 est of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the 
 subject and weaker? 
 
 He made an attempt to contest this proposition also, but 
 finally acquiesced. 
 
 Then, I continued, no physician, in so far as he is a physician, 
 considers his own good in what he prescribes, but the good of 
 his patient; for the true physician is also a ruler having the 
 human body as a subject, and is not a mere money-maker ; that 
 has been admitted ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the pilot likewise, in the strict sense of the term, is a 
 ruler of sailors, and not a mere sailor ? 
 
 That has been admitted.
 
 2 o PLATO 
 
 And such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the 
 interest of the sailor who is under him, and not for his own or 
 the ruler's interest? 
 
 He gave a reluctant " Yes." 
 
 Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, 
 in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his 
 own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject 
 or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he con- 
 siders in everything which he says and does. 
 
 When we had got to this point in the argument, and every- 
 one saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset, 
 Thrasymachus, instead of replying to me, said, Tell me, Soc- 
 rates, have you got a nurse ? 
 
 Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought 
 rather to be answering? 
 
 Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose : 
 she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the 
 sheep. 
 
 What makes you say that? I replied. 
 
 Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or 
 tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not 
 to the good of himself or his master ; and you further imagine 
 that the rulers of States, if they are true rulers, never think of 
 their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their 
 own advantage day and night. Oh, no ; and so entirely astray 
 are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to 
 know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; 
 that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the 
 loss of the subject and servant ; and injustice the opposite ; for 
 the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the 
 stronger', and his subjects do what is for his interest, and min- 
 ister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. 
 Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always 
 a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private 
 contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you 
 will find that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust 
 man has always more and the just less. Secondly, in their 
 dealings with the State : when there is an income-tax, the just 
 man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of 
 income ; and when there is anything to be received the one gains
 
 THE REPUBLIC 21 
 
 nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens when 
 they take an office ; there is the just man neglecting his affairs 
 and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of 
 the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his 
 friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlaw- 
 ful ways. But all this is reversed in the case of the unjust 
 man. I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale 
 in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my 
 meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest 
 form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, 
 and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the 
 most miserable that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and 
 force takes away the property of others, not little by little but 
 wholesale ; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as pro- 
 fane, private and public ; for which acts of wrong, if he were 
 detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be pun- 
 ished and incur great disgrace they who do such wrong in 
 particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers 
 and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man be- 
 sides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of 
 them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed 
 happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear 
 of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For 
 mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the vic- 
 tims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. 
 And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a suffi- 
 cient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than 
 justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the 
 stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest. 
 
 Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath- 
 man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. 
 But the company would not let him ; they insisted that he 
 should remain and defend his position ; and I myself added my 
 own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasyma- 
 chus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your re- 
 marks ! And are you going to run away before you have fairly 
 taught or learned whether they are true or not ? Is the attempt 
 to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your 
 eyes to determine how life may be passed by each one of us 
 to the greatest advantage?
 
 32 PLATO 
 
 And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of 
 the inquiry? 
 
 You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought 
 about us, Thrasymachus whether we live better or worse 
 from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter 
 of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge 
 to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you 
 confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I 
 openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not be- 
 lieve injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncon- 
 trolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there 
 may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either 
 by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior 
 advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the 
 same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; 
 if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mis- 
 taken in preferring justice to injustice. 
 
 And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already 
 convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for 
 you ? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your 
 souls ? 
 
 Heaven forbid ! I said ; I would only ask you to be consistent ; 
 or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. 
 For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was 
 previously said, that although you began by defining the true 
 physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exact- 
 ness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the 
 shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their 
 own good, but like a mere diner or banqueter with a view to 
 the pleasures of the table ; or, again, as a trader for sale in the 
 market, and not as a shepherd. Yet surely the art of the shep- 
 herd is concerned only with the good of his subjects ; he has 
 only to provide the best for them, since the perfection of the art 
 is already insured whenever all the requirements of it are satis- 
 fied. And that was what I was saying just now about the ruler. 
 I conceived that the art of the ruler, considered as a ruler, 
 whether in a State or in private life, could only regard the good 
 of his flock or subjects ; whereas you seem to think that the 
 rulers m States, that is to say, the true rulers, like being in 
 authority.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 23 
 
 Think ! Nay, I am sure of it. 
 
 Then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them 
 willingly without payment, unless under the idea that they 
 govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others ? Let 
 me ask you a question : Are not the several arts different, by 
 reason of their each having a separate function? And, my 
 dear illustrious friend, do say what you think, that we may 
 make a little progress. 
 
 Yes, that is the difference, he replied. 
 
 And each art gives us a particular good and not merely a 
 general one medicine, for example, gives us health; naviga- 
 tion, safety at sea, and so on ? 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 And the art of payment has the special function of giving 
 pay : but we do not confuse this with other arts, any more than 
 the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine, 
 because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voy- 
 age. You would not be inclined to say, would you ? that navi- 
 gation is the art of medicine, at least if we are to adopt your 
 exact use of language ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Or because a man is in good health when he receives pay 
 you would not say that the art of payment is medicine? 
 
 I should not. 
 
 Nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay 
 because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And we have admitted, I said, that the good of each art is 
 specially confined to the art? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then, if there be any good which all artists have in common, 
 that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the 
 common use? 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 And when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the ad- 
 vantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay, which 
 is not the art professed by him? 
 
 He gave a reluctant assent to this. 
 
 Then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their 
 respective arts. But the truth is, that while the art of medicine
 
 4 PLATO 
 
 gives health, and the art of the builder builds a house, another 
 art attends them which is the art of pay. The various arts 
 may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which 
 they preside, but would the artist receive any benefit from his 
 art unless he were paid as well ? 
 
 I suppose not. 
 
 But does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for 
 nothing ? 
 
 Certainly, he confers a benefit. 
 
 Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that 
 neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests ; 
 but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the 
 interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the 
 stronger to their good they attend and not to the good of the 
 superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, 
 as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern ; because 
 no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which 
 are not his concern, without remuneration. For, in the execu- 
 tion of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true 
 artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his 
 subjects ; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to 
 rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, 
 money, or honor, or a penalty for refusing. 
 
 What do you mean, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two 
 modes of payment are intelligible enough, but what the penalty 
 is I do not understand, or how a penalty can be a payment. 
 
 You mean that you do not understand the nature of this pay- 
 ment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule? 
 Of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be, 
 as indeed they are, a disgrace ? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And for this reason, I said, money and honor have no attrac- 
 tion for them ; good men do not .wish to be openly demanding 
 payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor 
 by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get 
 the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care 
 about honor. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, 
 and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. 
 And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to 
 take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been
 
 THE REPUBLIC 25 
 
 deemed dishonorable. Now the worst part of the punishment 
 is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is 
 worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, in- 
 duces the good to take office, not because they would, but be- 
 cause they cannot help not under the idea that they are going 
 to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, 
 and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to 
 anyone who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For 
 there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely 
 of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object 
 of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should 
 have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to 
 regard his own interest, but that of his subjects ; and everyone 
 who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from 
 another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far 
 am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the in- 
 terest of the stronger. This latter question need not be further 
 discussed at present; but when Thrasymachus says that the 
 life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just, 
 his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious 
 character. Which of us has spoken truly? And which sort 
 of life, Glaucon, do you prefer? 
 
 I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more ad- 
 vantageous, he answered. 
 
 Did you hear all the advantages of the unjust which Thra- 
 symachus was rehearsing? 
 
 Yes, I heard him, he replied, but he has not convinced me. 
 
 Then shall we try to find some way of convincing him, if we 
 can, that he is saying what is not true ? 
 
 Most certainly, he replied. 
 
 If, I said, he makes a set speech and we make another re- 
 counting all the advantages of being just, and he answers and 
 we rejoin, there must be a numbering and measuring of the 
 goods which are claimed on either side, and in the end we shall 
 want judges to decide ; but if we proceed in our inquiry as we 
 lately did, by making admissions to one another, we shall unite 
 the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons. 
 
 Very good, he said. 
 
 And which method do I understand you to prefer? I said. 
 
 That which you propose.
 
 a6 PLATO 
 
 Well, then, Thrasymachus, I said, suppose you begin at the 
 beginning and answer me. You say that perfect injustice is 
 more gainful than perfect justice? 
 
 Yes, that is what I say, and I have given you my reasons. 
 
 And what is your view about them? Would you call one 
 of them virtue and the other vice ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice 
 vice? 
 
 What a charming notion ! So likely too, seeing that I affirm 
 injustice to be profitable and justice not. 
 
 What else then would you say? 
 
 The opposite, he replied. 
 
 And would you call justice vice? 
 
 No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. 
 
 Then would you call injustice malignity? 
 
 No; I would rather say discretion. 
 
 And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? 
 
 Yes, he said ; at any rate those of them who are able to be 
 perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing States 
 and nations ; but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cut- 
 purses. Even this profession, if undetected, has advantages, 
 though they are not to be compared with those of which I was 
 just now speaking. 
 
 I do not think that I misapprehend your meaning, Thrasym- 
 achus, I replied; but still I cannot hear without amazement 
 that you class injustice with wisdom and virtue, and justice 
 with the opposite. 
 
 Certainly I do so class them. 
 
 Now, I said, you are on more substantial and almost unan- 
 swerable ground ; for if the injustice which you were maintain- 
 ing to be profitable had been admitted by you as by others to 
 be vice and deformity, an answer might have been given to 
 you on received principles ; but now I perceive that you will 
 call injustice honorable and strong, and to the unjust you will 
 attribute all the qualities which were attributed by us before 
 to the just, seeing that you do not hesitate to rank injustice 
 with wisdom and virtue. 
 
 You have guessed most infallibly, he replied. 
 
 Then I certainly ought not to shrink from going through
 
 THE REPUBLIC 27 
 
 with the argument so long as I have reason to think that you, 
 Thrasymachus, are speaking your real mind; for I do believe 
 that you are now in earnest and are not amusing yourself at 
 our expense. 
 
 I may be in earnest or not, but what is that to you ? to refute 
 the argument is your business. 
 
 Very true, I said; that is what I have to do: But will you 
 be so good as answer yet one more question? Does the just 
 man try to gain any advantage over the just? 
 
 Far otherwise ; if he did he would not be the simple amusing 
 creature which he is. 
 
 And would he try to go beyond just action? 
 
 He would not. 
 
 And how would he regard the attempt to gain an advantage 
 over the unjust; would that be considered by him as just or 
 unjust? 
 
 He would think it just, and would try to gain the advantage ; 
 but he would not be able. 
 
 Whether he would or would not be able, I said, is not to the 
 point. My question is only whether the just man, while refus- 
 ing to have more than another just man, would wish and claim 
 to have more than the unjust? 
 
 Yes, he would. 
 
 And what of the unjust does he claim to have more than 
 the just man and to do more than is just? 
 
 Of course, he said, for he claims to have more than all men. 
 
 And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more 
 than the just man or action, in order that he may have more 
 than all? 
 
 True. 
 
 We may put the matter thus, I said the just does not desire 
 more than his like, but more than his unlike, whereas the un- 
 just desires more than both his like and his unlike? 
 
 Nothing, he said, can be better than that statement. 
 
 And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? 
 
 Good again, he said. 
 
 And is not the unjust like the wise and good, and the just, 
 unlike them ? 
 
 Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those 
 who are of a certain nature ; he who is not, not.
 
 2 8 PLATO 
 
 Each of them, I said, is such as his like is? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 Very good, Thrasymachus, I said ; and now to take the case 
 of the arts : you would admit that one man is a musician and 
 another not a musician? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And which is wise and which is foolish? 
 
 Clearly the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is 
 foolish. 
 
 And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as far as 
 he is foolish? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And you would say the same sort of thing of the physician ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And do you think, my excellent friend, that a musician when 
 he adjusts the lyre would desire or claim to exceed or go be- 
 yond a musician in the tightening and loosening the strings? 
 
 I do not think that he would. 
 
 But he would claim to exceed the non-musician? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And what would you say of the physician? In prescribing 
 meats and drinks would he wish to go beyond another physician 
 or beyond the practice of medicine ? 
 
 He would not. 
 
 But he would wish to go beyond the non-physician? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And about knowledge and ignorance in general ; see whether 
 you think that any man who has knowledge ever would wish to 
 have the choice of saying or doing more than another man who 
 has knowledge. Would he not rather say or do the same as his 
 like in the same case ? 
 
 That, I suppose, can hardly be denied. 
 
 And what of the ignorant ? would he not desire to have more 
 than either the knowing or the ignorant? 
 
 I dare say. 
 
 And the knowing is wise? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the wise is good? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then the wise and good will not desire to gain more than his 
 like, but more than his unlike and opposite?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 29 
 
 I suppose so. 
 
 Whereas the bad and ignorant will desire to gain more than 
 both? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But did we not say, Thrasymachus, that the unjust goes be- 
 yond both his like and unlike? Were not these your words? 
 
 They were. 
 
 And you also said that the just will not go beyond his like, 
 but his unlike ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like 
 the evil and ignorant? 
 
 That is the inference. 
 
 And each of them is such as his like is? 
 
 That was admitted. 
 
 Then the just has turned out to be wise and good, and the 
 unjust evil and ignorant. 
 
 Thrasymachus made all these admissions, not fluently, as I 
 repeat them, but with extreme reluctance; it was a hot sum- 
 mer's day, and the perspiration poured from him in torrents; 
 and then I saw what I had never seen before, Thrasymachus 
 blushing. As we were now agreed that justice was virtue and 
 wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, I proceeded to an- 
 other point : 
 
 Well, I said, Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled ; but 
 were we not also saying that injustice had strength do you 
 remember ? 
 
 Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve 
 of what you are saying or have no answer ; if, however, I were 
 to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of harangu- 
 ing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you 
 would rather ask, do so, and I will answer " Very good," as 
 they say to story-telling old women, and will nod " Yes " and 
 " No." 
 
 Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion. 
 
 Yes, he said, I will, to please you, since you will not let me 
 speak. What else would you have? 
 
 Nothing in the world, I said ; and if you are so disposed I 
 will ask and you shall answer. 
 
 Proceed.
 
 3 o PLATO 
 
 Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order 
 that our examination of the relative nature of justice and in- 
 justice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made 
 that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but 
 now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, 
 is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ig- 
 norance; this can no longer be questioned by anyone. But I 
 want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: 
 You would not deny that a State may be unjust and may be 
 unjustly attempting to enslave other States, or may have already 
 enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection ? 
 
 True, he replied ; and I will add that the best and most per- 
 fectly unjust State will be most likely to do so. 
 
 I know, I said, that such was your position ; but what I would 
 further consider is, whether this power which is possessed by 
 the superior State can exist or be exercised without justice or 
 only with justice. 
 
 If you are right in your view, and justice is wisdom, then 
 only with justice; but if I am right, then without justice. 
 
 I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding 
 assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excel- 
 lent. 
 
 That is out of civility to you, he replied. 
 
 You are very kind, I said ; and would you have the goodness 
 also to inform me, whether you think that a State, or an arm/, 
 or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evil- 
 doers could act at all if they injured one another? 
 
 No, indeed, he said, they could not. 
 
 But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they 
 might act together better ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds 
 and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is 
 not that true, Thrasymachus ? 
 
 I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you. 
 
 How good of you, I said; but I should like to know also 
 whether injustice, having this tendency to arouse hatred, wher- 
 ever existing, among slaves or among freemen, will not make 
 them hate one another and set them at variance and render them 
 incapable of common action?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 31 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And even if injustice be found in two only, will they not 
 quarrel and fight, and become enemies to one another and to 
 the just? 
 
 They will. 
 
 And suppose injustice abiding in a single person, would 
 your wisdom say that she loses or that she retains her natural 
 power ? 
 
 Let us assume that she retains her power. 
 
 Yet is not the power which injustice exercises of such a 
 nature that wherever she takes up her abode, whether in a city, 
 in an army, in a family, or in any other body, that body is, to 
 begin with, rendered incapable of united action by reason of 
 sedition and distraction ? and does it not become its own enemy 
 and at variance with all that opposes it, and with the just? Is 
 not this the case ? 
 
 Yes, certainly. 
 
 And is not injustice equally fatal when existing in a single 
 person in the first place rendering him incapable of action 
 because he is not at unity with himself, and in the second place 
 making him an enemy to himself and the just? Is not that 
 true, Thrasymachus ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And, O my friend, I said, surely the gods are just? 
 
 Granted that they are. 
 
 But, if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the 
 just will be their friends? 
 
 Feast away in triumph, and take your fill of the argument; 
 I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company. 
 
 Well, then, proceed with your answers, and let me have the 
 remainder of my repast. For we have already shown that the 
 just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and 
 that the unjust are incapable of common action ; nay, more, that 
 to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vig- 
 orously together, is not strictly true, for, if they had been per- 
 fectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another ; but 
 it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice 
 in them, which enabled them to combine ; if there had not been 
 they would have injured one another as well as their victims ; 
 they were but half-villains in their enterprises; for had they
 
 3 PLATO 
 
 been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been 
 utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of 
 the matter, and not what you said at first. But whether the just 
 have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further 
 question which we also proposed to consider. I think that 
 they have, and for the reasons which I have given; but still 
 I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, 
 nothing less than the rule of human life. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 I will proceed by asking a question : Would you not say that 
 a horse has some end? 
 
 I should. 
 
 And the end or use of a horse 01 of anything would be that 
 which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, 
 by any other thing ? 
 
 I do not understand, he said. 
 
 Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Or. hear, except with the ear? 
 
 No. 
 
 These, then, may be truly said to be the ends of these organs ? 
 
 They may. 
 
 But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or with a 
 chisel, and in many other ways? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And yet not so well as with a pruning-hook made for the 
 purpose ? 
 
 True. 
 
 May we not say that this is the end of a pruning-hook ? 
 
 We may. 
 
 Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understand- 
 ing my meaning when I asked the question whether the end 
 of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or 
 not so well accomplished, by any other thing? 
 
 I understand your meaning, he said, and assent. 
 
 And that to which an end is appointed has also an excellence ? 
 Need I ask again whether the eye has an end ? 
 
 It has. 
 
 And has not the eye an excellence? 
 
 Yes.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 33 
 
 And the ear has an end and an excellence also? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the same is true of all other things ; they have each of 
 them an end and a special excellence? 
 
 That is so. 
 
 Well, and can the eyes fulfil their end if they are wanting in 
 their own proper excellence and have a defect instead ? 
 
 How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see ? 
 
 You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, 
 which is sight; but I have not arrived at that point yet. I 
 would rather ask the question more generally, and only inquire 
 whether the things which fulfil their ends fulfil them by their 
 own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own 
 defect ? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 I might say the same of the ears ; when deprived of their own 
 proper excellence they cannot fulfil their end ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the same observation will apply to all other things ? 
 
 I agree. 
 
 Well; and has not the soul an end which nothing else can 
 fulfil? for example, to superintend and command and deliber- 
 ate and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, 
 and can they rightly be assigned to any other? 
 
 To no other. 
 
 And is not life to be reckoned among the ends of the soul ? 
 
 Assuredly, he said. 
 
 And has not the soul an excellence also? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And can she or can she not fulfil her own ends when deprived 
 of that excellence ? 
 
 She cannot. 
 
 Then an evil soul must necessarily be an evil ruler and super- 
 intendent, and the good soul a good ruler? 
 
 Yes, necessarily. 
 
 And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the 
 soul, and injustice the defect of the soul? 
 
 That has been admitted. 
 
 Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the 
 unjust man will live ill? 
 3
 
 34 
 
 PLATO 
 
 That is what your argument proves. 
 
 And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives 
 ill the reverse of happy ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then the just is happy, and the unjust miserable? 
 
 So be it. 
 
 But happiness, and not misery, is profitable? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more 
 profitable than justice. 
 
 Let this, Socrates, he said, be your entertainment at the 
 Bendidea. 
 
 For which I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have 
 grown gentle toward me and have left off scolding. Never- 
 theless, I have not been well entertained ; but that was my own 
 fault and not yours. As an epicure snatches a taste of every 
 dish which is successively brought to table, he not having al- 
 lowed himself time to enjoy the one before, so have I gone from 
 one subject to another without having discovered what I sought 
 at first, the nature of justice. I left that inquiry and turned 
 away to consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil 
 and folly; and when there arose a further question about the 
 comparative advantages of justice and injustice, I could not re- 
 frain from passing on to that. And the result of the whole 
 discussion has been that I know nothing at all. For I know not 
 what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether 
 it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is 
 happy or unhappy.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE STATE, AND EDUCATION 
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON 
 
 WITH these words I was thinking that I had made an 
 end of the discussion ; but the end, in truth, proved 
 to be only a beginning. For Glaucon, who is always 
 the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasyma- 
 chus's retirement; he wanted to have the battle out. So he 
 said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or 
 only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always 
 better than to be unjust? 
 
 I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. 
 
 Then you certainly have not succeeded. Let me ask you 
 now : How would you arrange goods are there not some 
 which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of 
 their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and 
 enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing 
 follows from them? 
 
 I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. 
 
 Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, 
 sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but 
 also for their results ? 
 
 Certainly, I said. 
 
 And would you not recognize a third class, such as gym- 
 nastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also 
 the various ways of money-making these do us good but we 
 regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them 
 for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or 
 result which flows from them? 
 
 There is, I said, this third class also. But why do you ask? 
 
 Because I want to know in which of the three classes you 
 would place justice? 
 
 35
 
 36 PLATO 
 
 In the highest class, I replied among those goods which 
 he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and 
 for the sake of their results. 
 
 Then the many are of another mind ; they think that justice 
 is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which 
 are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, 
 but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. 
 
 I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that 
 this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just 
 now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. But I am 
 too stupid to be convinced by him. 
 
 I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and 
 then I shall see whether you and I agree. For Thrasymachus 
 seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice 
 sooner than he ought to have been ; but to my mind the nature 
 of justice and injustice has not yet been made clear. Setting 
 aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are 
 in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. If 
 you please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. 
 And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice accord- 
 Ing to the common view of them. Secondly, I will show that 
 all men who practise justice do so against their will, of neces- 
 sity, but not as a good. And thirdly, I will argue that there 
 is reason in this view, for the life of the unjust is after all better 
 far than the life of the just if what they say is true, Socrates, 
 since I myself am not of their opinion. But still I acknowledge 
 that I am perplexed when I hear the voices of Thrasymachus 
 and myriads of others dinning in my ears; and, on the other 
 hand, I have never yet heard the superiority of justice to injus- 
 tice maintained by anyone in a satisfactory way. I want to hear 
 justice praised in respect of itself ; then I shall be satisfied, and 
 you are the person from whom I think that I am most likely to 
 hear this ; and therefore I will praise the unjust life to the ut- 
 most of my power, and my manner of speaking will indicate the 
 manner in which I desire to hear you too praising justice and 
 censuring injustice. Will you say whether you approve of my 
 proposal ? 
 
 Indeed I do; nor can I imagine any theme about which a 
 man of sense would oftener wish to converse. 
 
 I am delighted, he replied, to hear you say so, and shall begin 
 by speaking, as I proposed, of the nature and origin of justice.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 37 
 
 They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good ; to suffer 
 injustice, evil ; but that the evil is greater than the good. And 
 so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have 
 had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and 
 obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among 
 themselves to have neither ; hence there arise laws and mutual 
 covenants ; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them 
 lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature 
 of justice ; it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, 
 which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst 
 of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retalia- 
 tion; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is 
 tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by 
 reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man 
 who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such 
 an agreement if he were able to resist ; he would be mad if he 
 did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and 
 origin of justice. 
 
 Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and 
 because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if 
 we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the 
 just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch 
 and see whither desire will lead them ; then we shall discover 
 in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along 
 the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem 
 to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice 
 by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may 
 be most completely given to them in the form of such a power 
 as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croe- 
 sus the Lydian. 1 According to the tradition, Gyges was a 
 shepherd in the service of the King of Lydia ; there was a great 
 storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the 
 place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he 
 descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he 
 beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he, stoop- 
 ing and looking in, saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to 
 him, more than human and having nothing on but a gold ring; 
 this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now 
 the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they 
 
 1 Reading; IMyjj ru Kpourov rov AvtoG irpoyoru.
 
 38 PLATO 
 
 might send their monthly report about the flocks to the King; 
 into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and 
 as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of 
 the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible 
 to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if 
 he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and 
 again touching the ring he turned the collet outward and re- 
 appeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with 
 the same result when he turned the collet inward he became 
 invisible, when outward he reappeared. Whereupon he con- 
 trived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the 
 court ; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the Queen, and 
 with her help conspired against the King and slew him and took 
 the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic 
 rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other ; 
 no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he 
 would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands 
 off what was not his own when he could safely take what he 
 liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone 
 at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, 
 and in all respects be like a god among men. Then the actions 
 of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would 
 both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly 
 affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or 
 because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, 
 but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely 
 be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their 
 hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual 
 than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will 
 say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining 
 this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong 
 or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the 
 lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would 
 praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with 
 one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. 
 Enough of this. 
 
 Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the 
 just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; 
 and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the 
 unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just;
 
 THE REPUBLIC 39 
 
 nothing is to be taken away from either of them, and both are 
 to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. 
 First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft ; 
 like the skilful pilot or physician, who knows intuitively his 
 own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails 
 at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make 
 his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means 
 to be great in his injustice (he who is found out is nobody) : 
 for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when 
 you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man 
 we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no 
 deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust 
 acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If 
 he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself ; 
 he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds 
 come to light, and who can force his way where force is re- 
 quired by his courage and strength, and command of money 
 and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his 
 nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as ^Eschylus says, to be and 
 not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem 
 to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall 
 not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the 
 sake of honor and rewards ; therefore, let him be clothed in jus- 
 tice only, and have no other covering ; and he must be imagined 
 in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best 
 of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have 
 been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be 
 affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let 
 him continue thus to the hour of death ; being just and seeming 
 to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, 
 the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be 
 given which of them is the happier of the two. 
 
 Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you 
 polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, 
 as if they were two statues. 
 
 I do my best, he said. And now that we know what they 
 are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which 
 awaits either of them. This I will proceed to describe ; but as 
 you may think the description a little too coarse, I ask you to 
 suppose, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine.
 
 40 PLATO 
 
 Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice: 
 They will tell you that the just man who is thought unjust will 
 be scourged, racked, bound will have his eyes burnt out ; and, 
 at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled. 
 Then he will understand that he ought to seem only, and not 
 to be, just ; the words of ^Eschylus may be more truly spoken 
 of the unjust than of the just. For the unjust is pursuing a 
 reality ; he does not live with a view to appearances he wants 
 to be really unjust and not to seem only 
 
 " His mind has a soil deep and fertile, 
 Out of which spring his prudent counsels." l 
 
 In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule 
 in the city ; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage 
 to whom he will ; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and 
 always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings 
 about injustice ; and at every contest, whether in public or pri- 
 vate, he gets the better of his antagonists, and gains at their 
 expense, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his 
 friends, and harm his enemies; moreover, he can offer sacri- 
 fices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnifi- 
 cently, and can honor the gods or any man whom he wants to 
 honor in a far better style than the just, and therefore he is 
 likely to be dearer than they are to the gods. And thus, Soc- 
 rates, gods and men are said to unite in making the life of the 
 unjust better than the life of the just. 
 
 I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when 
 Adeimantus, his brother, interposed: Socrates, he said, you 
 do not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged ? 
 
 Why, what else is there ? I answered. 
 
 The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he 
 replied. 
 
 Well, then, according to the proverb, " Let brother help 
 brother " if he fails in any part, do you assist him ; although 
 I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to 
 lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping 
 justice. 
 
 Nonsense, he replied. But let me add something more: 
 There is another side to Glaucon's argument about the praise 
 
 1 " Sven against Thebes," 574.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 41 
 
 and censure of justice and injustice, which is equally required 
 in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning. Parents 
 and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that 
 they are to be just; but why? not for the sake of justice, but 
 for the sake of character and reputation ; in the hope of obtain- 
 ing for him who is reputed just some of those offices, marriages, 
 and the like which Glaucon has enumerated among the ad- 
 vantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice. 
 More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons 
 than by the others ; for they throw in the good opinion of the 
 gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, 
 as they say, rain upon the pious ; and this accords with the tes- 
 timony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says 
 that the gods make the oaks of the just 
 
 " To bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle ; 
 And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces," l 
 
 and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them. 
 And Homer has a very similar strain; for he speaks of one 
 whose fame is 
 
 " As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, 
 Maintains justice ; to whom the black earth brings forth 
 Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, 
 And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish."* 
 
 Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Musaeus and his 
 son 8 vouchsafe to the just ; they take them down into the world 
 below, where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast, 
 everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands; their idea seems 
 to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed 
 of virtue. Some extend their rewards yet further; the pos- 
 terity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the 
 third and fourth generation. This is the style in which they 
 praise justice. But about the wicked there is another strain; 
 they bury them in a slough in Hades, and make them carry 
 water in a sieve ; also while they are yet living they bring them 
 to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glau- 
 con described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be 
 
 1 Hesiod, " Works and Days," 230. * Homer, " Odyssey," xix. 109. Eumolpus.
 
 42 PLATO 
 
 unjust ; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their 
 manner of praising the one and censuring the other. 
 
 Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way 
 of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined 
 to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice 
 of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are 
 honorable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures 
 of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only cen- 
 sured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for 
 the most part less profitable than dishonesty ; and they are quite 
 ready to call wicked men happy, and to honor them both in pub- 
 lic and private when they are rich or in any other way influen- 
 tial, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak 
 and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than 
 the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of 
 speaking about virtue and the gods : they say that the gods ap- 
 portion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and 
 happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich 
 men's doors and persuade them that they have a power com- 
 mitted to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man's 
 own or his ancestor's sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoic- 
 ings and feasts ; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether 
 just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations 
 binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the 
 poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing 
 the path of vice with the words of Hesiod : 
 
 " Vice may be had in abundance without trouble ; the way is smooth 
 anr 3 her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil," 1 
 
 and a tedious and uphill road : then citing Homer as a witness 
 that the gods may be influenced by men ; for he also says : 
 
 " The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose ; and men pray to 
 them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by 
 libations and the odor of fat, when they have sinned and trangressed." 2 
 
 And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Or- 
 pheus, who were children of the Moon and the muses that is 
 what they say according to which they perform their ritual, 
 
 1 Hesiod, " Works and Days," 287. * Homer, " Iliad," ix. 493.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 43 
 
 and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expia- 
 tions and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and 
 amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the 
 service of the living and the dead ; the latter sort they call mys- 
 teries, and they redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we 
 neglect them no one knows what awaits us. 
 
 He proceeded : And now when the young hear all this said 
 about virtue and vice, and the way in which gods and men re- 
 gard them, how are their minds likely to be affected, my dear 
 Socrates those of them, I mean, who are quick-witted, and, 
 like bees on the wing, light on every flower, and from all that 
 they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of 
 persons they should be and in what way they should walk if 
 they would make the best of life ? Probably the youth will say 
 to himself in the words of Pindar : 
 
 " Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower 
 which may be a fortress to me all my days ? " 
 
 For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also 
 thought just, profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the 
 other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire 
 the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. 
 Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over 
 truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote 
 myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of 
 virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house ; behind I 
 will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of 
 sages, recommends. But I hear someone exclaiming that the 
 concealment of wickedness is often difficult ; to which I answer, 
 Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates 
 this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we 
 should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish 
 secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are profes- 
 sors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and 
 assemblies ; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, 
 I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear 
 a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can 
 they be compelled. But what if there are no gods ? or, suppose 
 them to have no care of human things why in either case 
 should we mind about concealment? And even if there are
 
 44 PLATO 
 
 gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of tfiem only 
 from tradition and the genealogies of the poets ; and these are 
 the very persons who say that they may be influenced and 
 turned by " sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings." 
 Let us be consistent, then, and believe both or neither. If the 
 poets speak truly, why, then, we had better be unjust, and offer 
 of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may 
 escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of in- 
 justice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by 
 our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods 
 will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. " But there 
 is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer 
 for our unjust deeds." Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, 
 but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have 
 great power. That is what mighty cities declare ; and the chil- 
 dren of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like 
 testimony. 
 
 On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice 
 rather than the worst injustice ? when, if we only unite the lat- 
 ter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our 
 mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the 
 most numerous and the highest authorities tell us. Knowing 
 all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of 
 mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honor justice ; 
 or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice 
 praised? And even if there should be someone who is able to 
 disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice 
 is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready 
 to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just 
 of their own free will ; unless, peradventure, there be someone 
 whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred 
 of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth but 
 no other man. He only blames injustice, who, owing to cow- 
 ardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being 
 unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains 
 the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. 
 
 The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the 
 beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you 
 how astonished we were to find that of all the professing pan- 
 egyrists of justice beginning with the ancient heroes of whom
 
 THE REPUBLIC 45 
 
 any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the 
 men of our own time no one has ever blamed injustice or 
 praised justice except with a view to the glories, honors, and 
 benefits which flow from them. No one has ever adequately de- 
 scribed either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either 
 of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine 
 eye ; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has 
 within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the great- 
 est evil. Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to 
 persuade us of this from our youth upward, we should not have 
 been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but 
 everyone would have been his own watchman, because afraid, 
 if he did wrong, of harboring in himself the greatest of evils. 
 I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold 
 the language which I have been merely repeating, and words 
 even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, 
 as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I speak in this 
 vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because 
 I want to hear from you the opposite side ; and I would ask you 
 to show not only the superiority which justice has over injus- 
 tice, but what effect they have on the possessor of them which 
 makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him. And 
 please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations ; for 
 unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and 
 add on the false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but 
 the appearance of it ; we shall think that you are only exhorting 
 us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thra- 
 symachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the in- 
 terest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit 
 and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you 
 have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods 
 which are desired, indeed, for their results, but in a far greater 
 degree for their own sakes like sight or hearing or knowledge 
 or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conven- 
 tional good I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard 
 one point only : I mean the essential good and evil which justice 
 and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise 
 justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and 
 honors of the one and abusing the other ; that is a manner of 
 arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but
 
 46 PLATO 
 
 from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration 
 of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, 
 I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only 
 prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what 
 they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes 
 the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or un- 
 seen by gods and men. 
 
 I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeiman- 
 tus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said : 
 Sons of an illustrious father, that was not a bad beginning of 
 the elegiac verses which the admirer of Glaucon made in honor 
 of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of 
 Megara : 
 
 " Sons of Ariston," he sang, " divine offspring of an illustrious hero." 
 
 The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly 
 divine in being able to argue as you have done for the supe- 
 riority of injustice, and remaining unconvinced by your own 
 arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced 
 this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only 
 from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, 
 the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in 
 knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on 
 the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task ; and my ina- 
 bility is brought home to me by the fact that you were not sat- 
 isfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, 
 as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. 
 And yet I cannot refuse to help, while breath and speech remain 
 to me; I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being 
 present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting up a hand 
 in her defence. And therefore I had best give such help as I 
 can. 
 
 Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let 
 the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They 
 wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice 
 and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. 
 I told them, what I really thought, that the 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 bet- 
 ter adopt a method which I may illustrate thus ; suppose that
 
 THE REPUBLIC 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 in- 
 quire 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. Re- 
 flect 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 man- 
 kind ; 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.
 
 48 PLATO 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and an- 
 other 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 husband- 
 man, 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?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 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 hus- 
 bandman 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 herds- 
 men, 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
 
 5 o PLATO 
 
 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
 
 THE REPUBLIC 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 any- 
 where else. 
 
 I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said ; we 
 had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the 
 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.
 
 53 PLATO 
 
 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 conven- 
 iences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accus- 
 tomed 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 in- 
 justice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy consti- 
 tution 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 courte- 
 sans 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 re- 
 quest, 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 ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 53 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 husband- 
 man, 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 impor- 
 tant 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
 
 54 PLATO 
 
 who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan ; al- 
 though 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.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 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 contra- 
 diction 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 pre- 
 ceded. My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplex- 
 ity ; 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 spir- 
 ited 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 
 
 .the dog, and is remarkable in the animal.
 
 5 6 PLATO 
 
 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 ignor- 
 ance? 
 
 Most assuredly. 
 
 And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which 
 is philosophy? 
 
 They are the same, he replied. 
 
 And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who 
 is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must 
 by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? 
 
 That we may safely affirm. 
 
 Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the 
 State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and 
 swiftness and strength? 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we 
 have found them, how are they to be reared and educated ? Is 
 not this an inquiry which may be expected to throw light on 
 the greater inquiry which is our final end How do justice and 
 injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit 
 what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an incon- 
 venient length. 
 
 Adeimantus thought that the inquiry would be of great ser- 
 vice to us. 
 
 Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, 
 even if somewhat long. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and 
 our story shall be the education of our heroes.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 57 
 
 By all means. 
 
 And what shall be their education? Can we find a better 
 than the traditional sort? and this has two divisions, gym- 
 nastics for the body, and music for the soul. 
 
 True. 
 
 Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnas- 
 tics afterward? 
 
 By all means. 
 
 And when you speak of music, do you include literature or 
 not? 
 
 I do. 
 
 And literature may be either true or false? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we be- 
 gin with the false ? 
 
 I do not understand your meaning, he said. 
 
 You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories 
 which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main 
 fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not 
 of an age to learn gymnastics. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music 
 before gymnastics. 
 
 Quite right, he said. 
 
 You know also that the beginning is the most important part 
 of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing ; 
 for that is the time at which the character is being formed and 
 the desired impression is more readily taken. 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual 
 tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive 
 into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of 
 those which we should wish them to have when they are 
 grown up? 
 
 We cannot. 
 
 Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the 
 writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction 
 which is good, and reject the bad ; and we will desire mothers 
 and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let 
 them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than
 
 S 8 PLATO 
 
 they mould the body with their hands ; but most of those which 
 are now in use must be discarded. 
 
 Of what tales are you speaking? he said. 
 
 You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said ; for 
 they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same 
 spirit in both of them. 
 
 Very likely, he replied ; but I do not as yet know what you 
 would term the greater. 
 
 Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, 
 and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great story- 
 tellers of mankind. 
 
 But which stories do you mean, he said ; and what fault do 
 you find with them ? 
 
 A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a 
 lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. 
 
 But when is this fault committed? 
 
 Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature 
 of gods and heroes as when a painter paints a portrait not 
 having the shadow of a likeness to the original. 
 
 Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; 
 but what are the stories which you mean ? 
 
 First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high 
 places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad 
 lie too I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how 
 Cronus retaliated on him. 1 The doings of Cronus, and the 
 sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they 
 were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and 
 thoughtless persons ; if possible, they had better be buried in 
 silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, 
 a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should 
 sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and 
 unprocurable victim ; and then the number of the hearers will 
 be very few indeed. 
 
 Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. 
 
 Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our 
 State ; the young man should not be told that in committing 
 the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous ; 
 and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, 
 in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of 
 the first and greatest among the gods. 
 
 1 Hesiod, " Theogony," 154, 459.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 59 
 
 I entirely agree with you, he said ; in my opinion those stories 
 are quite unfit to be repeated. 
 
 Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit 
 of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, 
 should, any woid be said to them of the wars in heaven, and 
 of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for 
 they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of 
 the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we 
 shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods 
 and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would 
 only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, 
 and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel be- 
 tween citizens; this is what old men and old women should 
 begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets 
 also should be told to compose them in a similar spirit. 1 But 
 the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how 
 on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part 
 when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in 
 Homer these tales must not be admitted into our State, 
 whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or 
 not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and 
 what is literal ; anything that he receives into his mind at that 
 age is likely to become indelible and unalterable ; and therefore 
 it is most important that the tales which the young first hear 
 should be models of virtuous thoughts. 
 
 There you are right, he replied; but if anyone asks where 
 are such models to be found and of what tales are you speak- 
 ing how shall we answer him ? 
 
 I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not 
 poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State 
 ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast 
 their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but 
 to make the tales is not their business. 
 
 Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology 
 which you mean ? 
 
 Something of this kind, I replied : God is always to be rep- 
 resented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric, 
 or tragic, in which the representation is given. 
 
 Right. 
 
 1 Placing the comma after ypawi, and not after ytyroptfrotc.
 
 6o PLATO 
 
 And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented 
 as such? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And no good thing is hurtful ? 
 
 No, indeed. 
 
 And that which is not hurtful hurts not? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And that which hurts not does no evil? 
 
 No. 
 
 And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And the good is advantageous ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And therefore the cause of well-being? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the good is not the cause of all 
 things, but of the good only ? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as 
 the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and 
 not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods 
 of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be 
 attributed to God alone ; of the evils the causes are to be sought 
 elsewhere, and not in him. 
 
 That appears to me to be most true, he said. 
 
 Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who 
 is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks 
 
 " Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of 
 evil lots," * 
 
 and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two 
 
 " Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good ; " 
 
 but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill, 
 " Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth." 
 And again 
 
 " Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us." 
 
 i " Iliad," xxiv. 527.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 61 
 
 And if anyone asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, 
 which was really the work of Pandarus, 1 was brought about 
 by Athene and Zeus, or that the strife and contention of the 
 gods were instigated by Themis and Zeus, 2 he shall not have 
 our approval ; neither will we allow our young men to hear the 
 words of ^schylus, that 
 
 " God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house." 
 
 And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe the subject 
 of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur or of the 
 house of Pelops, or of the Trojan War or on any similar theme, 
 either we must not permit him to say that these are the works 
 of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation 
 of them such as we are seeking : he must say that God did what 
 was just and right, and they were the better for being punished ; 
 but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is 
 the author of their misery the poet is not to be permitted to 
 say ; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because 
 they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving pun- 
 ishment from God ; but that God being good is the author of 
 evil to anyone is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said 
 or sung or heard in verse or prose by anyone whether old or 
 young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is 
 suicidal, ruinous, impious. 
 
 I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent 
 to the law. 
 
 Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning 
 the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to 
 conform that God is not the author of all things, but of good 
 only. 
 
 That will do, he said. 
 
 And what do you think of a second principle? Shall I ask 
 you whether God is a magician, and of a nature to appear in- 
 sidiously now in one shape, and now in another sometimes 
 himself changing and passing into many forms, sometimes de- 
 ceiving us with the semblance of such transformations; or is 
 he one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image? 
 
 I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought. 
 
 Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that 
 
 " Iliad," ii. 69. " Iliad," xx.
 
 63 PLATO 
 
 change must be effected either by the thing itself or by some 
 other thing? 
 
 Most certainly. 
 
 And things which are at their best are also least liable to be 
 altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and 
 strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by 
 meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigor also 
 suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar 
 causes. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused 
 or deranged by any external influence? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the same principle, as I should suppose, applies to all 
 composite things furniture, houses, garments : when good and 
 well made, they are least altered by time and circumstances. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Then everything which is good, whether made by art or 
 nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? 
 
 True. 
 
 But surely God and the things of God are in every way per- 
 fect? 
 
 Of course they are. 
 
 Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to 
 take many shapes ? 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 But may he not change and transform himself ? 
 
 Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. 
 
 And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, 
 or for the worse and more unsightly? 
 
 If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we 
 cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. 
 
 Very true, Adeimantus ; but then, would anyone, whether 
 God or man, desire to make himself worse ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to 
 change ; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is con- 
 ceivable, every God remains absolutely and forever in his own 
 form. 
 
 That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 63 
 
 Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us 
 that 
 
 " The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up 
 and down cities in all sorts of forms ; " ' 
 
 and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let anyone, 
 either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here 
 disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms 
 
 " For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos ;" 
 
 let us have no more lies of that sort. Neither must we have 
 mothers under the influence of the poets scaring their children 
 with a bad version of these myths telling how certain gods, 
 as they say, " Go about by night in the likeness of so many 
 strangers and in divers forms ; " but let them take heed lest they 
 make cowards of their children, and at the same time speak 
 blasphemy against the gods. 
 
 Heaven forbid, he said. 
 
 But although the gods are themselves unchangeable, still by 
 witchcraft and deception they may make us think that they ap- 
 pear in various forms? 
 
 Perhaps, he replied. 
 
 Well, but can you imagine that God will be willing to lie, 
 whether in word or deed, or to put forth a phantom of himself ? 
 
 I cannot say, he replied. 
 
 Do you not know, I said, that the true lie, if such an expres- 
 sion may be allowed, is hated of gods and men ? 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the 
 truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and 
 highest matters; there, 'above all, he is most afraid of a lie 
 having possession of him. 
 
 Still, he said, I do not comprehend you. 
 
 The reason is, I replied, that you attribute some profound 
 meaning to my words ; but I am only saying that deception, or 
 being deceived or uninformed about the highest realities in the 
 highest part of themselves, which is the soul, and in that part 
 of them to have and to hold the lie, is what mankind least like ; 
 that, I say, is what they utterly detest. 
 
 Horn. " Odyssey," xvli. 485. i
 
 64 PLATO 
 
 There is nothing more hateful to them. 
 
 And, as I was just now remarking, this ignorance in the soul 
 of him who is deceived may be called the true lie; for the lie 
 in words is only a kind of imitation and shadowy image of a 
 previous affection of the soul, not pure unadulterated false- 
 hood. Am I not right ? 
 
 Perfectly right. 
 
 The true lie is hated not only by the gods, but also by men ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not 
 hateful ; in dealing with enemies that would be an instance ; 
 or again, when those w r hom we call our friends in a fit of mad- 
 ness or illusion are going to do some harm, then it is useful and 
 is a sort of medicine or preventive ; also in the tales of mythol- 
 ogy, of which we were just now speaking because we do not 
 know the truth about ancient times, we make falsehood as much 
 like truth as we can, and so turn it to account. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 But can any of these reasons apply to God? Can we sup- 
 pose that he is ignorant of antiquity, and therefore has recourse 
 to invention? 
 
 That would be ridiculous, he said. 
 
 Then the lying poet has no place in our idea of God? 
 
 I should say not. 
 
 Or perhaps he may tell a lie because he is afraid of enemies ? 
 
 That is inconceivable. 
 
 But he may have friends who are senseless or mad? 
 
 But no mad or senseless person can be a friend of God. 
 
 Then no motive can be imagined why God should lie? 
 
 None whatever. 
 
 Then the superhuman, and divine, is absolutely incapable of 
 falsehood ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and 
 deed ; * he changes not ; he deceives not, either by sign or word, 
 by dream or waking vision. 
 
 Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. 
 
 You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type 
 or form in which we should write and speak about divine 
 
 1 Omitting Kara $avra<riat.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 65 
 
 things. The gods are not magicians who transform them- 
 selves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way. 
 
 I grant that. 
 
 Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire 
 the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon ; neither will 
 we praise the verses of ^schylus in which Thetis says that 
 Apollo at her nuptials 
 
 " was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, 
 and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all 
 things blessed of heaven, he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. 
 And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, 
 would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was 
 present at the banquet, and who said this he it is who has slain my 
 son." l 
 
 These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will 
 arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a 
 chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them 
 in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our 
 guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers 
 of the gods and like them. 
 
 I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise 
 to make them my laws. 
 
 From a lost play.
 
 BOOK III 
 
 THE ARTS IN EDUCATION 
 SOCRATES, ADEIMANTUS 
 
 SUCH, then, I said, are our principles of theology some 
 tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our 
 disciples from their youth upward, if we mean them to 
 honor the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with 
 one another. 
 
 Yes ; and I think that our principles are right, he said. 
 
 But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other 
 lessons beside these, and lessons of such a kind as will take 
 away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who 
 has the fear of death in him ? 
 
 Certainly not, he said. 
 
 And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in 
 battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world 
 below to be real and terrible? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this 
 class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not sim- 
 ply to revile, but rather to commend the world below, intimat- 
 ing to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm 
 to our future warriors. 
 
 That will be our duty, he said. 
 
 Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious 
 passages, beginning with the verses 
 
 " I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless 
 man than rule over all the dead who have come to naught." 1 
 
 1 " Odyssey," xi. 489. 
 66
 
 THE REPUBLIC 67 
 
 We must also expunge the verse which tells us how Pluto 
 feared 
 
 " Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should 
 be seen both of mortals and immortals." 1 
 
 And again: 
 
 " O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly 
 form but no mind at all 1 " 2 
 
 Again of Tiresias: 
 
 " [To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he 
 alone should be wise ; but the other souls are flitting shades." 8 
 
 Again : 
 
 " The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her 
 
 fate, leaving manhood and youth." 4 
 
 Again : 
 
 " And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the 
 
 earth." 
 
 And, 
 
 " As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has 
 dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and 
 cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as 
 they moved." 6 
 
 And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry 
 if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they 
 are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because 
 the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet 
 for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who 
 should fear slavery more than death. 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling 
 names which describe the world below Cocytus and Styx, 
 ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar 
 words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass 
 
 1 " Iliad," xx. 64. *" Iliad," xxiii. 103. " Odyssey," x. 495. 
 
 4 " Iliad," xvi. 856. " Iliad," xxiii. too. " Odyssey," xxiv. 6.
 
 68 PLATO 
 
 through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say 
 that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; 
 but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be 
 rendered too excitable and effeminate by them. 
 
 There is a real danger, he said. 
 
 Then we must have no more of them. 
 
 True. 
 
 Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung 
 by us. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wail- 
 ings of famous men ? 
 
 They will go with the rest. 
 
 But shall we be right in getting rid of them ? Reflect : our 
 principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible 
 to any other good man who is his comrade. 
 
 Yes; that is our principle. 
 
 And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as 
 though he had suffered anything terrible? 
 
 He will not. 
 
 Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself 
 and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other 
 men. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the de- 
 privation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible. 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear 
 with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which 
 may befall him. 
 
 Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another. 
 
 Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of 
 famous men, and making them over to women (and not even 
 to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser 
 sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the de- 
 fenders of their country may scorn to do the like. 
 
 That will be very right. 
 
 Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets 
 not to depict Achilles/ who is the son of a goddess, first lying 
 
 1 "Iliad," xxiv. 10.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 69 
 
 on his side, then on his back, and then on his face ; then starting 
 up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea ; 
 now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands 1 and pouring 
 them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various 
 modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe 
 Priam, the kinsman of the gods, as praying and beseeching, 
 
 " Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name." 2 
 
 Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to in- 
 troduce the gods lamenting and saying, 
 
 " Alas ! my misery ! Alas ! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow." 3 
 
 But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare 
 so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to 
 make him say 
 
 " O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine 
 chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful." * 
 
 Or again : 
 
 " Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to 
 me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Mencetius." 5 
 
 For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to 
 such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing 
 at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he 
 himself, being but a man, can be dishonored by similar actions ; 
 neither will he rebuke any inclination which may arise in his 
 mind to say and do the like. And instead of having any shame 
 or self-control, he will be always whining and lamenting on 
 slight occasions. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is most true. 
 
 Yes, I replied ; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the 
 argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must 
 abide until it is disproved by a better. 
 
 It ought not to be. 
 
 Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For 
 a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost al- 
 ways produces a violent reaction. 
 
 i " Iliad," xviii. 23. * " Iliad," xxii. 414. 
 
 1 " Iliad," xviii. 54. * " Iliad," xxii. 168. " Iliad," xvl. 433.
 
 70 PLATO 
 
 So I believe. 
 
 Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not 
 be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such 
 a representation of the gods be allowed. 
 
 Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. 
 
 Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about 
 the gods as that of Homer when he describes how 
 
 " Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when 
 they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion." i 
 
 On your views, we must not admit them. 
 
 On my views, if you like to father them on me ; that we must 
 not admit them is certain. 
 
 Again, truth should be highly valued ; if, as we were saying, 
 a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to 
 men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to 
 physicians; private individuals have no business with them. 
 
 Clearly not, he said. 
 
 Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the 
 rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their 
 dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be 
 allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should 
 meddle with anything of the kind ; and although the rulers have 
 this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to 
 be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil 
 of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily 
 illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to 
 tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest 
 of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his 
 fellow-sailors. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in 
 the State, 
 
 " Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or 
 carpenter," 2 
 
 he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally 
 subversive and destructive of ship or State. 
 
 * " Iliad," i. 599. * " Odyssey," xvii. 383 et seq.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 71 
 
 Most certainly, he said, if cur idea of the State is ever car- 
 ried out. 1 
 
 In the next place our youth must be temperate? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking gener- 
 ally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual 
 pleasures ? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in 
 Homer, 
 
 " Friend sit still and obey my word," 2 
 
 and the verses which follow, 
 
 " The Greeks marched breathing prowess," * 
 " . . . in silent awe of their leaders." * 
 
 and other sentiments of the same kind. 
 We shall. 
 What of this line, 
 
 " O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of 
 a stag," 5 
 
 and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, 
 or any similar impertinences which private individuals are sup- 
 posed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are 
 well or ill spoken ? 
 
 They are ill spoken. 
 
 They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do 
 not conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to 
 do harm to our young men you would agree with me there ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing 
 in his opinion is more glorious than 
 
 " When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer 
 carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the 
 cups ; " 6 
 
 1 Or, " if his words are accompanied by actions." * " Iliad," iv. 412. 
 
 " Odyssey," iii. 8. " Odyssey," iv. 431. 6 " Odyssey," i. 225. " Odyssey," ix. 8.
 
 72 PLATO 
 
 is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear 
 such words ? or the verse 
 
 " The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger " ? l 
 
 What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other 
 gods and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay 
 devising plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his 
 lust, and was so completely overcome at the sight of Here that 
 he would not even go into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on 
 the ground, declaring that he had never been in such a state of 
 rapture before, even when they first met one another, 
 
 " Without the knowledge of their parents " 2 
 
 or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings 
 on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite ? 3 
 
 Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not 
 to hear that, sort of thing. 
 
 But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous 
 men, these they ought to see and hear ; as, for example, what 
 is said in the verses, 
 
 " He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, 
 Endure, my heart ; far worse hast thou endured ! " * 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts 
 or lovers of money. 
 Certainly not. 
 Neither must we sing to them of 
 
 " Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings." 5 
 
 Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or 
 deemed to have given his pupil good counsel when he told him 
 that he should take the gifts of the Greeks and assist them ; 6 
 but that without a gift he should not lay aside his anger. 
 Neither will we believe or acknowledge Achilles himself to 
 have been such a lover of money that he took Agamemnon's 
 gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the 
 
 1 " Odyssey," xii. 342. * " Iliad," xiv. 281. 8 " Odyssey," viii. 266. 
 
 * " Odyssey," xx. 17. Quoted by Suidas as attributed to Hesiod. " JUad," ix. ftt*
 
 THE REPUBLIC 73 
 
 dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwill- 
 ing to do so. 1 
 
 Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be 
 approved. 
 
 Loving Homer as I do, 2 I hardly like to say that in attribut- 
 ing these feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly 
 attributed to him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little 
 can I believe the narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he 
 says, 
 
 " Thou hast wronged me, O Far-darter, most abominable of deities. 
 Verily I would be even with thee, if I had only the power; " 3 
 
 or his insubordination to the river-god, 4 on whose divinity he 
 is ready to lay hands ; or his offerings to the dead Patroclus of 
 his own hair, 5 which had been previously dedicated to the other 
 river-god Spercheius, and that he actually performed this vow ; 
 or that he dragged Hector round the tomb of Patroclus, 6 and 
 slaughtered the captives at the pyre ; 7 of all this I cannot be- 
 lieve that he was guilty, any more than I can allow our citizens 
 to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the son of a goddess 
 and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in descent 
 from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time 
 the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not 
 untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of 
 gods and men. 
 
 You are quite right, he replied. 
 
 And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, 
 the tale of Theseus, son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous, son of 
 Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or 
 of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious 
 and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day : 
 and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these 
 acts were done by them, or that they were not the sons of God ; 
 both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. 
 We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the ^ 
 gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than \ 
 men sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious ) 
 
 ' Iliad," xxiv. 175. Cf. infra. x. 505. " Iliad," xxii. 15 et seq. 
 
 " Iliad," xxi. 130, 223 et scq. " Iliad," xxin. 151. " Iliad," xxii. 394. 
 
 ' " Iliad," xxiii. 175.
 
 74 PLATO 
 
 nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from 
 the gods. 
 
 Assuredly not. 
 
 And, further, they are likely to have a bad effect on those 
 who hear them ; for everybody will begin to excuse his own 
 vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always 
 being perpetrated by 
 
 " The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral 
 altar, the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida," 
 
 and who have 
 
 " the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins." 1 
 
 And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender 
 laxity of morals among the young. 
 
 By all means, he replied. 
 
 But now that we are determining what classes of subjects 
 are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been 
 omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and 
 heroes and the world below should be treated has been already 
 laid down. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the re- 
 maining portion of our subject. 
 
 Clearly so. 
 
 But we are not in a condition to answer this question at pres- 
 ent, my friend. 
 
 Why not ? 
 
 Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about 
 men ; poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest 
 misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often 
 happy, and the good miserable ; and that injustice is profitable 
 when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and an- 
 other's gain these things we shall forbid them to utter, and 
 command them to sing and say the opposite. 
 
 To be sure we shall, he replied. 
 
 But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall main- 
 tain that you have implied the principle for which we have 
 been all along contending. 
 
 1 From the " Niobe " of ^Eschylus*
 
 THE REPUBLIC 75 
 
 I grant the truth of your inference. 
 
 That such things are or are not to be said about men is a ques- 
 tion which we cannot determine until we have discovered what 
 justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, 
 whether he seem to be just or not. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the 
 style ; and when this has been considered, both matter and man- 
 ner will have been completely treated. 
 
 I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. 
 
 Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be 
 more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are 
 aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry are a narration 
 of events, either past, present, or to come? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 And narration may be either simple narration or imitation, 
 or a union of the two? 
 
 That, again, he said, I do not quite understand. 
 
 I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so 
 much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad 
 speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but 
 will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know 
 the first lines of the " Iliad," in which the poet says that Chryses 
 prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamem- 
 non flew into a passion with him ; whereupon Chryses, failing 
 of his object, invoked the anger of the god against the Achasans. 
 Now as far as these lines, 
 
 " And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, 
 the chiefs of the people," 
 
 the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to 
 suppose that he is anyone else. But in what follows he takes 
 the person of Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make 
 us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest 
 himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narra- 
 tive of the events which occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and 
 throughout the " Odyssey." 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the 
 poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages ?
 
 7 6 PLATO 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we 
 not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, 
 as he informs you, is going to speak? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use 
 of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose char- 
 acter he assumes? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to 
 proceed by way of imitation? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals him- 
 self, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes 
 simple narration. However, in order that I may make my 
 meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, " I don't 
 understand," I will show how the change might be effected. 
 If Homer had said, " The priest came, having his daughter's 
 ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achseans, and above all 
 the kings ; " and then if, instead of speaking in the person of 
 ) Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would 
 have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage 
 would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop 
 the metre) : " The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf 
 of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely 
 home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, 
 and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the god. 
 Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and as- 
 sented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and 
 not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the god should 
 be of no avail to him the daughter of Chryses should not be 
 released, he said she should grow old with him in Argos. 
 And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he 
 intended to get home unscathed. And the old man went away 
 in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called 
 upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything 
 which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his 
 temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds 
 might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate 
 his tears by the arrows of the god " and so on. In this way 
 the whole becomes simple narrative.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 77 
 
 I understand, he said. 
 
 Or you may suppose the opposite case that the intermediate 
 passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. 
 
 That also, he said, I understand ; you mean, for example, as 
 in tragedy. 
 
 You have conceived my meaning perfectly ; and if I mistake 
 not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to : s 
 you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imi- 
 tative instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy ; j 
 there is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only 
 speaker of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and 
 the combination of both is found in epic and in several other 
 styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? 
 
 Yes, he said; I see now what you meant. 
 
 I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, 
 that we had done with the subject and might proceed to the 
 style. 
 
 Yes, I remember. 
 
 In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an j 
 understanding about the mimetic art whether the poets, in 
 narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if \ 
 so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts ; 
 or should all imitation be prohibited ? 
 
 You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy 
 shall be admitted into our State? 
 
 Yes, I said ; but there may be more than this in question : I 
 really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, 
 thither we go. 
 
 And go we will, he said. 
 
 Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians 
 ought to be imitators ; or rather, has not this question been de- 
 cided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do 
 one thing well, and not many ; and that if he attempt many, he 
 will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And this is equally true of imitation ; no one man can imitate 
 many things as well as he would imitate a single one? 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious 
 part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate
 
 7 8 PLATO 
 
 many other parts as well ; for even when two species of imita- 
 tion are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, 
 as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy did you 
 not just now call them imitations? 
 
 Yes, I did ; and you are right in thinking that the same per- 
 sons cannot succeed in both. 
 
 Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once ? 
 
 True. 
 
 Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these 
 things are but imitations. 
 
 They are so. 
 
 And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined 
 into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many 
 things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imi- 
 tations are copies. 
 
 Quite true, he replied. 
 
 If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind 
 that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to 
 dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in 
 the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work 
 which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or 
 imitate anything else ; if they imitate at all, they should imitate 
 from youth upward only those characters which are suitable 
 to their profession the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and 
 the like ; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating 
 any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they 
 should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe 
 how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far 
 into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, 
 affecting body, voice, and mind ? 
 
 Yes, certainly, he said. 
 
 Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess 
 a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, 
 to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with 
 her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in con- 
 ceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or 
 weeping; and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or 
 labor. 
 
 Very right, he said. 
 
 Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, per- 
 forming the offices of slaves?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 79 
 
 They must not. 
 
 And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, 
 who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who 
 scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, 
 or who in any other manner sin against themselves and their 
 neighbors in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither 
 should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men 
 or women who are mad or bad ; for madness, like vice, is to be 
 known but not to be practised or imitated. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oars- 
 men, or boatswains, or the like? 
 
 How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply 
 their minds to the callings of any of these ? 
 
 Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing 
 of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, 
 and all that sort of thing? 
 
 Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy 
 the behavior of madmen. 
 
 You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is 
 one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly 
 good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort 
 will be used by a man of an opposite character and education. 
 
 And which are these two sorts ? he asked. 
 
 Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course 
 of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good 
 man I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and 
 will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most 
 ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly 
 and wisely ; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or 
 love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when 
 he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not 
 make a study of that ; he will disdain such a person, and will 
 assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is per- 
 forming some good action ; at other times he will be ashamed 
 to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to 
 fashion and frame himself after the baser models ; he feels the 
 employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, 
 and his mind revolts at it. 
 
 So I should expect, he replied.
 
 80 PLATO 
 
 Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have 
 illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both 
 imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the 
 former, and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree ? 
 
 Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker 
 must necessarily take. 
 
 But there is another sort of character who will narrate any- 
 thing, and, the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be ; 
 nothing will be too bad for him : and he will be ready to imi- 
 tate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and be- 
 fore a large company. As I was just now saying, he will 
 attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and 
 hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various 
 sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments : 
 he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock ; 
 his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and 
 there will be very little narration. 
 
 That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. 
 
 These, then, are the two kinds of style? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And you would agree with me in saying that one of them 
 is simple and has but slight changes ; and if the harmony and 
 rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that 
 the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the 
 same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single 
 harmony (for the changes are not great), and in like manner 
 he will make use of nearly the same rhythm? 
 
 That is quite true, he said. 
 
 Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all 
 sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, 
 because the style has all sorts of changes. 
 
 That is also perfectly true, he replied. 
 
 And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, com- 
 prehend all poetry, and every form of expression in words? 
 No one can say anything except in one or other of them or in 
 both together. 
 
 They include all, he said. 
 
 And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or 
 one only of the two unmixed styles ? or would you include the 
 mixed ? 
 
 I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 81 
 
 Yes, I said, Adeimantus; but the mixed style is also very 
 charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite 
 of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children 
 and their attendants, and with the world in general. 
 
 I do not deny it. 
 
 But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuit- 
 able to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or man- 
 ifold, for one man plays one part only ? 
 
 Yes; quite unsuitable. 
 
 And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State 
 only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a 
 pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a 
 dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and 
 the same throughout? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, 
 who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, 
 and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will 
 fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful 
 being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as 
 he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. 
 And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a gar- 
 land of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another 
 city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher 
 and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of 
 the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we pre- 
 scribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. 
 
 We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. 
 
 Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary 
 education which relates to the story or myth may be considered 
 to be finished ; for the matter and manner have both been dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 I think so too, he said. 
 
 Next in order will follow melody and song. 
 
 That is obvious. 
 
 Everyone can see already what we ought to say about them, 
 if we are to be consistent with ourselves. 
 
 I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word " everyone " 
 hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they 
 should be ; though I may guess. 
 6
 
 82 PLATO 
 
 At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts 
 the words, the melody, and the rhythm ; that degree of knowl- 
 edge I may presuppose? 
 
 Yes, he said ; so much as that you may. 
 
 And as for the words, there will surely be no difference be- 
 tween words which are and which are not set to music ; both 
 will conform to the same laws, and these have been already 
 determined by us ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that 
 we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You 
 are musical, and can tell me. 
 
 The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor 
 Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. 
 
 These then, I said, must be banished ; they are of no use, even 
 to women who have a character to maintain, and much less 
 to men. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence 
 are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. 
 
 Utterly unbecoming. 
 
 And which are the soft or drinking harmonies ? 
 
 The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed 
 " relaxed." 
 
 Well, and are these of any military use ? 
 
 Quite the reverse, he replied ; and if so, the Dorian and the 
 Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. 
 
 I answered : Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want 
 to have one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave 
 man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when 
 his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is 
 overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets 
 the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to en- 
 dure ; and another to be used by him in times of peace and free- 
 dom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is 
 seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and
 
 THE REPUBLIC 83 
 
 admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his 
 willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, 
 and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has at- 
 tained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting mod- 
 erately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing 
 in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the 
 strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the 
 unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of cour- 
 age, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave. 
 
 And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian har- 
 monies of which I was just now speaking. 
 
 Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our 
 songs and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes 
 or a panharmonic scale ? 
 
 I suppose not. 
 
 Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three 
 corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many- 
 stringed, curiously harmonized instruments? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? 
 Would you admit them into our State when you reflect that 
 in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the 
 stringed instruments put together ; even the panharmonic 
 music is only an imitation of the flute? 
 
 Clearly not. 
 
 There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the 
 city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. 
 
 That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. 
 
 The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas 
 and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. 
 
 Not at all, he replied. 
 
 And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously 
 purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious. 
 
 And we have done wisely, he replied. 
 
 Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order 
 to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should 
 be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out com- 
 plex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to 
 discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and 
 harmonious life ; and when we have found them, we shall adapt
 
 84 PLATO 
 
 the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the 
 words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms 
 are will be your duty you must teach me them, as you have 
 already taught me the harmonies. 
 
 But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that 
 there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical 
 systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes l 
 out of which all the harmonies are composed ; that is an obser- 
 vation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are 
 severally the imitations I am unable to say. 
 
 Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and 
 he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or 
 insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be re- 
 served for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that 
 I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex 
 Cretic rhythm ; also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them 
 in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the 
 rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short al- 
 ternating ; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as 
 well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and 
 long quantities. 2 Also in some cases he appeared to praise or 
 censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm ; 
 or perhaps a combination of the two ; for I am not certain what 
 he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better 
 be referred to Damon himself, for the analysis of the subject 
 would be difficult, you know ? 
 
 Rather so, I should say. 
 
 But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence 
 of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm. 
 
 None at all. 
 
 And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to 
 a good and bad style ; and that harmony and discord in like 
 manner follow style ; for our principle is that rhythm and har- 
 mony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. 
 
 Just so, he said, they should follow the words. 
 
 And will not the words and the character of the style depend 
 on the temper of the soul ? 
 
 1 The four notes of the tetrachord. 
 
 * Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the 
 details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of 
 paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3 to 2 ; in the second part, of dactylic and ana- 
 paestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of i to i ; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic 
 rhythms, which are in the ratio of i to 2 or 2 to i.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 85 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And everything else on the style ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good 
 rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a 
 rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other 
 simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly ? 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not 
 make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? 
 
 They must. 
 
 And surely the art of the painter and every other creative 
 and constructive art are full of them weaving, embroidery, 
 architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, 
 animal and vegetable in all of them there is grace or the ab- 
 sence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious 
 motion are nearly allied to ill-words and ill-nature, as grace 
 and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and 
 bear their likeness. 
 
 That is quite true, he said. 
 
 But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the 
 poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good 
 in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion 
 from our State ? Or is the same control to be extended to other 
 artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the 
 opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and 
 indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts ; 
 and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be pre- 
 vented from practising his art in our State, lest the taste of our 
 citizens be corrupted by him ? We would not have our guard- 
 ians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some 
 noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a bane- 
 ful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently 
 gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let 
 our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true 
 nature of the beautiful and graceful ; then will our youth dwell 
 in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the 
 good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, 
 shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from 
 a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years 
 into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.
 
 86 PLATO 
 
 There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. 
 
 And therefore, I said, Glaucon, musical training is a more 
 potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony 
 find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they 
 mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him 
 who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated 
 ungraceful ; and also because he who has received this true edu- 
 cation of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions 
 or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he 
 praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, 
 and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the 
 bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to 
 know the reason why ; and when reason comes he will recognize 
 and salute the friend with whom his education has made him 
 long familiar. 
 
 Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our 
 youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which 
 you mention. 
 
 Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when 
 we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all 
 their recurring sizes and combinations ; not slighting them as 
 unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but 
 everywhere eager to make them out ; and not thinking ourselves 
 perfect in the art of reading until we recognize them wherever 
 they are found : 1 
 
 True 
 
 Or, as we recognize the reflection of letters in the water, or 
 in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves; the 
 same art and study giving us the knowledge of both : 
 
 Exactly 
 
 Even so, as I maintain, neither we nor our guardians, whom 
 we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they 
 know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, 
 magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, 
 in all their combinations, and can recognize them and their 
 images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in 
 small things or great, but believing them all to be within the 
 sphere of one art and study. 
 
 Most assuredly. 
 
 1 Cf. supra, II. 368.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 87 
 
 And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, 
 and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of 
 sights to him who has an eye to see it ? 
 
 The fairest indeed. 
 
 And the fairest is also the loveliest? 
 
 That may be assumed. 
 
 And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in 
 love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an 
 inharmonious soul? 
 
 That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but 
 if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient 
 of it, and will love all the same. 
 
 I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of 
 this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: 
 Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance ? 
 
 How can that be ? he replied ; pleasure deprives a man of the 
 use of his faculties quite as much as pain. 
 
 Or any affinity to virtue in general ? 
 
 None whatever. 
 
 Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance ? 
 
 Yes, ihz greatest. 
 
 And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of 
 sensual love? 
 
 No, nor a madder. 
 
 Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order temperate 
 and harmonious? 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 Then no intemperance or madness should be allowed to ap- 
 proach true love ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Then mad or intemperate pleasure must never be allowed 
 to come near the lover and his beloved ; neither of them can 
 have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? 
 
 No, indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. 
 
 Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you 
 would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other 
 familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son, and 
 then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other's 
 consent ; and this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and 
 he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to 
 be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste.
 
 88 PLATO 
 
 I quite agree, he said. 
 
 Thus much of music, which makes a fair ending; for what 
 should be the end of music if not the love of beauty ? 
 
 I agree, he said. 
 
 After music comes gymnastics, in which our youth are next 
 to be trained. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Gymnastics as well as music should begin in early years ; the 
 training in it should be careful and should continue through 
 life. Now my belief is and this is a matter upon which I 
 should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, 
 but my own belief is not that the good body by any bodily 
 excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the 
 good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as 
 this may be possible. What do you say ? 
 
 Yes, I agree. 
 
 Then, to the mind when adequately trained, we shall be right 
 in handing over the more particular care of the body ; and in 
 order to avoid prolixity we will now only give the general out- 
 lines of the subject. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 That they must abstain from intoxication has been already 
 remarked by us; for of all persons a guardian should be the 
 last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. 
 
 Yes, he said ; that a guardian should require another guar- 
 dian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed. 
 
 But next, what shall we say of their food ; for the men are 
 in training for the great contest of all are they not? 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited 
 to them? 
 
 Why not? 
 
 I am afraid, I said, that a habit of body such as they have is 
 but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do 
 you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives, and 
 are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so 
 slight a degree, from their customary regimen ? 
 
 Yes, I do. 
 
 Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our 
 warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see
 
 THE REPUBLIC 89 
 
 and hear with the utmost keenness ; amid the many changes of 
 water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, which 
 they will have to endure when on a campaign, they must not 
 be liable to break down in health. 
 
 That is my view. 
 
 The really excellent gymnastics is twin sister of that simple 
 music which we were just now describing. 
 
 How so? 
 
 Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastics which, like our 
 music, is simple and good ; and especially the military gym- 
 nastics. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 My meaning may be learned from Homer; he, you know, 
 feeds his heroes at their feasts, when they are campaigning, 
 on soldiers' fare ; they have no fish, although they are on the 
 shores of the Hellespont, and they are not allowed boiled meats, 
 but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, 
 requiring only that they should light a fire, and not involving 
 the trouble of carrying about pots and pans. 
 
 True. 
 
 And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces 
 are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, how- 
 ever, he is not singular ; all professional athletes are well aware 
 that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing 
 of the kind. 
 
 Yes, he said; and knowing this, they are quite right in not 
 taking them. 
 
 Then you would not approve of Syracusan dinners, and the 
 refinements of Sicilian cookery? 
 
 I think not. 
 
 Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to 
 have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are 
 thought, of Athenian confectionery? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us 
 to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style, and 
 in all the rhythms. 
 
 Exactly.
 
 9 o PLATO 
 
 There complexity engendered license, and here disease; 
 whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in 
 the soul ; and simplicity in gymnastics of health in the body. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, 
 halls of justice and medicine are always being opened ; and the 
 arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding 
 how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the free- 
 men of a city take about them. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and dis- 
 graceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and 
 the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians 
 and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a 
 liberal education? Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of 
 the want of good-breeding, that a man should have to go abroad 
 for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, 
 and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other 
 men whom he makes lords and judges over him? 
 
 Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. 
 
 Would you say " most," I replied, when you consider that 
 there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only 
 a life-long litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either 
 as plantiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to 
 pride himself on his litigiousness ; he imagines that he is a mas- 
 ter in dishonesty ; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle 
 into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting 
 out of the way of justice: and all for what? in order to gain 
 small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to 
 order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a 
 far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more dis- 
 graceful ? 
 
 Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. 
 
 Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when 
 a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but 
 just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have 
 been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, 
 as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons 
 of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence 
 and catarrh ; is not this, too, a disgrace ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 91 
 
 Yes, he said, they do certainly give very strange and new- 
 fangled names to diseases. 
 
 Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such 
 diseases in the days of Asclepius ; and this I infer from the cir- 
 cumstance that the hero Eurypylus, after he has been wounded 
 in Homer, drinks a posset of Pramnian wine well besprinkled 
 with barley-meal and grated cheese, which are certainly in- 
 flammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the 
 Trojan war do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, 
 or rebuke Patroclus, who is treating his case. 
 
 Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be 
 given to a person in his condition. 
 
 Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in 
 former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, 
 the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of 
 medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodi- 
 cus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a 
 combination of training and doctoring found out a way of tor- 
 turing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 How was that? he said. 
 
 By the invention of lingering death; for he had a mortal 
 disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out 
 of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian; 
 he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in 
 constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his 
 usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he 
 struggled on to old age. 
 
 A rare reward of his skill ! 
 
 Yes, I said ; a reward which a man might fairly expect who 
 never understood that, if Asclepius did not instruct his de- 
 scendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from 
 ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but 
 because he knew that in all well-ordered States every individual 
 has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore 
 no leisure to spend in continuallly being ill. This we remark 
 in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply 
 the same rule to people of the richer sort. 
 
 How do you mean? he said. 
 
 I mean this : When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician
 
 92 PLATO 
 
 for a rough and ready cure ; an emetic or a purge or a cautery 
 or the knife these are his remedies. And if someone pre- 
 scribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must 
 swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he re- 
 plies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no 
 good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect 
 of his customary employment ; and therefore bidding good-by 
 to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and 
 either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his con- 
 stitution fails, he dies and has no more trouble. 
 
 Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use 
 the art of medicine thus far only. 
 
 Has he not, I said, an occupation; and what profit would 
 there be in his life if he were deprived of his occupation ? 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 But with the rich man this is otherwise ; of him we do not 
 say that he has any specially appointed work which he must 
 perform, if he would live. 
 
 He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. 
 
 Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, that as 
 soon as a man has a livelihood he should practise virtue? 
 
 Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat 
 sooner. 
 
 Let us not have a dispute with him about this, I said ; but 
 rather ask ourselves : Is the practise of virtue obligatory on 
 the rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on 
 him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting 
 of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the 
 mind in carpentering and the mechanical arts, does not equally 
 stand in the way of the sentiment of Phocylides ? 
 
 Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt ; such excessive 
 care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastics, 
 is most inimical to the practice of virtue. 
 
 a Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the 
 management of a house, an army, or an office of state ; and, 
 what is most important of all, irreconcileable with any kind 
 of study or thought or self-reflection there is a constant sus- 
 picion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philos- 
 ophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the 
 
 1 Making the answer of Socrates begin at u yap irpo? K.T.A.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 93 
 
 higher sense is absolutely stopped ; for a man is always fancy- 
 ing that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about 
 the state of his body. 
 
 Yes, likely enough. 
 
 And therefore our politic Asclepius may be supposed to have 
 exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being gen- 
 erally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite 
 ailment ; such as these he cured by purges and operations, and 
 bade them live as usual, herein consulting the interests of the 
 State; but bodies which disease had penetrated through and 
 through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual proc- 
 esses of evacuation and infusion : he did not want to lengthen 
 out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting 
 weaker sons ; if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way 
 he had no business to cure him; for such a cure would have 
 been of no use either to himself, or to the State. 
 
 Then, he said, you regard Asclepius as a statesman. 
 
 Clearly ; and his character is further illustrated by his sons. 
 Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practised 
 the medicines of which I am speaking at the siege of Troy : 
 You will remember how, when Pandarus wounded Menelaus, 
 they 
 
 " Sucked the blood out of the wound, and sprinkled soothing remedies," ' 
 
 but they never prescribed what the patient was afterward to 
 eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case 
 of Eurypylus; the remedies, as they conceived, were enough 
 to heal any man who before he was wounded was healthy and 
 regular in his habits ; and even though he did happen to drink 
 a posset of Pramnian wine, he might get well all the same. 
 But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intem- 
 perate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves 
 or others ; the art of medicine was not designed for their good, 
 and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius 
 would have declined to attend them. 
 
 They were very acute persons, those sons of Asclepius. 
 
 Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and 
 Pindar disobeying our behests, although they acknowledge that 
 Asclepius was the son of Apollo, say also that he was bribed 
 
 1 "Iliad," iv. 218.
 
 94 
 
 PLATO 
 
 into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for 
 this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance 
 with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them 
 when they tell us both ; if he was the son of a god, we maintain 
 that he was not avaricious ; or, if he was avaricious, he was not 
 the son of a god. 
 
 All that, Socrates, is excellent; but I should like to put a 
 question to you : Ought there not to be good physicians in a 
 State, and are not the best those who have treated the greatest 
 number of constitutions, good and bad? and are not the best 
 judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts 
 of moral natures? 
 
 Yes, I said, I too would have good judges and good physi- 
 cians. But do you know whom I think good ? 
 
 Will you tell me? 
 
 I will, if I can. Let me, however, note that in the same ques- 
 tion you join two things which are not the same. 
 
 How so? he asked. 
 
 Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most 
 skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upward, 
 have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest 
 experience of disease ; they had better not be robust in health, 
 and should have had all manner of diseases in their own per- 
 sons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with 
 which they cure the body ; in that case we could not allow them 
 ever to be or to have been sickly ; but they cure the body with 
 the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure 
 nothing. 
 
 That is very true, he said. 
 
 But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind 
 by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among 
 vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth 
 upward, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, 
 only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as 
 he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness ; 
 the honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should 
 have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when 
 young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often 
 appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dis- 
 honest, because they have no examples of what evil is in 
 their own souls.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 95 
 
 Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. 
 
 Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should 
 have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late 
 and long observation of the nature of evil in others : knowledge 
 should be his guide, not personal experience. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. 
 
 Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my an- 
 swer to your question) ; for he is good who has a good soul. 
 But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke 
 he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be 
 a master in wickedness when he is among his fellows, is won- 
 derful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of 
 them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men 
 of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a 
 fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions ; he cannot 
 recognize an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty 
 in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous 
 than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks him- 
 self, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not 
 this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but 
 a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge 
 both of virtue and vice : the virtuous, and not the vicious, man 
 has wisdom in my opinion. 
 
 And in mine also. 
 
 This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law, which 
 you will sanction in your State. They will minister to better 
 natures, giving health both of soul and of body ; but those who 
 are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the cor- 
 rupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. 
 
 That is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the 
 State. 
 
 And thus our youth, having been educated only in that sim- 
 ple music which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be re- 
 luctant to go to law. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is con- 
 tent to practise the simple gymnastics, will have nothing to do 
 with medicine unless in some extreme case.
 
 96 PLATO 
 
 That I quite believe. 
 
 The very exercises and toils which he undergoes are intended 
 to stimulate the spirited element of his nature, and not to in- 
 crease his strength ; he will not, like common athletes, use exer- 
 cise and regimen to develop his muscles. 
 
 Very right, he said. 
 
 Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastics really de- 
 signed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, 
 the other for the training of the body. 
 
 What then is the real object of them? 
 
 I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly 
 the improvement of the soul. 
 
 How can that be? he asked. 
 
 Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself 
 of exclusive devotion to gymnastics, or the opposite effect of an 
 exclusive devotion to music? 
 
 In what way shown? he said. 
 
 The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, the 
 other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. 
 
 Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes 
 too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted 
 and softened beyond what is good for him. 
 
 Yet surely ,1 said, this ferocity only comes from spirit, which, 
 if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much in- 
 tensified, is liable to become hard and brutal. 
 
 That I quite think. 
 
 On the other hand the philosopher will have the quality of 
 gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn 
 to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and mod- 
 erate. 
 
 True. 
 
 And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these 
 qualities? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 And both should be in harmony? 
 
 Beyond question. 
 
 And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? 
 
 Very true.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 97 
 
 And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour 
 into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and 
 soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking, 
 and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of 
 song ; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit which 
 is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead of brit- 
 tle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and sooth- 
 ing process, in the next stage he begins to melt and waste, 
 until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of 
 his soul ; and he becomes a feeble warrior. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him the change 
 is speedily accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the 
 power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable ; on 
 the least provocation he flames up at once, and is speedily ex- 
 tinguished ; instead of having spirit he grows irritable and pas- 
 sionate and is quite impractical. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and 
 is a great feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music 
 and philosophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him 
 with pride and spirit, and he becomes twice the man that he 
 was. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And what happens? if he do nothing else, and holds no con- 
 verse with the muses, does not even that intelligence which 
 there may be in him, having no taste of any sort of learning or 
 inquiry or thought or culture, grow feeble and dull and blind, 
 his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment, and his 
 senses not being purged of their mists? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, 
 never using the weapon of persuasion he is like a wild beast, 
 all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing ; 
 and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no 
 sense of propriety and grace. 
 
 That is quite true, he said. 
 
 And as there are two principles of human nature, one the 
 spirited and the other the philosophical, some god, as I should 
 say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only 
 7
 
 98 PLATO 
 
 indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two prin- 
 ciples (like the strings of an instrument) may be relaxed or 
 drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. 
 
 That appears to be the intention. 
 
 And he who mingles music with gymnastics in the fairest 
 proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be rightly 
 called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense 
 than the tuner of the strings. 
 
 You are quite right, Socrates. 
 
 And such a presiding genius will be always required in our 
 State if the government is to last. 
 
 Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. 
 
 Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education: 
 Where would be the use of going into further details about 
 the dances of our citizens, or about their hunting and coursing, 
 their gymnastic and equestrian contests ? For these all follow 
 the general principle, and having found that, we shall have no 
 difficulty in discovering them. 
 
 I dare say that there will be no difficulty. 
 
 Very good, I said; then what is the next question? Must 
 we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And that the best of these must rule. 
 
 That is also clear. 
 
 Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most de- 
 voted to husbandry? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And as we are to have the best of guardians for our city, must 
 they not be those who have most the character of guardians ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to 
 have a special care of the State ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And a man will be most likely to care about that which he 
 loves ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as 
 having the same interests with himself, and that of which the
 
 THE REPUBLIC g? 
 
 good or evil fortune is supposed by him at any time most to 
 affect his own? 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the 
 guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eager- 
 ness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest 
 repugnance to do what is against her interests. 
 
 Those are the right men. 
 
 And they will have to be watched at every age, in order 
 that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and 
 never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, for- 
 get or cast off their sense of duty to the State. 
 
 How cast off ? he said. 
 
 I will explain to you, he replied. A resolution may go out 
 of a man's mind either with his will or against his will; with 
 his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, 
 against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. 
 
 I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the 
 meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. 
 
 Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly de- 
 prived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the 
 truth an evil, and to possess the truth a good ? and you would 
 agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth ? 
 
 Yes, he replied ; I agree with you in thinking that mankind 
 are deprived of truth against their will. 
 
 And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, 
 or force, or enchantment? 
 
 Still, he replied, I do not understand you. 
 
 I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the trage- 
 dians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion 
 and that others forget ; argument steals away the hearts of one 
 class, and time of the other; and this I call theft. Now you 
 understand me? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence 
 of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. 
 
 I understand, he said, and you are quite right. 
 
 And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are 
 those who change their minds either under the softer influence 
 of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear ?
 
 I0 o PLATO 
 
 Yes, he said ; everything that deceives may be said to enchant. 
 
 Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who 
 are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they 
 think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. 
 We must watch them from their youth upward, and make them 
 perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to 
 be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to 
 be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That 
 will be the way ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts pre- 
 scribed for them, in which they will be made to give further 
 proof of the same qualities. 
 
 Very right, he replied. 
 
 And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments that 
 is the third sort of test and see what will be their behavior: 
 like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they 
 are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors 
 of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove 
 them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that 
 we may discover whether they are armed against all enchant- 
 ments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of them- 
 selves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining 
 under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, 
 such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the 
 State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in 
 mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall 
 be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be 
 honored in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other 
 memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give. But 
 him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that 
 this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should 
 be chosen and appointed. I speak generally, and not with any 
 pretension to exactness. 
 
 And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. 
 
 And perhaps the word " guardian " in the fullest sense ought 
 to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against 
 foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at 
 home, that the one may not have the will, or the others the 
 power, to harm us. The young men whom we before called
 
 THE REPUBLIC loi 
 
 guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and 
 supporters of the principles of the rulers. 
 
 I agree with you, he said. 
 
 How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of 
 which we lately spoke just one royal lie which may deceive, 
 the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the 
 city? 
 
 What sort of lie? he said. 
 
 Nothing new, I replied ; only an old Phoenician J tale of what 
 has often occurred before now in other places (as the poets 
 say, and have made the world believe), though not in our time, 
 and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen 
 again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. 
 
 How your words seem to hesitate on your lips ! 
 
 You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you 
 have heard. 
 
 Speak, he said, and fear not. 
 
 Well, then, I will speak, although I really know not how to 
 look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious 
 fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the 
 rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are 
 to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and 
 training which they received from us, an appearance only ; in 
 reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in 
 the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms 
 and appurtenances were manufactured ; when they were com- 
 pleted, the earth, their mother, sent them up ; and so, their coun- 
 try being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to 
 advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her 
 citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their 
 own brothers. 
 
 You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which 
 you were going to tell. 
 
 True, I replied, but there is more coming ; I have only told 
 you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are 
 brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you 
 have the power of command, and in the composition of these 
 he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest 
 honor ; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries ; others 
 
 1 Cp. " Laws," 663 E.
 
 I02 PLATO 
 
 again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has com- 
 posed of brass and iron ; and the species will generally be pre- 
 served in the children. But as all are of the same original 
 stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a 
 silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first prin- 
 ciple to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which 
 they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such 
 good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should ob- 
 serve what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son 
 of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, 
 then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the 
 ruler must not be pitiful toward the child because he has to 
 descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just 
 as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of 
 gold or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians 
 or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass 
 or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale ; 
 is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it ? 
 
 Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way 
 of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe 
 in the tale, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them. 
 
 I see the difficulty, I replied ; yet the fostering of such a be- 
 lief will make them care more for the city and for one another. 
 Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad 
 upon the wings of rumor, while we arm our earth-born heroes, 
 and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let 
 them look round and select a spot whence they can best sup- 
 press insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also de- 
 fend themselves against enemies, who, like wolves, may come 
 down on the fold from without; there let them encamp, and 
 when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper gods 
 and prepare their dwellings. 
 
 Just so, he said. 
 
 And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against 
 the cold of winter and the heat of summer. 
 
 I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. 
 
 Yes, I said ; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not 
 of shopkeepers. 
 
 What is the difference? he said. 
 
 That I will endeavor to explain, I replied. To keep watch-
 
 THE REPUBLIC 103 
 
 dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil 
 habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and 
 behave not like dogs, but wolves, would be a foul and mon- 
 strous thing in a shepherd ? 
 
 Truly monstrous, he said. 
 
 And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, 
 being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much 
 for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and 
 allies ? 
 
 Yes, great care should be taken. 
 
 And would not a really good education furnish the best safe- 
 guard ? 
 
 But they are well-educated already, he replied. 
 
 I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said ; I am much 
 more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, 
 whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize 
 and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to 
 those who are under their protection. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 And not only their education, but their habitations, and all 
 that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair 
 their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other 
 citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that. 
 
 He must. 
 
 Then now let us consider what will be their way of life, if 
 they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none 
 of them should have any property of his own beyond what is 
 absolutely necessary ; neither should they have a private house 
 or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter; their 
 provisions should be only such as are required by trained war- 
 riors, who are men of temperance and courage ; they should 
 agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to 
 meet the expenses of the year and no more ; and they will go 
 to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and 
 silver we will tell them that they have from God ; the diviner 
 metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the 
 dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute 
 the divine by any such earthly admixture ; for that commoner 
 metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own 
 is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or
 
 104 PLATO 
 
 handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or 
 wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salva- 
 tion, and they will be the saviours of the State. But should 
 they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they 
 will become good housekeepers and husbandmen instead of 
 guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other 
 citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted 
 against, they will pass their whole life in much greater ter- 
 ror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, 
 both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at 
 hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall 
 our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations 
 appointed by us for our guardians concerning their houses 
 and all other matters? 
 Yes, said Glaucon.
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 WEALTH, POVERTY, AND VIRTUE 
 
 ADEIMANTUS, SOCRATES. 
 
 HERE Adeimantus interposed a question: How would 
 you answer, Socrates, said he, if a person were to 
 say that you are making * these people miserable, and 
 that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city 
 in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; 
 whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and hand- 
 some houses, and have everything handsome about them, offer- 
 ing sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practis- 
 ing 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 merce- 
 naries 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 there- 
 fore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure; 
 they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxu- 
 rious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happi- 
 ness ; 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 
 
 1 Or, "that for their own good you are making these people miserable." 
 105
 
 106 PLATO 
 
 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 in- 
 justice: and, having found them, we might then decide which 
 of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fash- 
 ioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of mak- 
 ing 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 pur- 
 ple, 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 pro- 
 portion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, 
 do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happi- 
 ness 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 con- 
 sequence 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 seem- 
 ing 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 fes-
 
 THE REPUBLIC 107 
 
 tival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who 
 are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean differ- 
 ent things, and he is speaking of something which is not a 
 State. And therefore we must consider whether in appoint- 
 ing 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 wth 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 lux-
 
 io8 PLATO 
 
 ury 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, espe- 
 cially 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 suppos- 
 ing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorch- 
 ing 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.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 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
 
 no PLATO 
 
 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 Adei- 
 mantus, are not, as might be supposed, a number of great prin- 
 ciples, 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 edu- 
 cated, 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 ac- 
 cumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and educa- 
 tion 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 innova- 
 tion made. They must do their utmost to maintain them in- 
 tact. And when anyone says that mankind most regard 
 
 " The newest song which the singers have," 1 
 
 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 inno- 
 vation 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. 
 
 > "Odyssey," i. 352.
 
 THE REPUBLIC in 
 
 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, rinding a home, impercep- 
 tibly 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 law- 
 less, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never 
 grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And when they have made a good beginning in play, and 
 by the help of music have gained the habit of good order, 
 then this habit of order, in a manner how unlike the lawless 
 play of the others! will accompany them in all their actions 
 and be a principle of growth to them, and if there be any 
 fallen places in the State will raise them up again. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Thus educated, they will invent for themselves any lesser 
 rules which their predecessors have altogether neglected. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I mean such things as these: when the young are to be 
 silent before their elders; how they are to show respect to 
 them by standing and making them sit; what 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 writ- 
 ten enactments about them likely to be lasting.
 
 I18 PLATO 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which edu- 
 cation 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 legis- 
 late further about them. 
 
 Naturally enough, he replied. 
 
 Well, and about the business of the agora, and the ordi- 
 nary dealings between man and man, or again about agree- 
 ments with artisans; about insult and injury, or the com- 
 mencement of actions, and the appointment of juries, what 
 would you say? there may also arise questions about any im- 
 positions 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 con- 
 descend 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 in- 
 temperance ? 
 
 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
 
 THE REPUBLIC 113 
 
 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 pas- 
 sion 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 legisla- 
 tion 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- 
 8
 
 j 14 PLATO 
 
 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 regu- 
 lations. 
 
 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 ser- 
 vice of gods, demigods, and heroes; also the ordering of the 
 repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be ob- 
 served by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the 
 world below. These are matters of which we are ignorant 
 ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in 
 trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He 
 is the god who sits in the centre, on the navel of the earth, 
 and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. 
 
 You are right, and we will do as you propose. 
 
 But where, amid all this, is justice? Son of Ariston, tell 
 me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light 
 a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus 
 and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in 
 it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what 
 they differ from one another, and which of them the man 
 who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen 
 or unseen by gods and men. 
 
 Nonsense, said Glaucon: did you not promise to search 
 yourself, saying that for you not to help justice in her need 
 would be an impiety? 
 
 I do not deny that I said so ; and as you remind me, I will 
 be as good as my word; but you must join. 
 
 We will, he replied. 
 
 Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I 
 mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly 
 ordered, is perfect. 
 
 That is most certain. 
 
 And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and tem- 
 perate and just.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 1x5 
 
 That is likewise clear. 
 
 And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the 
 one which is not found will be the residue? 
 
 Very good. 
 
 If there were four things, and we were searching for one 
 of them, wherever it might be, the one sought for might be 
 known to us from the first, and there would be no further 
 trouble ; or we might know the other three first, and then the 
 fourth would clearly be the one left. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, 
 which are also four in number? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 First among the virtues found in the State, wisdom comes 
 into view, and in this I detect a certain peculiarity. 
 
 What is that? 
 
 The State which we have been describing is said to be wise 
 as being good in counsel? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not 
 by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and 
 diverse? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 There is the knowledge of the carpenter; but is that the 
 sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and 
 good in counsel? 
 
 Certainly not; that would only give a city the reputation 
 of skill in carpentering. 
 
 Then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a 
 knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden imple- 
 ments? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen 
 pots, he said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? 
 
 Not by reason of any of them, he said. 
 
 Nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the 
 earth ; that would give the city the name of agricultural ? 
 
 Yes.
 
 Il6 PLATO 
 
 Well, I said, and is there any knowledge in our recently 
 founded State among any of the citizens which advises, not 
 about any particular thing in the State, but about the whole, 
 and considers how a State can best deal with itself and with 
 other States? 
 
 There certainly is. 
 
 And what is this knowledge, and among whom is it found? 
 I asked. 
 
 It is the knowledge of the guardians, he replied, and is 
 found among those whom we were just now describing as 
 perfect guardians. 
 
 And what is the name which the city derives from the pos- 
 session of this sort of knowledge? 
 
 The name of good in counsel and truly wise. 
 
 And will there be in our city more of these true guardians 
 or more smiths? 
 
 The smiths, he replied, will be far more numerous. 
 
 Will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes 
 who receive a name from the profession of some kind of 
 knowledge ? 
 
 Much the smallest. 
 
 And so by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the 
 knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of 
 itself, the whole State, being thus constituted according to 
 nature, will be wise ; and this, which has the only knowledge 
 worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to 
 be of all classes the least. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 Thus, then, I said, the nature and place in the State of one 
 of the four virtues have somehow or other been discovered. 
 
 And, in my humble opinion, very satisfactorily discovered, 
 he replied. 
 
 Again, I said, there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of 
 courage, and in what part that quality resides which gives the 
 name of courageous to the State. 
 
 How do you mean? 
 
 Why, I said, everyone who calls any State courageous or 
 cowardly, will be thinking of the part which fights and goes 
 out to war on the State's behalf. 
 
 No one, he replied, would ever think of any other.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 117 
 
 The rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be 
 cowardly, but their courage or cowardice will not, as I con- 
 ceive, have the effect of making the city either the one or the 
 other. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 The city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of her- 
 self which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about 
 the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which 
 our legislator educated them; and this is what you term 
 courage. 
 
 I should like to hear what you are saying once more, for 
 I do not think that I perfectly understand you. 
 
 I mean that courage is a kind of salvation. 
 
 Salvation of what? 
 
 Of the opinion respecting things to be feared, what they 
 are and of what nature, which the law implants through edu- 
 cation ; and I mean by the words " under all circumstances " 
 to intimate that in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence 
 of desire or fear, a man preserves, and does not lose this 
 opinion. Shall I give you an illustration? 
 
 If you please. 
 
 You know, I said, that dyers, when they want to dye wool 
 for making the true sea-purple, begin by selecting their white 
 color first; this they prepare and dress with much care and 
 pains, in order that the white ground may take the purple hue 
 in full perfection. The dyeing then proceeds; and whatever 
 is dyed in this manner becomes a fast color, and no washing 
 either with lyes or without them can take away the bloom. 
 But, when the ground has not been duly prepared, you will 
 have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any 
 other color. 
 
 Yes, he said ; I know that they have a washed-out and 
 ridiculous appearance. 
 
 Then now, I said, you will understand what our object was 
 in selecting our soldiers, and educating them in music and 
 gymnastics; we were contriving influences which would pre- 
 pare them to take the dye of the laws in perfection, and the 
 color of their opinion about dangers and of every other opin- 
 ion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture and training, 
 not to be washed away by such potent lyes as pleasure
 
 n8 PLATO 
 
 mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lye; 
 or by sorrow, fear, and desire, the mightiest of all other sol- 
 vents. And this sort of universal saving power of true opin- 
 ion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call 
 and maintain to be courage, unless you disagree. 
 
 But I agree, he replied; for I suppose that you mean to 
 exclude mere uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast 
 or of a slave this, in your opinion, is not the courage which 
 the law ordains, and ought to have another name. 
 
 Most certainly. 
 
 Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? 
 
 Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words " of 
 a citizen," you will not be far wrong hereafter, if you like, 
 we will carry the examination further, but at present we are 
 seeking, not for courage, but justice; and for the purpose of 
 our inquiry we have said enough. 
 
 You are right, he replied. 
 
 Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State first, 
 temperance, and then justice, which is the end of our search. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about 
 temperance ? 
 
 I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor 
 do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temper- 
 ance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do 
 me the favor of considering temperance first. 
 
 Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing 
 your request. 
 
 Then consider, he said. 
 
 Yes, I replied ; I will ; and as far as I can at present see, 
 the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony 
 and symphony than the preceding. 
 
 How so? he asked. 
 
 Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of cer- 
 tain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied 
 in the saying of " a man being his own master ; " and other 
 traces of the same notion may be found in language. 
 
 No doubt, he said. 
 
 There is something ridiculous in the expression " master of 
 himself ; " for the master is also the servant and the servant
 
 THE REPUBLIC H 9 
 
 the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same per- 
 son is denoted. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is 
 a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has 
 the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of 
 himself ; and this is a term of praise : but when, owing to evil 
 education or association, the better principle, which is also 
 the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse 
 in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and 
 unprincipled. 
 
 Yes, there is reason in that. 
 
 And now, I said, look at our newly created State, and there 
 you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the 
 State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master 
 of itself, if the words " temperance " and " self-mastery " truly 
 express the rule of the better part over the worse. 
 
 Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. 
 
 Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleas- 
 ures and desires and pains are generally found in children 
 and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who 
 are of the lowest and more numerous class. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow rea- 
 son, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, 
 are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and 
 best educated. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; 
 and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the 
 virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. 
 
 That I perceive, he said. 
 
 Then if there be any city which may be described as master 
 of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours 
 may claim such a designation? 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will 
 be agreed as to the question who are to rule, that again will 
 be our State?
 
 X20 PLATO 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in 
 which class will temperance be found in the rulers or in the 
 subjects? 
 
 In both, as I should imagine, he replied. 
 
 Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess 
 that temperance was a sort of harmony? 
 
 Why so? 
 
 Why, because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, 
 each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State 
 wise and the other valiant ; not so temperance, which extends 
 to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and 
 produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the 
 middle class, whether you suppose them to be stronger or 
 weaker in wisdom, or power, or numbers, or wealth, or any- 
 thing else. Most truly then may we deem temperance to be 
 the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior, as to the 
 right to rule of either, both in States and individuals. 
 
 I entirely agree with you. 
 
 And so, I said, we may consider three out of the four vir- 
 tues to have been discovered in our State. The last of those 
 qualities which make a State virtuous must be justice, if we 
 only knew what that was. 
 
 The inference is obvious. 
 
 The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, 
 we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice 
 does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us ; for 
 beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch 
 therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see 
 her first, let me know. 
 
 Would that I could! but you should regard me rather as 
 a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show 
 him that is about as much as I am good for. 
 
 Offer up a prayer with me and follow. 
 
 I will, but you must show me the way. 
 
 Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplex- 
 ing; still we must push on. 
 
 Let us push on. 
 
 Here I saw something : Halloo ! I said, I begin to perceive 
 a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 121 
 
 Good news, he said. 
 
 Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. 
 
 Why so? 
 
 Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our inquiry, ages 
 ago, there was Justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never 
 saw her ; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who 
 go about looking for what they have in their hands that was 
 the way with us we looked not at what we were seeking, 
 but at what was far off in the distance ; and therefore, I sup- 
 pose, we missed her. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have 
 been talking of Justice, and have failed to recognize her. 
 
 I grow impatient at the length of your exordium. 
 
 Well, then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not : You 
 remember the original principle which we were always lay- 
 ing down at the foundation of the State, that one man should 
 practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was 
 best adapted ; now justice is this principle or a part of it. 
 
 Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. 
 
 Further, we affirmed that Justice was doing one's own busi- 
 ness, and not being a busybody ; we said so again and again, 
 and many others have said the same to us. 
 
 Yes, we said so. 
 
 Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be 
 assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this 
 inference ? 
 
 I cannot, but I should like to be told. 
 
 Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains 
 in the State when the other virtues of temperance and cour- 
 age and wisdom are abstracted; and, that this is the ulti- 
 mate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, 
 and while remaining in them is also their preservative; and 
 we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, jus- 
 tice would be the fourth, or remaining one. 
 
 That follows of necessity. 
 
 If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities 
 by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, 
 whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preser- 
 vation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains
 
 122 PLATO 
 
 about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness 
 in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, 
 and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, 
 artisan, ruler, subject the quality, I mean, of everyone doing 
 his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the 
 palm the question is not so easily answered. 
 
 Certainly, he replied, there would be a difficulty in saying 
 which. 
 
 Then the power of each individual in the State to do his 
 own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, 
 wisdom, temperance, courage. 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 Let us look at the question from another point of view: 
 Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would in- 
 trust the office of determining suits-at-law ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man 
 may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what 
 is his own? 
 
 Yes; that is their principle. 
 
 Which is a just principle? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the 
 having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. 
 Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, 
 or a cobbler of a carpenter ; and suppose them to exchange 
 their implements or their duties, or the same person to be 
 doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you 
 think that any great harm would result to the State? 
 
 Not much. 
 
 But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature de- 
 signed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or 
 strength or the number of his followers, or any like advan- 
 tage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or 
 a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he 
 is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 123 
 
 the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior 
 all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that 
 this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the 
 ruin of the State. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 Seeing, then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any 
 meddling of one with another, or the change of one into an- 
 other, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most 
 justly termed evil-doing? 
 
 Precisely. 
 
 And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one's own city would 
 be termed by you injustice? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 This, then, is injustice; and on the other hand when the 
 trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own busi- 
 ness, that is justice, and will make the city just. 
 
 I agree with you. 
 
 We will not, I said, be over-positive as yet ; but if, on trial, 
 this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well 
 as in the State, there will be no longer any room for doubt; 
 if it be not verified, we must have a fresh inquiry. First let 
 us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you re- 
 member, under the impression that, if we could previously ex- 
 amine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty 
 in discerning her in the individual. That larger example ap- 
 peared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as 
 good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State 
 justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be 
 now applied to the individual if they agree, we shall be sat- 
 isfied ; or, if there be a difference in the individual, we will 
 come back to the State and have another trial of the theory. 
 The friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly 
 strike a light in which justice will shine forth, and the vision 
 which is then revealed we will fix in our souls. 
 
 That will be in regular course ; let us do as you say. 
 
 I proceeded to ask : When two things, a greater and less, are 
 called by the same name, are they like or unlike in so far as 
 they are called the same? 
 
 Like, he replied. 
 
 The just man then, if we regard the idea of justice only, 
 will be like the just State?
 
 i2 4 PLATO 
 
 He will. 
 
 And a State was thought by us to be just when the three 
 classes in the State severally did their own business ; and also 
 thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of 
 certain other affections and qualities of these same classes? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the 
 same three principles in his own soul which are found in the 
 State; and he may be rightly described in the same terms, 
 because he is affected in the same manner? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 Once more, then, O my friend, we have alighted upon an 
 easy question whether the soul has these three principles or 
 not? 
 
 An easy question ! Nay, rather, Socrates, the proverb holds 
 that hard is the good. 
 
 Very true, I said ; and I do not think that the method which 
 we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution 
 of this question ; the true method is another and a longer one. 
 Still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the 
 previous inquiry. 
 
 May we not be satisfied with that? he said; under the cir- 
 cumstances, I am quite content. 
 
 I, too, I replied, shall be extremely well satisfied. 
 
 Then faint not in pursuing the speculation, he said. 
 
 Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there 
 are the same principles and habits which there are in the State ; 
 and that from the individual they pass into the State? how 
 else can they come there ? Take the quality of passion or spirit ; 
 it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when 
 found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are 
 supposed to possess it, e.g., the Thracians, Scythians, and in 
 general the Northern nations; and the same may be said of 
 the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our 
 part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with 
 equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. 
 
 Exactly so, he said. 
 
 There is no difficulty in understanding this. 
 
 None whatever. 
 
 But the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to
 
 THE REPUBLIC 125 
 
 ask whether these principles are three or one; whether, that 
 is to say, we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with 
 another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our 
 natural appetites ; or whether the whole soul comes into play 
 in each sort of action to determine that is the difficulty. 
 
 Yes, he said; there lies the difficulty. 
 
 Then let us now try and determine whether they are the 
 same or different. 
 
 How can we? he asked. 
 
 I replied as follows: The same thing clearly cannot act or 
 be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing 
 at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever 
 this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we 
 know that they are really not the same, but different. 
 
 Good. 
 
 For example, I said, can the same thing be at rest and in 
 motion at the same time in the same part ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, 
 lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Imagine the 
 case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and 
 his head, and suppose a person to say that one and the same 
 person is in motion and at rest at the same moment to such 
 a mode of speech we should object, and should rather say that 
 one part of him is in motion while another is at rest. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And suppose the objector to refine still further, and to draw 
 the nice distinction that not only parts of tops, but whole tops, 
 when they spin round with their pegs fixed on the spot, are 
 at rest and in motion at the same time (and he may say the 
 same of anything which revolves in the same spot), his ob- 
 jection would not be admitted by us, because in such cases 
 things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of them- 
 selves ; we should rather say that they have both an axis and 
 a circumference ; and that the axis stands still, for there is 
 no deviation from the perpendicular ; and that the circum- 
 ference goes round. But if, while revolving, the axis inclines 
 either to the right or left, forward or backward, then in no 
 point of view can they be at rest. 
 
 That is the correct mode of describing them, he replied.
 
 I 2 6 PLATO 
 
 Then none of these objections will confuse us, or incline 
 us to believe that the same thing at the same time, in the same 
 part or in relation to the same thing, can act or be acted upon 
 in contrary ways. 
 
 Certainly not, according to my way of thinking. 
 
 Yet, I said, that we may not be compelled to examine all 
 such objections, and prove at length that they are untrue, let 
 us assume their absurdity, and go forward on the understand- 
 ing that hereafter, if this assumption turn out to be untrue, all 
 the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn. 
 
 Yes, he said, that will be the best way. 
 
 Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, 
 desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them 
 opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for 
 that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition) ? 
 
 Yes, he said, they are opposites. 
 
 Well, I said, and hunger and thirst, and the desires in gen- 
 eral, and again willing and wishing all these you would refer 
 to the classes already mentioned. You would say would you 
 not? that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the 
 object of his desire ; or that he is drawing to himself the thing 
 which he wishes to possess : or again, when a person wants 
 anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realiza- 
 tion of his desire, intimates his wish to have it by a nod of 
 assent, as if he had been asked a question? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and 
 the absence of desire; should not these be referred to the op- 
 posite class of repulsion and rejection? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose 
 a particular class of desires, and out of these we will select 
 hunger and thirst, as they are termed, which are the most 
 obvious of them? 
 
 Let us rake that class, he said. 
 
 The object of one is food, and of the other drink? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which 
 the soul has of drink, and of drink only ; not of drink qualified 
 by anything else; for example, warm or cold, or much or
 
 THE REPUBLIC 127 
 
 little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but if the 
 thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink ; 
 or, if accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the 
 thirst be excessive, then the drink which is desired will be ex- 
 cessive; or, if not great, the quantity of drink will also be 
 small : but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and 
 simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is 
 of hunger? 
 
 Yes, he said ; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case 
 of the simple object, and the qualified desire of the qualified 
 object. 
 
 But here a confusion may arise ; and I should wish to guard 
 against an opponent starting up and saying that no man de- 
 sires drink only, but good drink, or food only, but good food ; 
 for good is the universal object of desire, and thirst being a 
 desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the 
 same is true of every other desire. 
 
 Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say. 
 
 Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some 
 have a quality attached to either term of the relation; others 
 are simple and have their correlatives simple. 
 
 I do not know what you mean. 
 
 Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the 
 less? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And the much greater to the much less? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the sometime greater to the sometime less, and the 
 greater that is to be to the less that is to be? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And so of more or less, and of other correlative terms, such 
 as the double and the half, or, again, the heavier and the lighter, 
 the swifter and the slower; and of hot and cold, and of any 
 other relatives ; is not this true of all of them ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And does not the same principle hold in the sciences? The 
 object of science is knowledge (assuming that to be the true 
 definition), but the object of a particular science is a particu- 
 lar kind of knowledge ; I mean, for example, that the science 
 of house-building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and
 
 128 PLATO 
 
 distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Because it has a particular quality which no other has? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And it has this particular quality because it has an object 
 of a particular kind ; and this is true of the other arts and 
 sciences? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Now, then, if I have made myself clear, you will under- 
 stand my original meaning in what I said about relatives. My 
 meaning was, that if one term of a relation is taken alone, 
 the other is taken alone; if one term is qualified, the other 
 is also qualified. I do not mean to say that relatives may 
 not be disparate, or that the science of health is healthy, or 
 of disease necessarily diseased, or that the sciences of good 
 and evil are therefore good and evil ; but only that, when the 
 term " science " is no longer used absolutely, but has a quali- 
 fied object which in this case is the nature of health and dis- 
 ease, it becomes defined, and is hence called not merely sci- 
 ence, but the science of medicine. 
 
 I quite understand, and, I think, as you do. 
 
 Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially 
 relative terms, having clearly a relation 
 
 Yes, thirst is relative to drink. 
 
 And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of 
 drink; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, 
 nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but 
 of drink only? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then the soul of the thirsty one, in so far as he is thirsty, 
 desires only drink; for this he yearns and tries to obtain it? 
 
 That is plain. 
 
 And if you suppose something which pulls a thirsty soul 
 away from drink, that must be different from the thirsty prin- 
 ciple which draws him like a beast to drink ; for, as we were 
 saying, the same thing cannot at the same time with the same 
 part of itself act in contrary ways about the same. 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 No more than you can say that the hands of the archer
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 129 
 
 push and pull the bow at the same time, but what you say 
 is that one hand pushes and the other pulls. 
 
 Exactly so, he replied. 
 
 And might a man be thirsty, and yet unwilling to drink? 
 
 Yes, he said, it constantly happens. 
 
 And in such a case what is one to say? Would you not 
 say that there was something in the soul bidding a man to 
 drink, and something else forbidding him, which is other and 
 stronger than the principle which bids him? 
 
 I should say so. 
 
 And the forbidding principle is derived from reason, and 
 that which bids and attracts proceeds from passion and dis- 
 ease? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they 
 differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, 
 we may call the rational principle of the soul ; the other, with 
 which he loves, and hungers, and thirsts, and feels the flutter- 
 ings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or ap- 
 petitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions? 
 
 Yes, he said, we may fairly assume them to be different. 
 
 Then let us finally determine that there are two principles 
 existing in the soul. And what of passion, or spirit? Is it 
 a third, or akin to one of the preceding? 
 
 I should be inclined to say akin to desire. 
 
 Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have 
 heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, 
 the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under 
 the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies 
 lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a de- 
 sire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; 
 for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the 
 desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran 
 up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your 
 fill of the fair sight. 
 
 I have heard the story myself, he said. 
 
 The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war 
 with desire, as though they were two distinct things. 
 
 Yes; that is the meaning, he said. 
 
 And are there not many other cases in which we observe 
 9
 
 1 3 o 
 
 PLATO 
 
 that when a man's desires violently prevail over his reason, 
 he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, 
 and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions 
 in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason ; but for the 
 passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires 
 when reason decides that she should not be opposed, 1 is a sort 
 of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring 
 in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in anyone else? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, 
 the nobler he is, the less able is he to feel indignant at any 
 suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which 
 the injured person may inflict upon him these he deems to 
 be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, 
 then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he be- 
 lieves to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold 
 or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and 
 conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either 
 slays or is slain ; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, 
 that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. 
 
 The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as 
 we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear 
 the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. 
 
 I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, 
 however, a further point which I wish you to consider. 
 
 What point? 
 
 You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight 
 to be a kind of desire, but now we should say quite the con- 
 trary; for in the conflict of the soul spirit is arrayed on the 
 side of the rational principle. 
 
 Most assuredly. 
 
 But a further question arises: Is passion different from 
 reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, 
 instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, 
 the rational and the concupiscent ; or rather, as the State was 
 composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so 
 may there not be in the individual soul a third element which 
 
 1 Reading pi) iiiv ivri.irfa.rrtw, without a comma after Stlv.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 131 
 
 is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad educa- 
 tion is the natural auxiliary of reason? 
 
 Yes, he said, there must be a third. 
 
 Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown 
 to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from 
 reason. 
 
 But that is easily proved: We may observe even in young 
 children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they 
 are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the 
 use of reason, and most of them late enough. 
 
 Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute 
 animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are 
 saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, 
 which have been already quoted by us, 
 
 " He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul; " * 
 
 for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which 
 reasons about the better and worse to be different from the 
 unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are 
 fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State 
 exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the 
 same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the 
 State wise? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the 
 State constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the 
 State and the individual bear the same relation to all the other 
 virtues ? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just 
 in the same way in which the State is just? 
 
 That follows of course. 
 
 We cannot but remember that the justice of the State con- 
 sisted in each of the three classes doing the work of its own 
 class ? 
 We are not very likely to have forgotten, he said. 
 
 ' " Odyssey," xx. 17, quoted supra.
 
 1 3 2 PLATO 
 
 We must recollect that the individual in whom the several 
 qualities of his nature do their own work will be just, and 
 will do his own work? 
 
 Yes, he said, we must remember that too. 
 
 And ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and 
 has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or 
 spirited principle to be the subject and ally? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And, as we were saying, the united influence of music and 
 gymnastics will bring them into accord, nerving and sustaining 
 the reason with noble words and lessons, and moderating and 
 soothing and civilizing the wildness of passion by harmony 
 and rhythm? 
 
 Quite true., he said. 
 
 And these two, thus nurtured and educated, and having 
 learned truly to know their own functions, will rule * over the 
 concupiscent, which in each of us is the largest part of the 
 soul and by nature most insatiable of gain; over this they 
 will keep guard, lest, waxing great and strong with the fulness 
 of bodily pleasures, as they are termed, the concupiscent soul, 
 no longer confined to her own sphere, should attempt to en- 
 slave and rule those who are not her natural-born subjects, 
 and overturn the whole life of man? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Both together will they not be the best defenders of the 
 whole soul and the whole body against attacks from without; 
 the one counselling, and the other fighting under his leader, 
 and courageously executing his commands and counsels? 
 
 True. 
 
 And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in 
 pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he 
 ought or ought not to fear? 
 
 Right, he replied. 
 
 And him we call wise who has in him that little part which 
 rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too 
 being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the in- 
 terest of each of the three parts and of the whole? 
 
 1 Reading irpocTanjfferoi' with Bekker ; or, if the reading irptxrrljytTov, which is found in 
 the MSS., be adopted, then the nominative must be supplied from the previous sentence : 
 "Music and gymnastics will place in authority over . . ." This is very awkward, 
 and the awkwardness is increased by the necessity of changing the subject at mipfacrov.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 133 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 And would you not say that he is temperate who has these 
 same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling 
 principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and de- 
 sire, are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not 
 rebel ? 
 
 Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance 
 whether in the State or individual. 
 
 And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how 
 and by virtue of what quality a man will be just. 
 
 That is very certain. 
 
 And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form 
 different, or is she the same which we found her to be in the 
 State? 
 
 There is no difference, in my opinion, he said. 
 
 Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few 
 commonplace instances will satisfy us of the truth of what I 
 am saying. 
 
 What sort of instances do you mean? 
 
 If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just 
 State, or the man who is trained in the principles of such a 
 State, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a 
 deposit of gold or silver? Would anyone deny this? 
 
 No one, he replied. 
 
 Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or 
 theft, or treachery either to his friends or to his country ? 
 
 Never. 
 
 Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths 
 or agreements. 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonor 
 his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties? 
 
 No one. 
 
 And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own 
 business, whether in ruling or being ruled ? 
 
 Exactly so. 
 
 Are you satisfied, then, that the quality which makes such 
 men and such States is justice, or do you hope to discover 
 some other? 
 
 Not I, indeed.
 
 I 3 4 PLATO 
 
 Then our dream has been realized ; and the suspicion which 
 we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, 
 that some divine power must have conducted us to a primary 
 form of justice, has now been verified ? 
 
 Yes, certainly. 
 
 And the division of labor which required the carpenter and 
 the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his 
 own business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and 
 for that reason it was of use? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being 
 concerned, however, not with the outward man, but with the 
 inward, which is the true self and concernment of man : for the 
 just man does not permit the several elements within him to 
 interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of 
 others he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own mas- 
 ter and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he 
 has bound together the three principles within him, which may 
 be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, 
 and the intermediate intervals when he has bound all these 
 together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely 
 temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to 
 act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in 
 the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private 
 business ; always thinking and calling that which preserves and 
 co-operates with this harmonious condition just and good 
 action, and the knowledge which presides over it wisdom, and 
 that which at any time impairs this condition he will call unjust 
 action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. 
 
 You have said the exact truth, Socrates. 
 
 Very good ; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered 
 the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in 
 each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood ? 
 
 Most certainly not. 
 
 May we say so, then ? 
 
 Let us say so. 
 
 And now, I said, injustice has to be considered. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three 
 principles a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up
 
 THE REPUBLIC 135 
 
 of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlaw- 
 ful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a 
 true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal what is all this 
 confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance, and 
 cowardice, and ignorance, and every form of vice? 
 
 Exactly so. 
 
 And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then 
 the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of 
 acting justly, will also be perfectly clear? 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the 
 soul just what disease and health are in the body. 
 
 How so ? he said. 
 
 Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that 
 which is unhealthy causes disease. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause 
 injustice? 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order 
 and government of one by another in the parts of the body ; and 
 the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at 
 variance with this natural order? 
 
 True. 
 
 And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural 
 order and government of one by another in the parts of the 
 soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of 
 things at variance with the natural order? 
 
 Exactly so, he said. 
 
 Then virtue is the health, and beauty, and well-being of the 
 soul, and vice the disease, and weakness, and deformity, of the 
 same? 
 
 True. 
 
 And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices 
 to vice ? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice 
 and injustice has not been answered : Which is the more profit- 
 able, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen 
 or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if 
 only unpunished and unreformed?
 
 336 PLATO 
 
 In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become 
 ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is 
 gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all 
 kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power ; 
 and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital 
 principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having 
 to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with 
 the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, 
 or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be 
 such as we have described? 
 
 Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, 
 as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the 
 clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way. 
 
 Certainly not, he replied. 
 
 Come up hither, I said, and behold the various forms of vice, 
 those of them, I mean, which are worth looking at. 
 
 I am following you, he replied : proceed. 
 
 I said : The argument seems to have reached a height from 
 which, as from some tower of speculation, a man may look 
 down and see that virtue is one, but that the forms of vice are 
 innumerable ; there being four special ones which are deserving 
 of note. 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 I mean, I replied, that there appear to be as many forms of 
 the soul as there are distinct forms of the State. 
 
 How many ? 
 
 There are five of the State, and five of the soul, I said. 
 
 What are they ? 
 
 The first, I said, is that which we have been describing, and 
 which may be said to have two names, monarchy and aristoc- 
 racy, according as rule is exercised by one distinguished man 
 or by many. 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 But I regard the two names as describing one form only; 
 for whether the government is in the hands of one or many, 
 if the governors have been trained in the manner which we 
 have supposed, the fundamental laws of the State will be 
 maintained. 
 
 That is true, he replied.
 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 Fac-similes from Rare and Curious Books. 
 
 EARLY VENETIAN PRINTING, 
 
 Frontispiece printed in 1521 at Venice by Bernardus de Vitalis. 
 
 The frontispiece was a special feature in Venetian books of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and often included the book-plate, or trademark of the printer. More than 
 one printer seems to have adopted St. Jerome as the figure for the book-plate, as 
 in the present instance, where the great scholar, the author of the Vulgate or 
 authorized Latin version of the Scriptures, is represented as seated at his desk, 
 with the lion, his usual emblem, crouching at his feet Other interpreters of this 
 miniature see in the writer and the lion a representation of St. Mark the Evangel- 
 ist, who was particularly honored at Venice. The coloring and typography of this 
 page are striking. The ruby border, the bold clear lettering and spacing, make up 
 a beautiful combination.
 
 PVB. 
 
 FRANCISCl 
 
 MODESTI AR.IMINENSIS/ 
 
 AD ANTONIVM 
 
 GRIMANVM. 
 
 P. S. Q. 
 
 V, 
 
 VENETIAS
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON, ADEIMANTUS. 
 
 SUCH is the good and true City or State, and the good and 
 true man is of the same pattern ; and if this is right every 
 other is wrong ; and the evil is one which affects not only 
 the ordering of the State, but also the regulation of the indi- 
 vidual soul, and is exhibited in four forms. 
 
 What are they ? he said. 
 
 I was proceeding to tell the order in which the four evil 
 forms appeared to me to succeed one another, when Polemar- 
 chus, who was sitting a little way off, just beyond Adeimantus, 
 began to whisper to him: stretching forth his hand, he took 
 hold of the upper part of his coat by the shoulder, and drew 
 him toward him, leaning forward himself so as to be quite close 
 and saying something in his ear, of which I only caught the 
 words, " Shall we let him off, or what shall we do ? " 
 
 Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice. 
 
 Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off? 
 
 You, he said. 
 
 I repeated, 1 Why am I especially not to be let off? 
 
 Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat 
 us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of 
 the story ; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way 
 of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in 
 the matter of women and children " friends have all things in 
 common." 
 
 And was I not right, Adeimantus ? 
 
 Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like 
 everything else, requires to be explained ; for community may 
 be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of com- 
 
 1 Reading in iyu cliror. 
 137
 
 138 PLATO 
 
 munity you mean. We have been long expecting that you 
 would tell us something about the family life of your citizens 
 how they will bring children into the world, and rear them 
 when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of 
 this community of women and children for we are of opinion 
 that the right or wrong management of such matters will have 
 a great and paramount influence on the State for good or for 
 evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and 
 you are taking in hand another State, we have resolved, as you 
 heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this. 
 
 To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as say- 
 ing : Agreed. 
 
 And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may con- 
 sider us all to be equally agreed. 
 
 I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing 
 me : What an argument are you raising about the State ! Just 
 as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I 
 had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortu- 
 nate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me 
 to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hor- 
 net's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gath- 
 ering trouble, and avoided it. 
 
 For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, 
 said Thrasymachus to look for gold, or to hear discourse? 
 
 Yes, but discourse should have a limit. 
 
 Yes, Socrates, said Glaucon, and the whole of life is the only 
 limit which wise men assign to the hearing of such discourses. 
 But never mind about us ; take heart yourself and answer the 
 question in your own way : What sort of community of women 
 and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians ? 
 and how shall we manage the period between birth and educa- 
 tion, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how 
 these things will be. 
 
 Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy ; 
 many more doubts arise about this than about our previous con- 
 clusions. For the practicability of what is said may be doubted ; 
 and looked at in another point of view, whether the scheme, if 
 ever so practicable, would be for the best, is also doubtful. 
 Hence I feel a reluctance to approach the subject, lest our as- 
 piration, my dear friend, should turn out to be a dream only.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 139 
 
 Fear not, he replied, for your audience will not be hard upon 
 you; they are not sceptical or hostile. 
 
 I said : My good friend, I suppose that you mean to encour- 
 age me by these words. 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 Then let me tell you that you are doing just the reverse ; the 
 encouragement which you offer would have been all very well 
 had I myself believed that I knew what I was talking about. 
 To declare the truth about matters of high interest which a man 
 honors and loves, among wise men who love him, need occasion 
 no fear or faltering in his mind ; but to carry on an argument 
 when you are yourself only a hesitating inquirer, which is my 
 condition, is a dangerous and slippery thing; and the danger 
 is not that I shall be laughed at (of which the fear would be 
 childish), but that I shall miss the truth where I have most 
 need to be sure of my footing, and drag my friends after me 
 in my fall. And I pray Nemesis not to visit upon me the words 
 which I am going to utter. For I do indeed believe that to be 
 an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver 
 about beauty, or goodness, or justice, in the matter of laws. 1 
 And that is a risk which I would rather run among enemies 
 than among friends ; and therefore you do well to encourage 
 me. 2 
 
 Glaucon laughed and said: Well, then, Socrates, in case 
 you and your argument do us any serious injury you shall be 
 acquitted beforehand of the homicide, and shall not be held 
 to be a deceiver ; take courage then and speak. 
 
 Well, I said, the law says that when a man is acquitted he 
 is free from guilt, and what holds at law may hold in argument. 
 
 Then why should you mind? 
 
 Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and 
 say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper 
 place. The part of the men has been played out, and now 
 properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will 
 proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by 
 you. 
 
 For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, 
 in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the pos- 
 
 > Or inserting *u before t>onivv : " a deceiver about beauty or goodness or principles of 
 justice or law." " Reading, wore e pc jrapafiuOet.
 
 1 40 PLATO 
 
 session and use of women and children is to follow the path 
 on which we originally started, when we said that the men 
 were to be the guardians and watch-dogs of the herd. 
 
 True. 
 
 Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women 
 to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations ; then we 
 shall see whether the result accords with our design. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said : 
 Are dogs divided into he's and she's, or do they both share 
 equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties 
 of dogs ? or do we intrust to the males the entire and exclusive 
 care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under 
 the idea that the bearing and the suckling of their puppies are 
 labor enough for them? 
 
 No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between 
 them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. 
 
 But can you use different animals for the same purpose, un- 
 less they are bred and fed in the same way? 
 
 You cannot. 
 
 Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they 
 must have the same nurture and education? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 The education which was assigned to the men was music and 
 gymnastics. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then women must be taught music and gymnastics and also 
 the art of war, which they must practise like the men? 
 
 That is the inference, I suppose. 
 
 I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, 
 if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. 
 
 No doubt of it. 
 
 Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight 
 of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, es- 
 pecially when they are no longer young ; they certainly will not 
 be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men 
 who, in spite of wrinkles and ugliness, continue to frequent 
 the gymnasia. 
 
 Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the pro- 
 posal would be thought ridiculous.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 141 
 
 But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, 
 we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed 
 against this sort of innovation ; how they will talk of women's 
 attainments, both in music and gymnastics, and above all about 
 their wearing armor and riding upon horseback 1 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Yet, having begun, we must go forward to the rough places 
 of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for 
 once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall re- 
 mind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still 
 generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a 
 naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the 
 Cretans, and then the Lacedaemonians, introduced the custom, 
 the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innova- 
 tion. 
 
 No doubt. 
 
 But when experience showed that to let all things be un- 
 covered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous 
 effect to the outward eye had vanished before the better princi- 
 ple which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a 
 fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but 
 that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beauti- 
 ful by any other standard but that of the good. 1 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in 
 earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of 
 woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially 
 in the actions of men, or not at all ? And is the art of war one 
 of those arts in which she can or cannot share? That will 
 be the best way of commencing the inquiry, and will probably 
 lead to the fairest conclusion. 
 
 That will be much the best way. 
 
 Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing 
 against ourselves ? in this manner the adversary's position will 
 not be undefended. 
 
 Why not ? he said. 
 
 Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. 
 They will say : " Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need 
 convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the 
 
 1 Reading with Paris A. KCU KoAov . . .
 
 1 42 PLATO 
 
 State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one 
 work suited to his own nature." And certainly, if I am not 
 mistaken, such an admission was made by us. " And do not 
 the natures of men and women differ very much indeed ? " 
 And we shall reply, Of course they do. Then we shall be 
 asked, " Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women 
 should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their differ- 
 ent natures ? " Certainly they should. " But if so, have you 
 not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and 
 women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to per- 
 form the same actions ? " What defence will you make for us, 
 my good sir, against anyone who offers these objections? 
 
 That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly ; 
 and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. 
 
 These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others 
 of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago ; they made me afraid 
 and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and 
 nurture of women and children. 
 
 By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but 
 easy. 
 
 Why, yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of 
 his depth, whether he has fallen jnto a little swimming-bath 
 or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And must not we swim and try to reach the shore we will 
 hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may 
 save us ? 
 
 I suppose so, he said. 
 
 Well, then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. 
 We acknowledged did we not? that different natures ought 
 to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures 
 are different. And now what are we saying? that different 
 natures ought to have the same pursuits this is the inconsist- 
 ency which is charged upon us. 
 
 Precisely. 
 
 Verily, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of 
 contradiction ! 
 
 Why do you say so? 
 
 Because I think that many a man falls into the practice 
 against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is
 
 THE REPUBLIC 143 
 
 really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and 
 so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a 
 merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of 
 fair discussion. 
 
 Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has 
 that to do with us and our argument? 
 
 A great deal ; for there is certainly a danger of our getting 
 unintentionally into a verbal opposition. 
 
 In what way? 
 
 Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal 
 truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, 
 but we never considered at all what was the meaning of same- 
 ness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them 
 when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and 
 the same to the same natures. 
 
 Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. 
 
 I said : Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask 
 the question whether there is not an opposition in nature be- 
 tween bald men and hairy men ; and if this is admitted by us, 
 then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men 
 to be cobblers, and conversely? 
 
 That would be a jest, he said. 
 
 Yes, I said, a jest ; and why ? because we never meant when 
 we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should 
 extend to every difference, but only to those differences which 
 affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we 
 should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who 
 is in mind a physician * may be said to have the same nature. 
 
 True. 
 
 Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different 
 natures ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in 
 their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such 
 pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them ; 
 but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men 
 begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a 
 woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education 
 she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to main- 
 
 1 Reading iarpfcv piv KOI iarput&p TIJV ^nrj^v on a.
 
 144 PLATO 
 
 tain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same 
 pursuits. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Next, we shall ask our opponent how, in reference to any 
 of the pursuits or arts of civic life, the nature of a woman dif- 
 fers from that of a man ? 
 
 That will be quite fair. 
 
 And perhaps he, like yourself, will reply that to give a suffi- 
 cient answer on the instant is not easy ; but after a little reflec- 
 tion there is no difficulty. 
 
 Yes, perhaps. 
 
 Suppose then that we invite him to accompany us in the 
 argument, and then we may hope to show him that there is 
 nothing peculiar in the constitution of women which would 
 affect them in the administration of the State. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 Let us say to him : Come now, and we will ask you a ques- 
 tion : When you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any 
 respect, did you mean to say that one man will acquire a thing 
 easily, another with difficulty ; a little learning will lead the one 
 to discover a great deal, whereas the other, after much study 
 and application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, 
 did you mean, that the one has a body which is a good servant 
 to his mind, while the body of the other is a hinderance to him ? 
 would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish 
 the man gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted? 
 
 No one will deny that. 
 
 And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the 
 male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree 
 than the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art 
 of weaving, and the management of pancakes and preserves, 
 in which womankind does really appear to be great, and in 
 which for her to be beaten by a man is of all things the most 
 absurd? 
 
 You are quite right, he replied, in maintaining the general 
 inferiority of the female sex: although many women are in 
 many things superior to many men, yet on the whole what you 
 say is true. 
 
 And if so, my friend, I said, there is no special faculty of 
 administration in a State which a woman has because she is a
 
 THE REPUBLIC 145 
 
 woman, or which a man has by virtue of his sex, but the gifts 
 of nature are alike diffused in both ; all the pursuits of men are 
 the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is in- 
 ferior to a man. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Then are we to impose all our enactments on men and none 
 of them on women? 
 
 That will never do. 
 
 One woman has a gift of healing, another not; one is a 
 musician, and another has no music in her nature? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And one woman has a turn for gymnastic and military exer- 
 cises, and another is unwarlike and hates gymnastics ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And one woman is a philosopher, and another is an enemy 
 of philosophy ; one has spirit, and another is without spirit ? 
 
 That is also true. 
 
 Then one woman will have the temper of a guardian, and 
 another not. Was not the selection of the male guardians de- 
 termined by differences of this sort? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Men and women alike possess the qualities which make a 
 guardian; they differ only in their comparative strength or 
 weakness. 
 
 Obviously. 
 
 And those women who have such qualities are to be selected 
 as the companions and colleagues of men who have similar 
 qualities and whom they resemble in capacity and in character? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And ought not the same natures to have the same pursuits ? 
 
 They ought. 
 
 Then, as we were saying before, there is nothing unnatural 
 in assigning music and gymnastics to the wives of the guar- 
 dians to that point we come round again. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 The law which we then enacted was agreeable to nature, 
 and therefore not an impossibility or mere aspiration ; and the 
 contrary practice, which prevails at present, is in reality a viola- 
 tion of nature. 
 
 That appears to be true. 
 
 10
 
 146 PLATO 
 
 We had to consider, first, whether our proposals were possi- 
 ble, and secondly whether they were the most beneficial? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the possibility has been acknowledged? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 The very great benefit has next to be established? 
 
 Quite so. 
 
 You will admit that the same education which makes a man 
 a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian ; for their 
 original nature is the same ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 I should like to ask you a question. 
 
 What is it? 
 
 Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one 
 man better than another? 
 
 The latter. 
 
 And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you 
 conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our 
 model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose 
 education has been cobbling? 
 
 What a ridiculous question! 
 
 You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not 
 further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens ? 
 
 By far the best. 
 
 And will not their wives be the best women? 
 
 Yes, by far the best. 
 
 And can there be anything better for the interests of the 
 State than that the men and women of a State should be as 
 good as possible ? 
 
 There can be nothing better. 
 
 And this is what the arts of music and gymnastics, when 
 present in such a manner as we have described, will accom- 
 plish? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in 
 the highest degree beneficial to the State? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue 
 will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and 
 the defence of their country ; only in the distribution of labors
 
 THE REPUBLIC 147 
 
 the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker 
 natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. 
 And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising 
 their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is 
 plucking 
 
 " A fruit of unripe wisdom," 
 
 and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what 
 he is about; for that is, and ever will be, the best of sayings, 
 " that the useful is the noble, and the hurtful is the base." 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which 
 we may say that we have now escaped ; the wave has not swal- 
 lowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex 
 should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and 
 also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the 
 argument with itself bears witness. 
 
 Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. 
 
 Yes, I said, but a greater is coming ; you will not think much 
 of this when you see the next. 
 
 Go on ; let me see. 
 
 The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that 
 has preceded, is to the following effect, " that the wives of our 
 guardians are to be common, and their children are to be com- 
 mon, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his 
 parent." 
 
 Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; 
 and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far 
 more questionable. 
 
 I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about 
 the very great utility of having wives and children in common ; 
 the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much 
 disputed. 
 
 I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. 
 
 You imply that the two questions must be combined, I re- 
 plied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and 
 in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, 
 and then there would remain only the possibility. 
 
 But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will 
 please to give a defence of both.
 
 I 4 8 PLATO 
 
 Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little 
 favor : let me feast my mind with the dream as day-dreamers 
 are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking 
 alone ; for before they have discovered any means of effecting 
 their wishes that is a matter which never troubles them they 
 would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities ; 
 but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, 
 they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they 
 mean to do when their wish has come true that is a way which 
 they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was 
 never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose 
 heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the 
 question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the pos- 
 sibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to inquire how the 
 rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demon- 
 strate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit 
 to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you 
 have no objection, I will endeavor with your help to consider 
 the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of 
 possibility. 
 
 I have no objection ; proceed. 
 
 First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to 
 be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willing- 
 ness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other ; 
 the guardians themselves must obey the laws, and they must 
 also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are intrusted 
 to their care. 
 
 That is right, he said. 
 
 You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, 
 will now select the women and give them to them ; they must 
 be as far as possible of like natures with them ; and they must 
 live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of 
 them will have anything specially his or her own ; they will be 
 together, and will be brought up together, and will associate 
 at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a neces- 
 sity of their natures to have intercourse with each other ne- 
 cessity is not too strong a word, I think ? 
 
 Yes, he said; necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of 
 necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing 
 and constraining to the mass of mankind.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 149 
 
 True, I said ; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed 
 after an orderly fashion ; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness 
 is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. 
 
 Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. 
 
 Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred 
 in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed 
 sacred ? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And how can marriages be made most beneficial? that is a 
 question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs 
 for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, 
 I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pair- 
 ing and breeding? 
 
 In what particulars? 
 
 Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, 
 are not some better than others? 
 
 True. 
 
 And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take 
 care to breed from the best only ? 
 
 From the best. 
 
 And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those 
 of ripe age ? 
 
 I choose only those of ripe age. 
 
 And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and 
 birds would greatly deteriorate? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And the same of horses and of animals in general ? 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 Good heavens ! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill 
 will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human 
 species ! 
 
 Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this in- 
 volve any particular skill ? 
 
 Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practise upon 
 the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when 
 patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under 
 a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good 
 enough ; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor 
 should be more of a man. 
 
 That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding?
 
 150 PLATO 
 
 I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose 
 of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects : 
 we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as med- 
 icines might be of advantage. 
 
 And we were very right. 
 
 And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed 
 in the regulations of marriages and births. 
 
 Plow so? 
 
 Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that 
 the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, 
 and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible; and 
 that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, 
 but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate 
 condition. Now these goings on must be a secret which the 
 rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, 
 as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Had we better not appoint certain festivals at which we will 
 bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will 
 be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets : 
 the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the 
 discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the aver- 
 age of population? There are many other things which they 
 will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases 
 and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to 
 prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which 
 the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing 
 them together, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and 
 not the rulers. 
 
 To be sure, he said. 
 
 And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their 
 other honors and rewards, might have greater facilities of in- 
 tercourse with women given them ; their bravery will be a rea- 
 son, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. 
 
 True. 
 
 And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, 
 for offices are to be held by women ae well as by men 
 
 Yes
 
 THE REPUBLIC 151 
 
 The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents 
 to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain 
 nurses who dwell in a separate quarter ; but the offspring of the 
 inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will 
 be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should 
 be. 
 
 Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians 
 is to be kept pure. 
 
 They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the 
 mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the great- 
 est possible care that no mother recognizes her own child ; and 
 other wet-nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care 
 will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be pro- 
 tracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at 
 night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing 
 to the nurses and attendants. 
 
 You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy 
 time of it when they are having children. 
 
 Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed 
 with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be 
 in the prime of life? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a 
 period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty 
 years in a man's? 
 
 Which years do you mean to include? 
 
 A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear 
 children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; 
 a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the 
 point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to 
 beget children until he be fifty-five. 
 
 Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are 
 the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigor. 
 
 Anyone above or below the prescribed ages who takes part 
 in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy 
 and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if 
 it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very 
 unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priest- 
 esses and priests and the whole city will offer, that the new 
 generation may be better and more useful than their good and
 
 PLATO 
 
 useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of dark- 
 ness and strange lust. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 And the same law will apply to any one of those within the 
 prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the 
 prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall 
 say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and 
 unconsecrated. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 This applies, however, only to those who are within the spec- 
 ified age : after that we will allow them to range at will, except 
 that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's 
 daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, 
 on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or 
 fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either di- 
 rection. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission 
 with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into 
 being from seeing the light ; and if any force a way to the birth, 
 the parents must understand that the offspring of such a union 
 cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. 
 
 That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how 
 will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so on ? 
 
 They will never know. The way will be this : dating from 
 the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married 
 will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and 
 the tenth month afterward his sons, and the female children his 
 daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their 
 children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder genera- 
 tion grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten 
 at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will 
 be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, 
 will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is not to be 
 understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of 
 brothers and sisters ; if the lot favors them, and they receive the 
 sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. 
 
 Quite right, he replied. 
 
 Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guar- 
 dians of our State are to have their wives and families in com- 
 mon. And now you would have the argument show that this 
 community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also 
 that nothing can be better would you not?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 153 
 
 Yes, certainly. 
 
 Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves 
 what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws 
 and in the organization of a State what is the greatest good, 
 and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our 
 previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil ? 
 
 By all means. 
 
 Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction 
 and plurality where unity ought to reign ? or any greater good 
 than the bond of unity ? 
 
 There cannot. 
 
 And there is unity where there is community of pleasures 
 and pains where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the 
 same occasions of joy and sorrow? 
 
 No doubt. 
 
 Yes ; and where there is no common but only private feeling 
 a State is disorganized when you have one-half of the world 
 triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events 
 happening to the city or the citizens? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about 
 the use of the terms " mine " and " not mine," " his " and " not 
 his." 
 
 Exactly so. 
 
 And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest 
 number of persons apply the terms " mine " and " not mine " in 
 the same way to the same thing? 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition 
 of the individual as in the body, when but a finger of one of 
 us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn toward the soul as a centre 
 and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels 
 the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, 
 and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the 
 same expression is used about any other part of the body, which 
 has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alle- 
 viation of suffering. 
 
 Very true, he replied ; and I agree with you that in the best- 
 ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feel- 
 ing which you describe.
 
 I 5 4 PLATO 
 
 Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or 
 evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will 
 either rejoice or sorrow with him? 
 
 Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well-ordered State. 
 
 It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and 
 see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with 
 these fundamental principles. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Our State, like every other, has rulers and subjects? 
 
 True. 
 
 All of whom will call one another citizens? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 But is there not another name which people give to their 
 rulers in other States? 
 
 Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States 
 they simply call them rulers. 
 
 And in our State what other name besides that of citizens 
 do the people give the rulers ? 
 
 They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. 
 
 And what do the rulers call the people ? 
 
 Their maintainers and foster-fathers. 
 
 And what do they call them in other States? 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 And what do the rulers call one another in other States? 
 
 Fellow-rulers. 
 
 And what in ours? 
 
 Fellow-guardians. 
 
 Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler 
 who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of 
 another as not being his friend ? 
 
 Yes, very often. 
 
 And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom 
 he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has 
 no interest? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 But would any of your guardians think or speak of any 
 other guardian as a stranger? 
 
 Certainly he would not ; for everyone whom they meet will 
 be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father 
 or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of 
 those who are thus connected with him.
 
 THE REPUBLIC ^5 
 
 Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they 
 be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be 
 true to the name? For example, in the use of the word 
 " father/' would the care of a father be implied and the filial 
 reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law com- 
 mands ; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an 
 impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive 
 much good either at the hands of God or of man ? Are these 
 to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear re- 
 peated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are inti- 
 mated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk ? 
 
 These, he said, and none other ; for what can be more ridicu- 
 lous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the 
 lips only and not to act in the spirit of them ? 
 
 Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will 
 be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing 
 before, when anyone is well or ill, the universal word will be 
 " with me it is well " or " it is ill." 
 
 Most true. 
 
 And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were 
 we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in 
 common ? 
 
 Yes, and so they will. 
 
 And they will have a common interest in the same thing 
 which they will alike call " my own," and having this common 
 interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain ? 
 
 Yes, far more so than in other States. 
 
 And the reason of this, over and above the general constitu- 
 tion of the State, will be that the guardians will have a com- 
 munity of women and children? 
 
 That will be the chief reason. 
 
 And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, 
 as was implied in our comparison of a well-ordered State to the 
 relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleas- 
 ure or pain? 
 
 That we acknowledged, and very rightly. 
 
 Then the community of wives and children among our citi- 
 zens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And this agrees with the other principle which we were
 
 156 PLATO 
 
 affirming that the guardians were not to have houses or lands 
 or any other property ; their pay was to be their food, which 
 they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to 
 have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve 
 their true character of guardians. 
 
 Right, he replied. 
 
 Both the community of property and the community of fami- 
 lies, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians ; 
 they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about " mine " 
 and " not mine ; " each man dragging any acquisition which he 
 has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a sep- 
 arate wife and children and private pleasures and pains; but 
 all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and 
 pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and 
 dear to them, and therefore they all tend toward a common end. 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 And as they have nothing but their persons which they can 
 call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence 
 among them ; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of 
 which money or children or relations are the occasion. 
 
 Of course they will. 
 
 Neither will trials for assault or insult ever be likely to occur 
 among them. For that equals should defend themselves against 
 equals we shall maintain to be honorable and right ; we shall 
 make the protection of the person a matter of necessity. 
 
 That is good, he said. 
 
 Yes ; and there is a further good in the law ; viz., that if 
 a man has a quarrel with another he will satisfy his resentment 
 then and there, and not proceed to more dangerous lengths. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 To the elder shall be assigned the duty of ruling and chastis- 
 ing the younger. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Nor can there be a doubt that the younger will not strike or 
 do any other violence to an elder, unless the magistrates com- 
 mand him ; nor will he slight him in any way. For there are 
 two guardians, shame and fear, mighty to prevent him : shame, 
 which makes men refrain from laying hands on those who are 
 to them in the relation of parents; fear, that the injured one 
 will be succored by the others who are his brothers, sons, 
 fathers.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 157 
 
 That is true, he replied. 
 
 Then in every way the laws will help the citizens to keep the 
 peace with one another? 
 
 Yes, there will be no want of peace. 
 
 And as the guardians will never quarrel among themselves 
 there will be no danger of the rest of the city being divided 
 either against them or against one another. 
 
 None whatever. 
 
 I hardly like even to mention the little meannesses of which 
 they will be rid, for they are beneath notice : such, for example, 
 as the flattery of the rich by the poor, and all the pains and 
 pangs which men experience in bringing up a family, and in 
 finding money to buy necessaries for their household, borrow- 
 ing and then repudiating, getting how they can, and giving 
 the money into the hands of women and slaves to keep 
 the many evils of so many kinds which people suffer in this 
 way are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth 
 speaking of. 
 
 Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive 
 that. 
 
 And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life 
 will be blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more 
 blessed. 
 
 How so ? 
 
 The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a 
 part only of the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, 
 who have won a more glorious victory and have a more com- 
 plete maintenance at the public cost. For the victory which 
 they have won is the salvation of the whole State; and the 
 crown with which they and their children are crowned is the 
 fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the 
 hands of their country while living, and after death have an 
 honorable burial. 
 
 Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous 
 discussion someone who shall be nameless accused us of mak- 
 ing our guardians unhappy they had nothing and might have 
 possessed all things to whom we replied that, if an occasion 
 offered, we might perhaps hereafter consider this question, 
 but that, as at present divided, we would make our guardians 
 truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State with a
 
 158 PLATO 
 
 view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but 
 of the whole? 
 
 Yes, I remember. 
 
 And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is 
 made out to be far better and nobler than that of Olympic vic- 
 tors is the life of shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of 
 husbandmen, to be compared with it? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said 
 elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to be happy 
 in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not 
 content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judg- 
 ment, is of all lives the best, but, infatuated by some youthful 
 conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to 
 appropriate the whole State to himself, then he will have to 
 learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, " half is more 
 than the whole." 
 
 If he were to consult me, I should say to him : Stay where 
 you are, when you have the offer of such a life. 
 
 You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a 
 common way of life such as we have described common edu- 
 cation, common children ; and they are to watch over the citi- 
 zens in common whether abiding in the city or going out to 
 war; they are to keep watch together, and to hunt together 
 like dogs ; and always and in all things, as far as they are able, 
 women are to share with the men ? And in so doing they will 
 do what is best, and will not violate, but preserve, the natural 
 relation of the sexes. 
 
 I agree with you, he replied. 
 
 The inquiry, I said, has yet to be made, whether such a com- 
 munity will be found possible as among other animals, so also 
 among men and if possible, in what way possible ? 
 
 You have anticipated the question which I was about to 
 suggest. 
 
 There is no difficulty, I said, in seeing how war will be car- 
 ried on by them. 
 
 How? 
 
 Why, of course they will go on expeditions together; and 
 will take with them any of their children who are strong 
 enough, that, after the manner of the artisan's child, they may
 
 THE REPUBLIC 159 
 
 look on at the work which they will have to do when they are 
 grown up ; and besides looking on they will have to help and 
 be of use in war, and to wait upon their fathers and mothers. 
 Did you never observe in the arts how the potters' boys look on 
 and help, long before they touch the wheel ? 
 
 Yes, I have. 
 
 And shall potters be more careful in educating their children 
 and in giving them the opportunity of seeing and practising 
 their duties than our guardians will be? 
 
 The idea is ridiculous, he said. 
 
 There is also the effect on the parents, with whom, as with 
 other animals, the presence of their young ones will be the 
 greatest incentive to valor. 
 
 That is quite true, Socrates; and yet if they are defeated, 
 which may often happen in war, how great the danger is ! the 
 children will be lost as well as their parents, and the State will 
 never recover. 
 
 True, I said; but would you never allow them to run any 
 risk? 
 
 I am far from saying that. 
 
 'Well, but if they are ever to run a risk should they not do 
 90 on some occasion when, if they escape disaster, they will be 
 the better for it? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Whether the future soldiers do or do not see war in the days 
 of their youth is a very important matter, for the sake of which 
 some risk may fairly be incurred. 
 
 Yes, very important. 
 
 This then must be our first step to make our children spec- 
 tators of war ; but we must also contrive that they shall be se- 
 cured against danger ; then all will be well. 
 
 True. 
 
 Their parents may be supposed not to be blind to the risks 
 of war, but to know, as far as human foresight can, what ex- 
 peditions are safe and what dangerous? 
 
 That may be assumed. 
 
 And they will take them on the safe expeditions and be cau- 
 tious about the dangerous ones? 
 
 True. 
 
 And they will place them under the command of experienced 
 veterans who will be their leaders and teachers?
 
 160 PLATO 
 
 Very properly. 
 
 Still, the dangers of war cannot be always foreseen; there 
 is a good deal of chance about them? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then against such chances the children must be at once fur- 
 nished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may 
 fly away and escape. 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest 
 youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horse- 
 back to see war : the horses must not be spirited and warlike, 
 but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In 
 this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter 
 to be their own business ; and if there is danger they have only 
 to follow their elder leaders and escape. 
 
 I believe that you are right, he said. 
 
 Next, as to war ; what are to be the relations of your soldiers 
 to one another and to their enemies? I should be inclined to 
 propose that the soldier who leaves his rank or throws away 
 his arms, or is guilty of any other act of cowardice, should be 
 degraded into the rank of a husbandman or artisan. What 
 do you think? 
 
 By all means, I should say. 
 
 And he who allows himself to be taken prisoner may as well 
 be made a present of to his enemies ; he is their lawful prey, 
 and let them do what they like with him. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But the hero who has distinguished himself, what shall be 
 done to him? In the first place, he shall receive honor in the 
 army from his youthful comrades ; every one of them in succes- 
 sion shall crown him. What do you say? 
 
 I approve. 
 
 And what do you say to his receiving the right hand of fel- 
 lowship ? 
 
 To that too, I agree. 
 
 But you will hardly agree to my next proposal. 
 
 What is your proposal ? 
 
 That he should kiss and be kissed by them. 
 
 Most certainly, and I should be disposed to go further, and 
 say : Let no one whom he has a mind to kiss refuse to be kissed
 
 THE REPUBLIC 161 
 
 bv him while the expedition lasts. So that if there be a lover 
 in the army, whether his love be youth or maiden, he may be 
 more eager to win the prize of valor. 
 
 Capital, I said. That the brave man is to have more wives 
 than others has been already determined : and he is to have first 
 choices in such matters more than others, in order that he may 
 have as many children as possible? 
 
 Agreed. 
 
 Again, there is another manner in which, according to 
 Homer, brave youths should be honored; for he tells how 
 Ajax, 1 after he had distinguished himself in battle, was re- 
 warded with long chines, which seems to be a compliment ap- 
 propriate to a hero in the flower of his age, being not only a 
 tribute of honor but also a very strengthening thing. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher ; and we too, 
 at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honor the brave ac- 
 cording to the measure of their valor, whether men or women, 
 with hymns and those other distinctions which we were men- 
 tioning; also with 
 
 " seats of precedence, and meats and full cups; "* 
 
 and in honoring them, we shall be at the same time training 
 them. 
 
 That, he replied, is excellent. 
 
 Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall 
 we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that 
 when they are dead 
 
 "They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters 
 of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men " ? * 
 
 Yes ; and we accept his authority. 
 
 We must learn of the god how we are to order the sepulture 
 of divine and heroic personages, and what is to be their special 
 distinction ; and we must do as he bids ? 
 
 By all means. 
 
 And in ages to come we will reverence them and kneel before 
 
 1 " Iliad," vil. 321. * " Iliad," viii. i6a. * Probably " Works and Days," 121 fol. 
 II
 
 i6a PLATO 
 
 their sepulchres as at the graves of heroes. And not only they, 
 but any who are deemed pre-eminently good, whether they die 
 from age or in any other way, shall be admitted to the same 
 honors. 
 
 That is very right, he said. 
 
 Next, how shall our soldiers treat their enemies? What 
 about this? 
 
 In what respect do you mean? 
 
 First of all, in regard to slavery ? Do you think it right that 
 Hellenes should enslave Hellenic States, or allow others to en- 
 slave them, if they can help? Should not their custom be to 
 spare them, considering the danger which there is that the 
 whole race may one day fall under the yoke of the barbarians ? 
 
 To spare them is infinitely better. 
 
 Then no Hellene should be owned by them as a slave ; that 
 is a rule which they will observe and advise the other Hellenes 
 to observe. 
 
 Certainly, he said; they will in this way be united against 
 the barbarians and will keep their hands off one another. 
 
 Next as to the slain; ought the conquerors, I said, to take 
 anything but their armor? Does not the practice of despoil- 
 ing an enemy afford an excuse for not facing the battle? 
 Cowards skulk about the dead, pretending that they are ful- 
 filling a duty, and many an army before now has been lost 
 from this love of plunder. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, 
 and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an 
 enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away 
 and left only his fighting gear behind him is not this rather 
 like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the 
 stones which strike him instead? 
 
 Very like a dog, he said. 
 
 Then we must abstain from spoiling the dead or hindering 
 their burial ? 
 
 Yes, he replied, we most certainly must. 
 
 Neither shall we offer up arms at the temples of the gods, 
 least of all the arms of Hellenes, if we care to maintain good 
 feeling with other Hellenes; and, indeed, we have reason to 
 fear that the offering of spoils taken from kinsmen may be a 
 pollution unless commanded by the god himself?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 163 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Again, as to the devastation of Hellenic territory or the burn- 
 ing of houses, what is to be the practice ? 
 
 May I have the pleasure, he said, of hearing your opinion? 
 
 Both should be forbidden, in my judgment; I would take the 
 annual produce and no more. Shall I tell you why ? 
 
 Pray do. 
 
 Why, you see, there is a difference in the names " discord " 
 and " war," and I imagine that there is also a difference in their 
 natures ; the one is expressive of what is internal and domestic, 
 the other of what is external and foreign ; and the first of the 
 two is termed discord, and only the second, war. 
 
 That is a very proper distinction, he replied. 
 
 And may I not observe with equal propriety that the Hellenic 
 race is all united together by ties of blood and friendship, and 
 alien and strange to the barbarians? 
 
 Very good, he said. 
 
 And therefore when Hellenes fight with barbarians, and bar- 
 barians with Hellenes, they will be described by us as being at 
 war when they fight, and by nature enemies, and this kind of 
 antagonism should be called war ; but when Hellenes fight with 
 one another we shall say that Hellas is then in a state of dis- 
 order and discord, they being by nature friends ; and such en- 
 mity is to be called discord. 
 
 I agree. 
 
 Consider then, I said, when that which we have acknowl- 
 edged to be discord occurs, and a city is divided, if both parties 
 destroy the lands and burn the houses of one another, how 
 wicked does the strife appear! No true lover of his country 
 would bring himself to tear in pieces his own nurse and mother : 
 There might be reason in the conqueror depriving the con- 
 quered of their harvest, but still they would have the idea of 
 peace in their hearts, and would not mean to go on fighting 
 forever. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is a better temper than the other. 
 
 And will not the city, which you are founding, be an Hellenic 
 city? 
 
 It ought to be, he replied. 
 
 Then will not the citizens be good and civilized ? 
 
 Yes, very civilized.
 
 1 64 PLATO 
 
 And will they not be lovers of Hellas, and think of Hellas as 
 their own land, and share in the common temples? 
 
 Most certainly. 
 
 And any difference which arises among them will be re- 
 garded by them as discord only a quarrel among friends, 
 which is not to be called a war ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Then they will quarrel as those who intend some day to be 
 reconciled ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 They will use friendly correction, but will not enslave or de- 
 stroy their opponents; they will be correctors, not enemies? 
 
 Just so. 
 
 And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate 
 Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the 
 whole population of a city men, women, and children are 
 equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is 
 always confined to a few persons and that the many are their 
 friends. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to 
 waste their lands and raze their houses; their enmity to them 
 will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled 
 the guilty few to give satisfaction ? 
 
 I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their 
 Hellenic enemies; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now 
 deal with one another. 
 
 Then let us enact this law also for our guardians : that they 
 are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their 
 houses. 
 
 Agreed ; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like 
 all our previous enactments, are very good. 
 
 But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on 
 in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at 
 the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside : Is such 
 an order of things possible, and how, if at all ? For I am quite 
 ready to acknowledge that the plan which you propose, if only 
 feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State. I will add, 
 what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest 
 of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all 
 know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, 
 son ; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether
 
 THE REPUBLIC 165 
 
 in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to th'e enemy, 
 or as auxiliaries in case of need, I know that they will then be 
 absolutely invincible ; and there are many domestic advantages 
 which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowl- 
 edge : but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more 
 as you please, if only this State of yours were to come intc 
 existence, we need say no more about them ; assuming then the 
 existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possi- 
 bility and ways and means the rest may be left. 
 
 If I loiter l for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon 
 me, I said, and have no mercy ; I have hardly escaped the first 
 and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that you are 
 now bringing upon me the third, which is the greatest and 
 heaviest. When you have seen and heard the third wave, I 
 think you will be more considerate and will acknowledge that 
 some fear and hesitation were natural respecting a proposal 
 so extraordinary as that which I have now to state and in- 
 vestigate. 
 
 The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the 
 more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State 
 is possible : speak out and at once. 
 
 Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way 
 hither in the search after justice and injustice. 
 
 True, he replied; but what of that? 
 
 I was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, 
 we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of 
 absolute justice; or may we be satisfied with an approxima- 
 tion, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice 
 than is to be found in other men ? 
 
 The approximation will be enough. 
 
 We were inquiring into the nature of absolute justice and 
 into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and 
 the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to 
 look at these in order that we might judge of our own happi- 
 ness and unhappiness according to the standard which they 
 exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not 
 with any view of showing that they could exist in fact. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Would a painter be any the worse because, after having de- 
 
 1 Reading vrpayytvon^vtf.
 
 166 PLATO 
 
 lineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful 
 man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have 
 existed ? 
 
 He would be none the worse. 
 
 Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to 
 prove the possibility of a city being ordered in the manner de- 
 scribed ? 
 
 Surely not, he replied. 
 
 That is the truth, I said. But if, at your request, I am to try 
 and show how and under what conditions the possibility is 
 highest, I must ask you, having this in view, to repeat your 
 former admissions. 
 
 What admissions? 
 
 I want to know whether ideals are ever fully realized in lan- 
 guage? Does not the word express more than the fact, and 
 must not the actual, whatever a man may think, always, in the 
 nature of things, fall short of the truth? What do you say? 
 
 I agree. 
 
 Then you must not insist on my proving that the actual State 
 will in every respect coincide with the ideal : if we are only 
 able to discover how a city may be governed nearly as we pro- 
 posed, you will admit that we have discovered the possibility 
 which you demand; and will be contented. I am sure that I 
 should be contented will not you ? 
 
 Yes, I will. 
 
 Let me next endeavor to show what is that fault in States 
 which is the cause of their present maladministration, and what 
 is the least change which will enable a State to pass into the 
 truer form ; and let the change, if possible, be of one thing only, 
 or, if not, of two; at any rate, let the changes be as few and 
 slight as possible. 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if 
 only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though 
 still a possible one. 
 
 What is it? he said. 
 
 Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to the great- 
 est of the waves ; yet shall the word be spoken, even though the
 
 THE REPUBLIC 167 
 
 wave break and drown me in laughter and dishonor; and do 
 you mark my words. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 I said : " Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and 
 princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, 
 and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those com- 
 moner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other 
 are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from 
 their evils no, nor the human race, as I believe and then 
 only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold 
 the light of day." Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, 
 which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too ex- 
 travagant ; for to be convinced that in no other State can there 
 be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. 
 
 Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider 
 that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous 
 persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling 
 off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that 
 comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you 
 know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what ; and 
 if you don't prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you 
 will be " pared by their fine wits," and no mistake. 
 
 You got me into the scrape, I said. 
 
 And I was quite right; however, I will do all I can to get 
 you out of it ; but I can only give you good-will and good ad- 
 vice, and, perhaps, I may be able to fit answers to your ques- 
 tions better than another that is all. And now, having such 
 an auxiliary, you must do your best to show the unbelievers 
 that you are right. 
 
 I ought to try, I said, since you offer me such invaluable as- 
 sistance. And I think that, if there is to be a chance of our 
 escaping, we must explain to them whom we mean when we 
 say that philosophers are to rule in the State ; then we shall be 
 able to defend ourselves : There will be discovered to be some 
 natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the 
 State ; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are 
 meant to be followers rather than leaders. 
 
 Then now for a definition, he said. 
 
 Follow me, I said, and I hope that I may in some way or 
 other be able to give you a satisfactory explanation.
 
 1 68 PLATO 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not re- 
 mind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to 
 show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but 
 to the whole. 
 
 I really do not understand, and therefore beg of you to assist 
 my memory. 
 
 Another person, I said, might fairly reply as you do ; but a 
 man of pleasure like yourself ought to know that all who are 
 in the flower of youth do somehow or other raise a pang or 
 emotion in a lover's breast, and are thought by him to be 
 worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way which 
 you have with the fair : one has a snub nose, and you praise his 
 charming face ; the hook-nose of another has, you say, a royal 
 look ; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has the grace of 
 regularity: the dark visage is manly, the fair are children of 
 the gods ; and as to the sweet " honey-pale," as they are called, 
 what is the very name but the invention of a lover who talks 
 in diminutives, and is not averse to paleness if appearing on the 
 cheek of youth ? In a word, there is no excuse which you will 
 not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to 
 lose a single flower that blooms in the spring-time of youth. 
 
 If you make me an authority in matters of love, for the sake 
 of the argument, I .assent. 
 
 And what do you say of lovers of wine? Do you not see 
 them doing the same ? They are glad of any pretext of drink- 
 ing any wine. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 And the same is true of ambitious men ; if they cannot com- 
 mand an army, they are willing to command a file ; and if they 
 cannot be honored by really great and important persons, they 
 are glad to be honored by lesser and meaner people but honor 
 of some kind they must have. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of 
 goods, desire the whole class or a part only ? 
 
 The whole. 
 
 And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, 
 not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole? 
 
 Yes, of the whole.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 169 
 
 And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he 
 has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such 
 a one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowl- 
 edge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may 
 be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and 
 who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly 
 termed a philosopher ? Am I not right ? 
 
 Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will 
 find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All 
 the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must there- 
 fore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely 
 out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons 
 in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical 
 discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dio- 
 nysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every 
 chorus ; whether the performance is in town or country that 
 makes no difference they are there. Now are we to maintain 
 that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the 
 professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers? 
 
 Certainly not, I replied ; they are only an imitation. 
 
 He said : Who then are the true philosophers ? 
 
 Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. 
 
 That is also good, he said ; but I should like to know what 
 you mean? 
 
 To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining ; 
 but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am 
 about to make. 
 
 What is the proposition? 
 
 That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one ? 
 
 True again. 
 
 And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other 
 class, the same remark holds: taken singly, each of them is 
 one; but from the various combinations of them with actions 
 and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of 
 lights and appear many? 
 
 Very true.
 
 170 PLATO 
 
 And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight- 
 loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am 
 speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philoso- 
 phers. 
 
 How do you distinguish them ? he said. 
 
 The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, 
 fond of fine tones and colors and forms and all the artificial 
 products that are made out of them, but their minds are in- 
 capable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense 
 of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge 
 of that beauty is unable to follow of such a one I ask, Is he 
 awake or in a dream only ? Reflect : is not the dreamer, sleep- 
 ing or waking, one who likens dissimilar things, who puts the 
 copy in the place of the real object? 
 
 I should certainly say that such a one was dreaming. 
 
 But take the case of the other, who recognizes the existence 
 of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the 
 objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects 
 in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects 
 is he a dreamer, or is he awake ? 
 
 He is wide awake. 
 
 And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows 
 has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines 
 only, has opinion ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dis- 
 pute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or 
 advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad dis- 
 order in his wits? 
 
 We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied. 
 
 Come, then, and let us think if something to say to him. 
 Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any 
 knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his 
 having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does 
 he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You 
 must answer for him).
 
 THE REPUBLIC 171 
 
 I answer that he knows something. 
 
 Something that is or is not? 
 
 Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be 
 known ? 
 
 And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many 
 points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely 
 known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown? 
 
 Nothing can be more certain. 
 
 Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature 
 as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate be- 
 tween pure being and the absolute negation of being? 
 
 Yes, between them. 
 
 And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of 
 necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and 
 not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermedi- 
 ate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Do we admit the existence of opinion? 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? 
 
 Another faculty. 
 
 Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds 
 of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But 
 before I proceed further I will make a division. 
 
 What division? 
 
 I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: 
 they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we 
 do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call 
 faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? 
 
 Yes, I quite understand. 
 
 Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, 
 and therefore the distinctions of figure, color, and the like, 
 which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do 
 not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of 
 its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere 
 and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has 
 another sphere and another result I call different. Would that 
 be your way of speaking?
 
 I7 2 PLATO 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And will you be so very good as to answer one more ques- 
 tion ? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what 
 class would yon place it ? 
 
 Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all 
 faculties. 
 
 And is opinion also a faculty? 
 
 Certainly, he said ; for opinion is that with which we are able 
 to form an opinion. 
 
 And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that 
 knowledge is not the same as opinion ? 
 
 Why, yes, he said : how can any reasonable being ever iden- 
 tify that which is infallible with that which errs ? 
 
 An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite con- 
 scious of a distinction between them. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have 
 also distinct spheres or subject-matters? 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and 
 knowledge is to know the nature of being? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And opinion is to have an opinion ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter 
 of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge? 
 
 Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven ; if differ- 
 ence in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-mat- 
 ter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are dis- 
 tinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion 
 cannot be the same. 
 
 Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something 
 else must be the subject-matter of opinion? 
 
 Yes, something else. 
 
 Well, then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, 
 rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? 
 Reflect : when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about 
 something ? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about 
 nothing ? 
 
 Impossible.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 173 
 
 He who has an opinion has an opinion about some one 
 thing? 
 Yes. 
 And not-being is not one thing, but, properly speaking, noth- 
 
 ing 
 
 True. 
 
 Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary 
 correlative ; of being, knowledge ? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with 
 not-being ? 
 
 Not with either. 
 
 And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge? 
 
 That seems to be true. 
 
 But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of 
 them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater 
 darkness than ignorance? 
 
 In neither. 
 
 Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than 
 knowledge, but lighter than ignorance? 
 
 Both ; and in no small degree. 
 
 And also to be within and between them? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate? 
 
 No question. 
 
 But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared 
 to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort 
 of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure 
 being and absolute not-being ; and that the corresponding fac- 
 ulty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in 
 the interval between them ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And in that interval there has now been discovered some- 
 thing which we call opinion ? 
 
 There has. 
 
 Then what remains to be discovered is the object which par- 
 takes equally of the nature of being and not -being, and cannot 
 rightly be termed either, pure and simple ; this unknown term, 
 when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, 
 and assign each to their proper faculty the extremes to the
 
 I 7 4 PLATO 
 
 faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the 
 mean. 
 
 True. 
 
 This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of 
 opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty 
 in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold he, I say, 
 your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that 
 the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is 
 one to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, 
 sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there 
 is one which will not be found ugly ; or of the just, which will 
 not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be un- 
 holy? 
 
 No, he replied ; the beautiful will in some point of view be 
 found ugly ; and the same is true of the rest. 
 
 And may not the many which are doubles be also halves ? 
 doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another? 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are 
 termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the oppo- 
 site names? 
 
 True ; both these and the opposite names will always attach 
 to all of them. 
 
 And can any one of those many things which are called by 
 particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this? 
 
 He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are 
 asked at feasts or the children's puzzle about the eunuch aim- 
 ing at the bat, with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, 
 and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects 
 of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double 
 sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or 
 not-being, or both, or neither. 
 
 Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have 
 a better place than between being and not-being? For they 
 are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, 
 or more full of light and existence than being. 
 
 That is quite true, he said. 
 
 Thus then we seem to have discovered that the many ideas 
 which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about 
 all other things are tossing about in some region which is half- 
 way between pure being and pure not-being?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 175 
 
 We have. 
 
 Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind 
 which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, 
 and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux 
 which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty. 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither 
 see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the 
 way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, 
 and the like such persons may be said to have opinion but 
 not knowledge? 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable 
 may be said to know, and not to have opinion only? 
 
 Neither can that be denied. 
 
 The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the 
 other those of opinion ? The latter are the same, as I dare say 
 you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed 
 upon fair colors, but would not tolerate the existence of abso- 
 lute beauty. 
 
 Yes, I remember. 
 
 Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them 
 lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they 
 be very angry with us for thus describing them ? 
 
 I shall tell them not to be angry ; no man should be angry 
 at what is true. 
 
 But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called 
 lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion. 
 
 Assuredly.
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON 
 
 AND thus, Glaucon, after the argument has gone a weary 
 way, the true and the false philosophers have at length 
 appeared in view. 
 
 I do not think, he said, that the way could have been short- 
 ened. 
 
 I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have 
 had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have 
 been confined to this one subject and if there were not many 
 other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in 
 what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust 
 must consider. 
 
 And what is the next question? he asked. 
 
 Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inas- 
 much as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and un- 
 changeable, and those who wander in the region of the many 
 and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the 
 two classes should be the rulers of our State ? 
 
 And how can we rightly answer that question? 
 
 Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and 
 institutions of our State let them be our guardians. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian 
 who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes ? 
 
 There can be no question of that. 
 
 And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the 
 knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in 
 their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter's 
 eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, 
 
 176
 
 THE REPUBLIC 177 
 
 and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws 
 about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, 
 and to guard and preserve the order of them are not such 
 persons, I ask, simply blind? 
 
 Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition. 
 
 And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, 
 besides being their equals in experience and falling short of 
 them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of 
 each thing? 
 
 There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have 
 this greatest of all great qualities ; they must always have the 
 first place unless they fail in some other respect. 
 
 Suppose, then, I said, that we determine how far they can 
 unite this and the other excellences. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of 
 the philosopher has to be ascertained. We must come to an 
 understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, 
 if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such a 
 union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are 
 united, and those only, should be rulers in the State. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowl- 
 edge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying 
 from generation and corruption. 
 
 Agreed. 
 
 And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all 
 true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more 
 or less honorable, which they are willing to renounce; as we 
 said before of the lover and the man of ambition. 
 
 True. 
 
 And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not 
 another quality which they should also possess ? 
 
 What quality? 
 
 Truthfulness : they will never intentionally receive into their 
 minds falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love 
 the truth. 
 
 Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them. 
 
 " May be," my friend, I replied, is not the word ; say rather, 
 " must be affirmed : " for he whose nature is amorous of any-
 
 I 78 PLATO 
 
 thing cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object 
 of his affections. 
 
 Right, he said. 
 
 And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? 
 
 How can there be? 
 
 Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of 
 falsehood ? 
 
 Never. 
 
 The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, 
 as far as in him lies, desire all truth ? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires 
 are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; 
 they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into an- 
 other channel. 
 
 True. 
 
 He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form 
 will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly 
 feel bodily pleasure I mean, if he be a true philosopher and 
 not a sham one. 
 
 That is most certain. 
 
 Such a one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covet- 
 ous; for the motives which make another man desirous of 
 having and spending, have no place in his character. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be 
 considered. 
 
 What is that? 
 
 There should be no secret corner of illiberality ; nothing can 
 be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever 
 longing after the whole of things both divine and human. 
 
 Most true, he replied. 
 
 Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the 
 spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human 
 life? 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 Or can such a one account death fearful ? 
 
 No, indeed. 
 
 Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true 
 philosophy ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 179 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is 
 not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward can he, I say, 
 ever be unjust or hard in his dealings? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, 
 or rude and unsociable ; these are the signs which distinguish 
 even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophi- 
 cal. 
 
 True. 
 
 There is another point which should be remarked. 
 
 What point? 
 
 Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning ; for no one 
 will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much 
 toil he makes little progress. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he 
 learns, will he not be an empty vessel ? 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 Laboring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruit- 
 less occupation? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then a soul which forgets cannot be ranked among genuine 
 philosophic natures ; we must insist that the philosopher should 
 have a good memory? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can 
 only tend to disproportion? 
 
 Undoubtedly. 
 
 And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to 
 disproportion ? 
 
 To proportion. 
 
 Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally 
 well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spon- 
 taneously toward the true being of everything. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been 
 enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, nec- 
 essary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation 
 of being?
 
 180 PLATO 
 
 They are absolutely necessary, he replied. 
 
 And must not that be a blameless study which he only can 
 pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to 
 learn noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, 
 temperance, who are his kindred ? 
 
 The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault 
 with such a study. 
 
 And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and 
 education, and to these only you will intrust the State. 
 
 Here Adeimantus interposed and said : To these statements, 
 Socrates, no one can offer a reply ; but when you talk in this 
 way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers : 
 They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the 
 argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and an- 
 swering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of 
 the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty over- 
 throw and all their former notions appear to be turned upside 
 down. And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut 
 up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, 
 so they too find themselves shut up at last ; for they have noth- 
 ing to say in this new game of which words are the counters ; 
 and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is 
 suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of 
 us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you 
 at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries 
 of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth 
 as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, 
 most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, 
 and that those who may be considered the best of them are made 
 useless to the world by the very study which you extol. 
 
 Well, and do you think that those who say so are wrong? 
 
 I cannot tell, he replied; but I should like to know what is 
 your opinion. 
 
 Hear my answer ; I am of opinion that they are quite right. 
 
 Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not 
 cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philoso- 
 phers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them ? 
 
 You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given 
 in a parable. 
 
 Yes, Socrates ; and that is a way of speaking to which you 
 are not at all accustomed, I suppose.
 
 THE REPUBLIC ,181 
 
 I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having 
 plunged me into such a hopeless discussion ; but now hear the 
 parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagre- 
 ness of my imagination : for the manner in which the best men 
 are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single 
 thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to 
 plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put to- 
 gether a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous 
 unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imag- 
 ine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller 
 and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and 
 has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation 
 is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one an- 
 other about the steering everyone is of opinion that he has a 
 right to steer, though he has never learned the art of naviga- 
 tion and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and 
 will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready 
 to cut in pieces anyone who says the contrary. They throng 
 about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm 
 to them ; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are 
 preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, 
 and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with 
 drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession 
 of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and 
 drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might 
 be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly 
 aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's 
 hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they com- 
 pliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse 
 the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing ; but 
 that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons 
 and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his 
 art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a 
 ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other 
 people like or not the possibility of this union of authority 
 with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their 
 thoughts or been made part of their calling. 1 Now in vessels 
 which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, 
 
 1 Or, applying oirus Si Kvf}tpvri<rti to the mutineers, " But only understanding [eiroiovrat] 
 that he [the mutinous pilot] must rule in spite of other people, never considering that 
 there is an art of command which may be practised in combination with the pilot's art."
 
 1 8a PLATO 
 
 how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by 
 them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? 
 
 Of course, said Adeimantus. 
 
 Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation 
 of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his rela- 
 tion to the State ; for you understand already. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman 
 who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honor 
 in their cities ; explain it to him and try to convince him that 
 their having honor would be far more extraordinary. 
 
 I will. 
 
 Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy 
 to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right ; but also tell 
 him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will 
 not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not 
 humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him that is not 
 the order of nature ; neither are " the wise to go to the doors 
 of the rich " the ingenious author of this saying told a lie 
 but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or 
 poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be gov- 
 erned, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good 
 for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him ; 
 although the present governors of mankind are of a different 
 stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, 
 and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good- 
 for-nothings and star-gazers. 
 
 Precisely so, he said. 
 
 For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, 
 the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by 
 those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most 
 lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own 
 professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the ac- 
 cuser to say that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, 
 and the best are useless ; in which opinion I agreed. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the reason why the good are useless has now been ex- 
 plained ? 
 
 Tiue. 
 
 Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the
 
 THE REPUBLIC 183 
 
 majority is also unavoidable, and that this is not to be laid to 
 the charge ot philosophy any more than the other? 
 
 By all means. 
 
 And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the 
 description of the gentle and noble nature. Truth, as you will 
 remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all 
 things ; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or 
 lot in true philosophy. 
 
 Yes, that was said. 
 
 Well, and is not this one quality, to mention no others, greatly 
 at variance with present notions of him? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And have we not a right to say in his defence, that the true 
 lover of knowledge is always striving after being that is his 
 nature ; he will not rest in the multiplicity of individuals which 
 is an appearance only, but will go on the keen edge will not 
 be blunted, nor the force of his desire abate until he have at- 
 tained the knowledge of the true nature of every essence by a 
 sympathetic and kindred power in the soul, and by that power 
 drawing near and mingling and becoming incorporate with 
 very being, having begotten mind and truth, he will have knowl- 
 edge and will live and grow truly, and then, and not till then, 
 will he cease from his travail. 
 
 Nothing, he said, can be more just than such a description 
 of him. 
 
 And will the love of a lie be any part of a philosopher's 
 nature? Will he not utterly hate a lie? 
 
 He will. 
 
 And when truth is the captain, we cannot suspect any evil 
 of the band which he leads ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Justice and health of mind will be of the company, and tem- 
 perance will follow after? 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 Neither is there any reason why I should again set in array 
 the philosopher's virtues, as you will doubtless remember that 
 courage, magnificence, apprehension, memory, were his natural 
 gifts. And you objected that, although no one could deny 
 what I then said, still, if you leave words and look at facts, 
 the persons who are thus described are some of them manifestly
 
 184 PLATO 
 
 useless, and the greater number utterly depraved, we were then 
 led to inquire into the grounds of these accusations, and have 
 now arrived at the point of asking why are the majority bad, 
 which question of necessity brought us back to the examination 
 and definition of the true philosopher. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And we have next to consider the corruptions of the philo- 
 sophic nature, why so many are spoiled and so few escape spoil- 
 ing I am speaking of those who were said to be useless but 
 not wicked and, when we have done with them, we will speak 
 of the imitators of philosophy, what manner of men are they 
 who aspire after a profession which is above them and of which 
 they are unworthy, and then, by their manifold inconsistencies, 
 bring upon philosophy and upon all philosophers that universal 
 reprobation of which we speak. 
 
 What are these corruptions ? he said. 
 
 I will see if I can explain them to you. Everyone will admit 
 that a nature having in perfection all the qualities which we re- 
 quired in a philosopher is a rare plant which is seldom seen 
 among men ? 
 
 Rare indeed. 
 
 And what numberless and powerful causes tend to destroy 
 these rare natures! 
 
 What causes? 
 
 In the first place there are their own virtues, their courage, 
 temperance, and the rest of them, every one of which praise- 
 worthy qualities (and this is a most singular circumstance) 
 destroys and distracts from philosophy the soul which is the 
 possessor of them. 
 
 That is very singular, he replied. 
 
 Then there are all the ordinary goods of life beauty, wealth, 
 strength, rank, and great connections in the State you under- 
 stand the sort of things these also have a corrupting and dis- 
 tracting effect. 
 
 I understand ; but I should like to know more precisely what 
 you mean about them. 
 
 Grasp the truth as a whole, I said, and in the right way ; you 
 will then have no difficulty in apprehending the preceding re- 
 marks, and they will no longer appear strange to you. 
 
 And how am I to do so ? he asked.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 185 
 
 Why, I said, we know that all germs or seeds, whether vege- 
 table or animal, when they fail to meet with proper nutriment, 
 or climate, or soil, in proportion to their vigor, are all the more 
 sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a 
 greater enemy to what is good than to what is not. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 There is reason in supposing that the finest natures, when 
 under alien conditions, receive more injury than the inferior, 
 because the contrast is greater. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted 
 minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? 
 Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of 
 a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any 
 inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any 
 very great good or very great evil ? 
 
 There I think that you are right. 
 
 And our philosopher follows the same analogy he is like 
 a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow 
 and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien 
 soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be pre- 
 served by some divine power. Do you really think, as people 
 so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that 
 private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth 
 speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the 
 greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfec- 
 tion young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them 
 after their own hearts ? 
 
 When is this accomplished ? he said. 
 
 When they meet together, and the world sits down at an 
 assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any 
 other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they 
 praise some things which are being said or done, and blame 
 other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clap- 
 ping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in 
 which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or 
 blame at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they 
 say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him 
 to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opin- 
 ion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not
 
 1 86 PLATO 
 
 have the notions of good and evil which the public in general 
 have he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be ? 
 
 Yes, Socrates; necessity will compel him. 
 
 And yet, I said, there is a still greater necessity, which has 
 not been mentioned. 
 
 What is that? 
 
 The gentle force of attainder, or confiscation, or death, 
 which, as you are aware, these new Sophists and educators, 
 who are the public, apply when their words are powerless. 
 
 Indeed they do ; and in right good earnest. 
 
 Now what opinion of any other Sophist, or of any private 
 person, can be expected to overcome in such an unequal con- 
 test? 
 
 None, he replied. 
 
 No, indeed, I said, even to make the attempt is a great piece 
 of folly ; there neither is, nor has been, nor is ever likely to be, 
 any different type of character which has had no other train- 
 ing in virtue but that which is supplied by public opinion l 
 I speak, my friend, of human virtue only ; what is more than 
 human, as the proverb says, is not included: for I would not 
 have you ignorant that, in the present evil state of govern- 
 ments, whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the 
 power of God, as we may truly say. 
 
 I quite assent, he replied. 
 
 Then let me crave your assent also to a further observation. 
 
 What are you going to say? 
 
 Why, that all those mercenary individuals, whom the many 
 call Sophists and whom they deem to be their adversaries, do, 
 in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many, that is to 
 say, the opinions of their assemblies ; and this is their wisdom. 
 I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers 
 and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him he 
 would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times 
 and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what 
 is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when 
 another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated ; and you may 
 suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, 
 he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wis- 
 dom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to 
 
 1 Or, taking irapa in another sense, " trained to virtue on their principles."
 
 THE REPUBLIC 187 
 
 teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the 
 principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this 
 honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or 
 unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the 
 great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast 
 delights, and evil to be that which he dislikes ; and he can give 
 no other account of them except that the just and noble are the 
 necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of 
 explaining to others, the nature of either, or the difference be- 
 tween them, which is immense. By heaven, would not such 
 a one be a rare educator ? 
 
 Indeed, he would. 
 
 And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the dis- 
 cernment of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, 
 whether in painting or in music, or, finally, in politics, differ 
 from him whom I have been describing? For when a man 
 consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other 
 work of art or the service which he has done the State, making 
 them his judges * when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity 
 of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. 
 And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in 
 confirmation of their own notions about the honorable and 
 good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not ? 
 
 No, nor am I likely to hear. 
 
 You recognize the truth of what I have been saying? Then 
 let me ask you to consider further whether the world will ever 
 be induced to believe in the existence of absolute beauty rather 
 than of the many beautiful, or of the absolute in each kind 
 rather than of the many in each kind? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the 
 censure of the world? 
 
 They must. 
 
 And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to 
 please them ? 
 
 That is evident. 
 
 Then, do you see any way in which the philosopher can be 
 
 1 Putting a comma after -nn> amycotwv.
 
 1 88 PLATO 
 
 preserved in his calling to the end? and remember what we 
 were saying of him, that he was to have quickness and memory 
 and courage and magnificence these were admitted by us to 
 be the true philosopher's gifts. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Will not such an one from his early childhood be in all things 
 first among us all, especially if his bodily endowments are like 
 his mental ones? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And his friends and fellow-citizens will want to use him as 
 he gets older for their own purposes ? 
 
 No question. 
 
 Falling at his feet, they will make requests to him and do 
 him honor and flatter him, because they want to get into their 
 hands now the power which he will one day possess. 
 
 That often happens, he said. 
 
 And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such 
 circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich 
 and noble, and a tall, proper youth? Will he not be full of 
 boundless aspirations, and fancy himself able to manage the 
 affairs of Hellenes and of barbarians, and having got such no- 
 tions into his head will he not dilate and elevate himself in the 
 fulness of vain pomp and senseless pride? 
 
 To be sure he will. 
 
 Now, when he is in this state of mind, if someone gently 
 comes to him and tells him that he is a fool and must get under- 
 standing, which can only be got by slaving for it, do you think 
 that, under such adverse circumstances, he will be easily in- 
 duced to listen ? 
 
 Far otherwise. 
 
 And even if there be someone who through inherent good- 
 ness or natural reasonableness has had his eyes opened a little 
 and is humbled and taken captive by philosophy, how will his 
 friends behave when they think that they are likely to lose the 
 advantage which they were hoping to reap from his compan- 
 ionship? Will they not do and say anything to prevent him 
 from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher 
 powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public 
 prosecutions ? 
 
 There can be no doubt of it.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 189 
 
 And how can one who is thus circumstanced ever become 
 a philosopher ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities 
 which make a man a philosopher, may, if he be ill-educated, 
 divert him from philosophy, no less than riches and their ac- 
 companiments and the other so-called goods of life ? 
 
 We were quite right. 
 
 Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and 
 failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted 
 to the best of all pursuits ; they are natures which we maintain 
 to be rare at any time ; this being the class out of which come 
 the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and 
 individuals ; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries 
 them in that direction ; but a small man never was the doer of 
 any great thing either to individuals or to States. 
 
 That is most true, he said. 
 
 And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite 
 incomplete: for her own have fallen away and forsaken her, 
 and while they are leading a false and unbecoming life, other 
 unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her 
 protectors, enter in and dishonor her ; and fasten upon her the 
 reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm 
 of her votaries that some are good for nothing, and that the 
 greater number deserve the severest punishment. 
 
 That is certainly what people say. 
 
 Yes ; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think 
 of the puny creatures who, seeing this land open to them a 
 land well stocked with fair names and showy titles like pris- 
 oners running out of prison into a sanctuary, take a leap out 
 of their trades into philosophy ; those who do so being probably 
 the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, al- 
 though philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dig- 
 nity about her which is not to be found in the arts. And many 
 are thus attracted by her whose natures are imperfect and whose 
 souls are maimed and disfigured by their meannesses, as their 
 bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this unavoidable? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got 
 out of durance and come into a fortune he takes a bath and
 
 190 
 
 PLATO 
 
 puts on a new coat, and is decked out as a bridegroom going to 
 marry his master's daughter, who is left poor and desolate? 
 
 A most exact parallel. 
 
 What will be the issue of such marriages? Will they not 
 be vile and bastard ? 
 
 There can be no question of -it. 
 
 And when persons who are unworthy of education approach 
 philosophy, and make an alliance with her who is in a rank above 
 them, what sort of ideas and opinions are likely to be gener- 
 ated? Will they not be sophisms captivating to the ear, 1 
 having nothing in them genuine, or worthy of or akin to true 
 wisdom ? 
 
 No doubt, he said. 
 
 Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy 
 will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well- 
 educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the 
 absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or 
 some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he 
 contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who 
 leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her; or 
 peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend 
 Theages's bridle; for everything in the life of Theages con- 
 spired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him 
 away from politics. My own case of the internal sign is hard- 
 ly worth mentioning, for rarely, if ever, has such a monitor been 
 given to any other man. Those who belong to this small class 
 have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, 
 and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; 
 and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any 
 champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. 
 Such a one may be compared to a man who has fallen among 
 wild beasts he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, 
 but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and 
 therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to 
 his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his 
 life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds 
 his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the 
 storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, 
 retires under the shelter of a wall : and seeing the rest of man* 
 
 1 Or " will they not deserve to be called sophisms ? "
 
 THE REPUBLIC 191 
 
 kind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his 
 own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart 
 in peace and good-will, with bright hopes. 
 
 Yes, he said, and he will have done a great work before he 
 departs. 
 
 A great work yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a 
 State suitable to him ; for in a State which is suitable to him, 
 he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, 
 as well as of himself. 
 
 The causes why philosophy is in such an evil name have 
 now been sufficiently explained: the injustice of the charges 
 against her has been shown is there anything more which you 
 wish to say? 
 
 Nothing more on that subject, he replied ; but I should like 
 to know which of the governments now existing is in your 
 opinion the one adapted to her. 
 
 Not any of them, I said ; and that is precisely the accusation 
 which I bring against them not one of them is worthy of the 
 philosophic nature, and hence that nature is warped and es- 
 tranged ; as the exotic seed which is sown in a foreign land 
 becomes denaturalized, and is wont to be overpowered and to 
 lose itself in the new soil, even so this growth of philosophy, 
 instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another charac- 
 ter. But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfec- 
 tion which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth 
 divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or 
 institutions, are but human; and now, I know that you are 
 going to ask, What that State is : 
 
 No, he said; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask 
 another question whether it is the State of which we are the 
 founders and inventors, or some other ? 
 
 Yes, I replied, ours in most respects ; but you may remember 
 my saying before, that some living authority would always be 
 required in the State having the same idea of the constitution 
 which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the 
 laws. 
 
 That was said, he replied. 
 
 Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner ; you frightened us by 
 interposing objections, which certainly showed that the dis- 
 cussion would be long and difficult ; and what still remains is 
 the reverse of easy.
 
 i 92 PLATO 
 
 What is there remaining? 
 
 The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered 
 as not to be the ruin of the State: All great attempts are at- 
 tended with risk ; " hard is the good," as men say. 
 
 Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the inquiry 
 will then be complete. 
 
 I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if 
 at all, by a want of power : my zeal you may see for yourselves ; 
 and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and 
 unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, 
 not as they do now, but in a different spirit. 
 
 In what manner? 
 
 At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young ; 
 beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote 
 only the time saved from money-making and housekeeping to 
 such pursuits ; and even those of them who are reputed to have 
 most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of 
 the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take them- 
 selves off. In after life, when invited by someone else, they 
 may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make 
 much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their 
 proper business : at last, when they grow old, in most cases they 
 are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus's sun, inasmuch 
 as they never light up again. 1 
 
 But what ought to be their course? 
 
 Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and 
 what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender 
 years: during this period while they are growing up toward 
 manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their 
 bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philoso- 
 phy ; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them 
 increase the gymnastics of the soul ; but when the strength of 
 our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let 
 them range at will and engage in no serious labor, as we intend 
 them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar 
 happiness in another. 
 
 How truly in earnest you are, Socrates ! he said ; I am sure 
 of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, 
 
 > Heracleitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every 
 morning.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 193 
 
 are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, 
 and will never be convinced ; Thrasymachus least of all. 
 
 Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and 
 me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we 
 were never enemies; for I shall go on striving to the utmost 
 until I either convert him and other men, or do something which 
 may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold 
 the like discourse in another state of existence. 
 
 You are speaking of a time which is not very near. 
 
 Rather, I replied, of a time which is as nothing in comparison 
 with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many 
 refuse to believe; for they have never seen that of which we 
 are now speaking realized; they have seen only a conven- 
 tional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially 
 brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. 
 But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, 
 as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue 
 such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image, they 
 have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them do you 
 think that they ever did ? 
 
 No indeed. 
 
 No, my friend, and they have seldom, if ever, heard free and 
 noble sentiments; such as men utter when they are earnestly 
 and by every means in their power seeking after truth for the 
 sake of knowledge, while they look coldly on the subtleties 
 of controversy, of which the end is opinion and strife, whether 
 they meet with them in the courts of law or in society. 
 
 They are strangers, he said, to the words of which you 
 speak. 
 
 And this was what we foresaw, and this was the reason why 
 truth forced us to admit, not without fear and hesitation, that 
 neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfec- 
 tion until the small class of philosophers whom we termed use- 
 less but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they 
 will 01 not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity 
 be laid on the State to obey them ; * or until kings, or if not 
 kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with 
 a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these 
 alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm : if they 
 
 1 Reading xar>)Ko<p or
 
 PLATO 
 
 were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and 
 visionaries. Am I not right? 
 
 Quite right. 
 
 If then, in the countless ages of the past, or at the present 
 hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our 
 ken, the perfected philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall 
 be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the 
 State, we are ready to assert to the death, that this our consti- 
 tution has been, and is yea, and will be whenever the muse of 
 philosophy is queen. There is no impossibility in all this ; that 
 there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves. 
 
 My opinion agrees with yours, he said. 
 
 But do you mean to say that this is not the opinion of the 
 multitude ? 
 
 I should imagine not, he replied. 
 
 my friends, I said, do not attack the multitude : they will 
 change their minds, if, not in an aggressive spirit, but gently 
 and with the view of soothing them and removing their dislike 
 of over-education, you show them your philosophers as they 
 really are and describe as you were just now doing their charac- 
 ter and profession, and then mankind will see that he of whom 
 you are speaking is not such as they supposed if they view 
 him in this new light, they will surely change their notion of 
 him, and answer in another strain. 1 Who can be at enmity 
 with one who loves him, who that is himself gentle and free 
 from envy will be jealous of one in whom there is no jealousy? 
 Nay, let me answer for you, that in a few this harsh temper may 
 be found, but not in the majority of mankind. 
 
 1 quite agree with you, he said. 
 
 And do you not also think, as I do, that the harsh feeling 
 which the many entertain toward philosophy originates in the 
 pretenders, who rush in uninvited, and are always abusing 
 them, and finding fault with them, who make persons instead 
 of things the theme of their conversation ? and nothing can be 
 more unbecoming in philosophers than this. 
 
 It is most unbecoming. 
 
 For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, 
 
 1 Reading? <u far ovria 9eZvra.i without a question, and aAAotav rot: or, retaining the 
 question and taking aAAoioi' S6(atv in a new sense: " Do you mean to say really that, view- 
 ing him in this light, they will be of another mind from yours, and answer in another 
 strain ? "
 
 THE REPUBLIC 195 
 
 has surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or 
 to be filled with malice and envy, contending against men ; his 
 eye is ever directed toward things fixed and immutable, which 
 he sees neither injuring nor injured by one another, but all in 
 order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to 
 these he will, as far as he can, conform himself. Can a man 
 help imitating that with which he holds reverential converse ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And the philosopher holding converse with the divine order, 
 becomes orderly and divine, as far as the nature of man allows ; 
 but like everyone else, he will suffer from detraction. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And if a necessity be laid upon him of fashioning, not only 
 himself, but human nature generally, whether in States or indi- 
 viduals, into that which he beholds elsewhere, will be, think 
 you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every 
 civil virtue? 
 
 Anything but unskilful. 
 
 And if the world perceives that what we are saying about 
 him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy? Will 
 they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can be happy 
 which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pat- 
 tern? 
 
 They will not be angry if they understand, he said. But how 
 will they draw out the plan of which you are speaking? 
 
 They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, 
 from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and 
 leave a clean surface. This is no easy task. But whether easy 
 or not, herein will lie the difference between them and every 
 other legislator they will have nothing to do either with in- 
 dividual or State, and will inscribe no laws, until they have 
 either found, or themselves made, a clean surface. 
 
 They will be very right, he said. 
 
 Having effected this, they will proceed to trace an outline 
 of the constitution ? 
 
 No doubt. 
 
 And when they are filling in the work, as I conceive, they will 
 often turn their eyes upward and downward : I mean that they 
 will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, 
 and again at the human copy ; and will mingle and temper the
 
 196 PLATO 
 
 various elements of life into the image of a man ; and this they 
 will conceive according to that other image, which, when exist- 
 ing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And one feature they will erase, and another they will put 
 in, until they have made the ways of men, as far as possible, 
 agreeable to the ways of God ? 
 
 Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture. 
 
 And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom 
 you described as rushing at us with might and main, that the 
 painter of constitutions is such a one as we were praising; at 
 whom they were so very indignant because to his hands we 
 committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer at 
 what they have just heard ? 
 
 Much calmer, if there is any sense in them. 
 
 Why, where can they still find any ground for objection? 
 Will they doubt that the philosopher is a lover of truth and 
 being? 
 
 They would not be so unreasonable. 
 
 Or that his nature, being such as we have delineated, is akin 
 to the highest good ? 
 
 Neither can they doubt this. 
 
 But again, will they tell us that such a nature, placed under 
 favorable circumstances, will not be perfectly good and wise if 
 any ever was? Or will they prefer those whom we have re- 
 jected ? 
 
 Surely not. 
 
 Then will they still be angry at our saying, that, until philoso- 
 phers bear rule, States and individuals will have no rest from 
 evil, nor will this our imaginary State ever be realized ? 
 
 I think that they will be less angry. 
 
 Shall we assume that they are not only less angry but quite 
 gentle, and that they have been converted and for very shame, 
 if for no other reason, cannot refuse to come to terms ? 
 
 By all means, he said. 
 
 Then let us suppose that the reconciliation has been effected. 
 Will anyone deny the other point, that there may be sons of 
 kings or princes who are by nature philosophers? 
 
 Surely no man, he said. 
 
 And when they have come into being will anyone say that
 
 THE REPUBLIC 197 
 
 they must of necessity be destroyed; that they can hardly be 
 saved is not denied even by us; but that in the whole course 
 of ages no single one of them can escape who will venture to 
 affirm this? 
 
 Who indeed ! 
 
 But, said I, one is enough ; let there be one man who has a 
 city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the 
 ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. 
 
 Yes, one is enough. 
 
 The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we 
 have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing 
 to obey them ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no 
 miracle or impossibility ? 
 
 I think not. 
 
 But we have sufficiently shown, in what has preceded, that 
 all this, if only possible, is assuredly for the best. 
 
 We have. 
 
 And now we say not only that our laws, if they could be en- 
 acted, would be for the best, but also that the enactment of 
 them, though difficult, is not impossible. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 And so with pain and toil we have reached the end of one 
 subject, but more remains to be discussed; how and by what 
 studies and pursuits will the saviours of the constitution be 
 created, and at what ages are they to apply themselves to their 
 several studies? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 I omitted the troublesome business of the possession of 
 women, and the procreation of children, and the appointment 
 of the rulers, because I knew that the perfect State would be 
 eyed with jealousy and was difficult of attainment; but that 
 piece of cleverness was not of much service to me, for I had 
 to discuss them all the same. The women and children are 
 now disposed of, but the other question of the rulers must be 
 investigated from the very beginning. We were saying, as 
 you will remember, that they were to be lovers of their country, 
 tried by the test of pleasures and pains, and neither in hard- 
 ships, nor in dangers, nor at any other critical moment were to
 
 198 PLATO 
 
 lose their patriotism he was to be rejected who failed, but he 
 who always came forth pure, like gold tried in the refiner's fire, 
 was to be made a ruler, and to receive honors and rewards in 
 life and after death. This was the sort of thing which was 
 being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her 
 face ; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen. 
 
 I perfectly remember, he said. 
 
 Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding 
 the bold word; but now let me dare to say that the perfect 
 guardian must be a philosopher. 
 
 Yes, he said, let that be affirmed. 
 
 And do not suppose that there will be many of them ; for the 
 gifts which were deemed by us to be essential rarely grow to- 
 gether ; they are mostly found in shreds and patches. 
 
 What do you mean ? he said. 
 
 You are aware, I replied, that quick intelligence, memory, 
 sagacity, cleverness, and similar qualities, do not often grow 
 together, and that persons who possess them and are at the same 
 time high-spirited and magnanimous are not so constituted 
 by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled man- 
 ner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid 
 principle goes out of them. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better 
 be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear 
 and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything 
 to be learned ; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to 
 yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. 
 
 Quite true. 
 
 And yet we were saying that both qualities were necessary in 
 those to whom the higher education is to be imparted, and who 
 are to share in any office or command. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And will they be a class which is rarely found ? 
 
 Yes, indeed. 
 
 Then the aspirant must not only be tested in those labors 
 and dangers and pleasures which we mentioned before, but 
 there is another kind of probation which we did not mention 
 he must be exercised also in many kinds of knowledge, to see 
 whether the soul will be able to endure the highest of all, or will 
 faint under them, as in any other studies and exercises.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 199 
 
 Yes, he said, you are quite right in testing them. But what 
 do you mean by the highest of all knowledge? 
 
 You may remember, I said, that we divided the soul into 
 three parts; and distinguished the several natures of justice, 
 temperance, courage, and wisdom? 
 
 Indeed, he said, if I had forgotten, I should not deserve to 
 hear more. 
 
 And do you remember the word of caution which preceded 
 the discussion of them? 
 
 To what do you refer? 
 
 We were saying, if I am not mistaken, that he who wanted 
 to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more 
 circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear ; but that 
 we could add on a popular exposition of them on a level with 
 the discussion which had preceded. And you replied that 
 such an exposition would be enough for you, and so the in- 
 quiry was continued in what to me seemed to be a very inac- 
 curate manner; whether you were satisfied or not, it is for 
 you to say. 
 
 Yes, he said, I thought and the others thought that you gave 
 us a fair measure of truth. 
 
 But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things which in 
 any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure ; 
 for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although per- 
 sons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search 
 no further. 
 
 Not an uncommon case when people are indolent. 
 
 Yes, I said ; and there cannot be any worse fault in a guardian 
 of the State and of the laws. 
 
 True. 
 
 The guardian then, I said, must be required to take the longer 
 circuit, and toil at learning as well as at gymnastics, or he will 
 never reach the highest knowledge of all which, as we were 
 just now saying, is his proper calling. 
 
 What, he said, is there a knowledge still higher than this 
 higher than justice and the other virtues? 
 
 Yes, I said, there is. And of the virtues too we must behold 
 not the outline merely, as at present nothing short of the most 
 finished picture should satisfy us. When little things are elab- 
 orated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear
 
 aoo PLATO 
 
 in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous that 
 we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the 
 highest accuracy ! 
 
 A right noble thought ; 1 but do you suppose that we shall 
 refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge? 
 
 Nay, I said, ask if you will ; but I am certain that you have 
 heard the answer many times, and now you either do not under- 
 stand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be trouble- 
 some ; for you have often been told that the idea of good is the 
 highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful 
 and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be 
 ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, 
 as you have often heard me say, we know so little ; and, without 
 which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will 
 profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all 
 other things is of any value if we do not possess the good ? or 
 the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of 
 beauty and goodness? 
 
 Assuredly not. 
 
 You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to 
 be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And you are aware too that the latter cannot explain what 
 they mean by knowledge, but are obliged after all to say knowl- 
 edge of the good ? 
 
 How ridiculous! 
 
 Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with 
 our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge 
 of it for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, 
 just as if we understood them when they use the term " good " 
 this is of course ridiculous. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 And those who make pleasure their good are in equal per- 
 plexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad 
 pleasures as well as good. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the 
 same? 
 
 1 Or, separating col prfAa from ofiov, " True, he said, and a noble thought : " or ofior TO 
 
 may be a gloss.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 201 
 
 True. 
 
 There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in 
 which this question is involved. 
 
 There can be none. 
 
 Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to 
 have or to seem to be what is just and honorable without the 
 reality ; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good 
 the reality is what they seek ; in the case of the good, appear- 
 ance is despised by everyone. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes 
 the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is 
 such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the 
 nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, 
 and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things 
 of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in 
 our State, to whom everything is intrusted, to be in the dark- 
 ness of ignorance? 
 
 Certainly not, he said. 
 
 I am sure, I said, that he who does not know how the beauti- 
 ful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian 
 of them ; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good 
 will have a true knowledge of them. 
 
 That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours. 
 
 And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge, our 
 State will be perfectly ordered ? 
 
 Of course, he replied ; but I wish that you would tell me 
 whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be 
 knowledge or pleasure, or different from either? 
 
 Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman * 
 like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other 
 people about these matters. 
 
 True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has 
 passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be al- 
 ways repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his 
 own. 
 
 Well, but has anyone a right to say positively what he does 
 not know ? 
 
 Reading o*ijp oA<5 : or arijp aA, I quite well knew from the very first, that you " 
 etc.
 
 202 PLATO 
 
 Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty ; he has 
 no right to do that : but he may say what he thinks, as a matter 
 of opinion. 
 
 And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, 
 and the best of them blind? You would not deny that those 
 who have any true notion without intelligence are only like 
 blind men who feel their way along the road ? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and 
 base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty ? 
 
 Still, I must implore you, Socrates, said Glaucon, not to turn 
 away just as you are reaching the goal ; if you will only give 
 such an explanation of the good as you have already given of 
 justice and temperance and the other virtues, we shall be sat- 
 isfied. 
 
 Yes, my friend, and I shall be at least equally satisfied, but 
 I cannot help fearing that I shall fail, and that my indiscreet 
 zeal will bring ridicule upon me. No, sweet sirs, let us not 
 at present ask what is the actual nature of the good, for to reach 
 what is now in my thoughts would be an effort too great for 
 me. But of the child of the good who is likest him, I would 
 fain speak, if I could be sure that you wished to hear other- 
 wise, not. 
 
 By all means, he said, tell us about the child, and you shall 
 remain in our debt for the account of the parent. 
 
 I do indeed wish, I replied, that I could pay, and you receive, 
 the account of the parent, and not, as now, of the offspring 
 only ; take, however, this latter by way of interest, 1 and at the 
 same time have a care that I do not render a false account, al- 
 though I have no intention of deceiving you. 
 
 Yes, we will take all the care that we can : proceed. 
 
 Yes, I said, but I must first come to an understanding with 
 you, and remind you of what I have mentioned in the course 
 of this discussion, and at many other times. 
 
 What? 
 
 The old story, that there is many a beautiful and many a 
 good, and so of other things which we describe and define; 
 to all of them the term " many " is implied. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 1 A play upon T&COS, which means both " offspring " and " interest.**
 
 THE REPUBLIC 203 
 
 And there is an absolute beauty and an absolute good, and 
 of other things to which the term " many " is applied there is 
 an absolute ; for they may be brought under a single idea, which 
 is called the essence of each. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 The many, as we say, are seen but not known, and the ideas 
 are known but not seen. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And what is the organ with which we see the visible things ? 
 
 The sight, he said. 
 
 And with the hearing, I said, we hear, and with the other 
 senses perceive the other objects of sense? 
 
 True. 
 
 But have you remarked that sight is by far the most costly 
 and complex piece of workmanship which the artificer of the 
 senses ever contrived ? 
 
 No, I never have, he said. 
 
 Then reflect : has the ear or voice need of any third or addi- 
 tional nature in order that the one may be able to hear and the 
 other to be heard? 
 
 Nothing of the sort. 
 
 No, indeed, I replied ; and the same is true of most, if not all, 
 the other senses you would not say that any of them requires 
 such an addition? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 But you see that without the addition of some other nature 
 there is no seeing or being seen? 
 
 How do you mean? 
 
 Sight being, as I conceive, in the eyes, and he who has eyes 
 wanting to see; color being also present in them, still unless 
 there be a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the 
 owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colors will be invisi- 
 ble. 
 
 Of what nature are you speaking? 
 
 Of that which you term light, I replied. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Noble, then, is the bond which links together sight and visi- 
 bility, and great beyond other bonds by no small difference of 
 nature ; for light is their bond, and light is no ignoble thing? 
 
 Nay, he said, the reverse of ignoble.
 
 204 PLATO 
 
 And which, I said, of the gods in heaven would you say was 
 the lord of this element? Whose is that light which makes 
 the eye to see perfectly and the visible to appear ? 
 
 You mean the sun, as you and all mankind say. 
 
 May not the relation of sight to this deity be described as 
 follows ? 
 
 How? 
 
 Neither sight nor the eye in which sight resides is the sun? 
 
 No. 
 
 Yet of all the organs of sense the eye is the most like the 
 sun? 
 
 By far the most like. 
 
 And the power which the eye possesses is a sort of effluence 
 which is dispensed from the sun ? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 Then the sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is 
 recognized by sight? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And this is he whom I call the child of the good, whom the 
 good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in 
 relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the 
 intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind: 
 
 Will you be a little more explicit ? he said. 
 
 Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs 
 them toward objects on which the light of day is no longer 
 shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly 
 blind ; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them ? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 But when they are directed toward objects on which the sun 
 shines, they see clearly and there is sight in them ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And the soul is like the eye : when resting upon that on which 
 truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and 
 is radiant with intelligence ; but when turned toward the twi- 
 light of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, 
 and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of 
 another, and seems to have no intelligence ? 
 
 Just so. 
 
 Now, that which imparts truth to the known and the power 
 of knowing to the knower is what I would have you term the
 
 THE REPUBLIC 205 
 
 idea of good, and this you will deem to be the cause of science, 1 
 and of truth in so far as the latter becomes the subject of knowl- 
 edge ; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will 
 be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than 
 either ; and, as in the previous instance, light and sight may be 
 truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this 
 other sphere, science and truth may be deemed to be like the 
 good, but not the good; the good has a place of honor yet 
 higher. 
 
 What a wonder of beauty that must be, he said, which is the 
 author of science and truth, and yet surpasses them in beauty ; 
 for you surely cannot mean to say that pleasure is the good ? 
 
 God forbid, I replied; but may I ask you to consider the 
 image in another point of view ? 
 
 In what point of view? 
 
 You would say, would you not? that the sun is not only the 
 author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and 
 nourishment and growth, though he himself is not generation ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author 
 of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and es- 
 sence, and yet the good is not essence, but far exceeds essence 
 in dignity and power. 
 
 Glaucon said, with a ludicrous earnestness : By the light of 
 heaven, how amazing ! 
 
 Yes, I said, and the exaggeration may be set down to you ; 
 for you made me utter my fancies. 
 
 And pray continue to utter them ; at any rate let us hear if 
 there is anything more to be said about the similitude of the 
 sun. 
 
 Yes, I said, there is a great deal more. 
 
 Then omit nothing, however slight. 
 
 I will do my best, I said ; but I should think that a great deal 
 will have to be omitted. 
 
 I hope not, he said. 
 
 You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, 
 and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other 
 over the visible. I do not say heaven, lest you should fancy 
 that I am playing upon the name (ovpavos, o/oaro?). May I 
 
 1 Reading fitovoow.
 
 ao6 PLATO 
 
 suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intel- 
 ligible fixed in your mind ? 
 
 I have. 
 
 Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal 1 parts, 
 and divide each of them again in the same proportion, and sup- 
 pose the two main divisions to answer, one to the visible and 
 the other to the intelligible, and then compare the subdivisions 
 in respect of their clearness and want of clearness, and you will 
 find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of 
 images. And by images I mean, in the first place, shadows, 
 and in the second place, reflections in water and in solid, smooth 
 and polished bodies and the like : Do you understand ? 
 
 Yes, I understand. 
 
 Imagine, now, the other section, of which this is only the re- 
 semblance, to include the animals which we see, and everything 
 that grows or is made. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Would you not admit that both the sections of this division 
 have different degrees of truth, and that the copy is to the origi- 
 nal as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge ? 
 
 Most undoubtedly. 
 
 Next proceed to consider the manner in which the sphere of 
 the intellectual is to be divided. 
 
 In what manner? 
 
 Thus : There are two subdivisions, in the lower of which the 
 soul uses the figures given by the former division as images ; the 
 inquiry can only be hypothetical, and instead of going upward 
 to a principle descends to the other end ; in the higher of the 
 two, the soul passes out of hypotheses, and goes up to a princi- 
 ple which is above hypotheses, making no use of images 2 as 
 in the former case, but proceeding only in and through the ideas 
 themselves. 
 
 I do not quite understand your meaning, he said. 
 
 Then I will try again ; you will understand me better when 
 I have made some preliminary remarks. You are aware that 
 students of geometry, arithmetic, and the kindred sciences as- 
 sume the odd, and the even, and the figures, and three kinds of 
 angles, and the like, in their several branches of science ; these 
 are their hypotheses, which they and everybody are supposed 
 
 1 Reading <m<r. * Reading unrep txclv
 
 THE REPUBLIC 807 
 
 to know, and therefore they do not deign to give any account 
 of them either to themselves or others; but they begin with 
 them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent 
 manner, at their conclusion? 
 
 Yes, he said, I know. 
 
 And do you not know also that although they make use of 
 the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not 
 of these, but of the ideals which they resemble ; not of the figures 
 which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute 
 diameter, and so on the forms which they draw or make, and 
 which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are 
 converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to 
 behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the 
 eye of the mind ? 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the 
 search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses ; not as- 
 cending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above 
 the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which 
 the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, 
 they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a 
 greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value. 
 
 I understand, he said, that you are speaking of the province 
 of geometry and the sister arts. 
 
 And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, 
 you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge 
 which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using 
 the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses 
 that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world 
 which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond 
 them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this 
 and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she 
 descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from 
 ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends. 
 
 I understand you, he replied ; not perfectly, for you seem to 
 me to be describing a task which is really tremendous; but, 
 at any rate, I understand you to say that knowledge and being, 
 which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the 
 notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hy- 
 potheses only : these are also contemplated by the understand-
 
 J 
 
 208 PLATO 
 
 ing, and not by the senses : yet, because they start from hypoth- 
 eses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate 
 them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, 
 although when a first principle is added to them they are cogniz- 
 able by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned 
 with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you 
 would term understanding, and not reason, as being intermedi- 
 ate between opinion and reason. 
 
 You have quite conceived my meaning, I said ; and now, cor- 
 responding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties 
 in the soul reason answering to the highest, understanding 
 to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception 
 of shadows to the last and let there be a scale of them, and 
 let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the 
 same degree that their objects have truth. 
 
 I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your 
 arrangement.
 
 GEMMA A UG US TEA . 
 
 Photo-engraving from a sardonyx cameo in the Royal Museum at Vienna. 
 
 This is one of the two greatest antique cameos extant. It measures nine by 
 eight inches. The upper part represents the Emperor Augustus and Livia, his 
 wife (the latter personifying the city of Rome), receiving the young princes, 
 Drusus and Tiberius, on their return from a triumphant campaign in Gaul among 
 the Vindelicians and Rhastians. The eagle suggests that to the Roman Emperor 
 are yielded the divine attributes of Jupiter. In the lower division soldiers are seen 
 carrying off male and female captives and setting up a trophy of victory. This 
 magnificent example of gem-cutting has been attributed to the famous Dioscurides, 
 or to one of his school at Rome. Dioscurides is known to have engraved many 
 portraits of the Emperor Augustus, who patronized him, and wore habitually a 
 signet ring made by the artist.
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 ON SHADOWS AND REALITIES IN EDUCATION 
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON 
 
 AND now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our 
 nature is enlightened or unenlightened : Behold ! human 
 beings living in an underground den, which has a 
 mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the den ; 
 here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs 
 and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see 
 before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round 
 their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a dis- 
 tance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised 
 way ; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the 
 way, like the screen which marionette-players have in front of 
 them, over which they show the puppets. 
 
 I see. 
 
 And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying 
 all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of 
 wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the 
 wall ? Some of them are talking, others silent. 
 
 You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange 
 prisoners. 
 
 Like ourselves, I replied ; and they see only their own 
 shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws 
 on the opposite wall of the cave? 
 
 True, he said ; how could they see anything but the shadows 
 if they were never allowed to move their heads ? 
 
 And of the objects which are being carried in like manner 
 they would only see the shadows ? 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 And if they were able to converse with one another, would 
 14 209
 
 2io PLATO 
 
 they not suppose that they were naming what was actually 
 before them ? 1 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came 
 from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one 
 of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came 
 from the passing shadow? 
 
 No question, he replied. 
 
 To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the 
 shadows of the images. 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if 
 the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At 
 first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to 
 stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look toward the 
 light, he will suffer sharp pains ; the glare will distress him, and 
 he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state 
 he had seen the shadows ; and then conceive someone saying to 
 him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, 
 when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned 
 toward more real existence, he has a clearer vision what will 
 be his reply ? And you may further imagine that his instructor 
 is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to 
 name them will he not be perplexed ? Will he not fancy that 
 the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects 
 which are now shown to him ? 
 
 Far truer. 
 
 And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he 
 not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to 
 take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which 
 he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which 
 are now being shown to him ? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up 
 a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into 
 the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and 
 irritated ? When he approaches the light his eyes will be daz- 
 zled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are 
 now called realities. 
 
 1 Reading irapovra.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 211 
 
 Not all in a moment, he said. 
 
 He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper 
 world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflec- 
 tions of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects 
 themselves ; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and 
 the stars and the spangled heaven ; and he will see the sky and 
 the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun 
 by day? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflec- 
 tions of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper 
 place, and not in another ; and he will contemplate him as he is. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the 
 season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the 
 visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which 
 he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? 
 
 Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason 
 about him. 
 
 And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom 
 of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that 
 he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity him? 
 
 Certainly, he would. 
 
 And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among 
 themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing 
 shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which 
 followed after, and which were together ; and who were there- 
 fore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think 
 that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the 
 possessors of them ? Would he not say with Homer, 
 
 " Better to be the poor servant of a poor master," 
 
 and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live 
 after their manner? 
 
 Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything 
 than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable 
 manner. 
 
 Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out 
 of the sun to be replaced in his old situation ; would he not be 
 certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
 
 212 PLATO 
 
 To be sure, he said. 
 
 And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in meas- 
 uring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out 
 of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes 
 had become steady (and the time which would be needed to 
 acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), 
 would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up 
 he went and down he came without his eyes ; and that it was 
 better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to 
 loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch 
 the offender, and they would put him to death. 
 
 No question, he said. 
 
 This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glau- 
 con, to the previous argument ; the prison-house is the world of 
 sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misap- 
 prehend me if you interpret the journey upward to be the ascent 
 of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor 
 belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly 
 or wrongly, God knows. But, whether true or false, my opin- 
 ion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears 
 last of all, and is seen only with an effort ; and, when seen, is 
 also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful 
 and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible 
 world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the in- 
 tellectual ; and that this is the power upon which he who would 
 act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye 
 fixed. 
 
 I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you. 
 
 Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain 
 to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs ; 
 for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where 
 they desire to dwell ; which desire of theirs is very natural, if 
 our allegory may be trusted. 
 
 Yes, very natural. 
 
 And is there anything surprising in one who passes from 
 divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving 
 himself in a ridiculous manner ; if, while his eyes are blinking 
 and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding dark- 
 ness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, 
 about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is
 
 THE REPUBLIC 213 
 
 endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never 
 yet seen absolute justice? 
 
 Anything but surprising, he replied. 
 
 Anyone who has common-sense will remember that the be- 
 wilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two 
 causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into 
 the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of 
 the bodily eye ; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone 
 whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to 
 laugh ; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out 
 of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed 
 to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is daz- 
 zled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his 
 condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if 
 he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below 
 into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh 
 which greets him who returns from above out of the light into 
 the den. 
 
 That, he said, is a very just distinction. 
 
 But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must 
 be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the 
 soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes. 
 
 They undoubtedly say this, he replied. 
 
 Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity 
 of learning exists in the soul already ; and that just as the eye 
 was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole 
 body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the move- 
 ment of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming 
 into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of 
 being, and of the brightest and best of being, or, in other words, 
 of the good. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And must there not be some art which will effect conversion 
 in the easiest and quickest manner ; not implanting the faculty 
 of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the 
 wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth? 
 
 Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed. 
 
 And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to 
 be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally 
 innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the
 
 214 
 
 PLATO 
 
 virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine ele- 
 ment which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered 
 useful and profitable ; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. 
 Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the 
 keen eye of a clever rogue how eager he is, how clearly his 
 paltry soul sees the way to his end ; he is the reverse of blind, 
 but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he 
 is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures 
 in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from 
 those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like 
 leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which 
 drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the 
 things that are below if, I say, they had been released from 
 these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very 
 same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as 
 they see what their eyes are turned to now. 
 
 Very likely. 
 
 Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely, or 
 rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that 
 neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet 
 those who never make an end of their education, will be able 
 ministers of the State ; not the former, because they have no 
 single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private 
 as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act 
 at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already 
 dwelling apart in the islands of the blessed. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the 
 State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge 
 which we have already shown to be the greatest of all they 
 must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good ; but when 
 they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them 
 to do as they do now. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must 
 not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among 
 the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, 
 whether they are worth having or not.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 215 
 
 But is not this unjust ? he said ; ought we to give them a worse 
 life, when they might have a better ? 
 
 You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention 
 of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in 
 the State happy above the rest ; the happiness was to be in the 
 whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion 
 and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and there- 
 fore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, 
 not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding 
 up the State. 
 
 True, he said, I had forgotten. 
 
 Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compel- 
 ling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others ; 
 we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their 
 class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics : and this is 
 reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the 
 government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, 
 they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture 
 which they have never received. But we have brought you 
 into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and 
 of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more 
 perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able 
 to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his 
 turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, 
 and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have ac- 
 quired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the 
 inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several 
 images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the 
 beautiful and just and good in their truth. . And thus our State, 
 which is also yours, will be a reality, and not a dream only, and 
 will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in 
 which men fight with one another about shadows only and are 
 distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a 
 great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the 
 rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most 
 quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, 
 the worst. 
 
 Quite true, he replied. 
 
 And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their 
 turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the
 
 2i6 PLATO 
 
 greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly 
 light? 
 
 Impossible, he answered ; for they are just men, and the com- 
 mands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no 
 doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, 
 and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State. 
 
 Yes, my friend, I said ; and there lies the point. You must 
 contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than 
 that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; 
 for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are 
 truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, 
 which are the true blessings of life. Whereas, if they go to the 
 administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their 
 own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch 
 the chief good, order there can never be ; for they will be fight- 
 ing about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus 
 arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole 
 State. 
 
 Most true, he replied. 
 
 And the only life which looks down upon the life of political 
 ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any 
 other? 
 
 Indeed, I do not, he said. 
 
 And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? 
 For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight. 
 
 No question. 
 
 Who, then, are those whom we shall compel to be guardians ? 
 Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of 
 State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at 
 the same time have other honors and another and a better life 
 than that of politics ? 
 
 They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied. 
 
 And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will 
 be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to 
 light as some are said to have ascended from the world below 
 to the gods? 
 
 By all means, he replied. 
 
 The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster- 
 shell, 1 but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which 
 
 1 In allusion to a pame in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell 
 which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 217 
 
 is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the 
 ascent from below, 1 which we affirm to be true philosophy? 
 
 Quite so. 
 
 And should we not inquire what sort of knowledge has the 
 power of effecting such a change ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul 
 from becoming to being? And another consideration has just 
 occurred to me : You will remember that our young men are 
 to be warrior athletes? 
 
 Yes, that was said. 
 
 Then this new kind of knowledge must have an additional 
 quality ? 
 
 What quality ? 
 
 Usefulness in war. 
 
 Yes, if possible. 
 
 There were two parts in our former scheme of education, 
 were there not ? 
 
 Just so. 
 
 There was gymnastics, which presided over the growth and 
 decay of the body, and may therefore be regarded as having 
 to do with generation and corruption? 
 
 True. 
 
 Then that is not the knowledge which we are seeking to dis- 
 cover ? 
 
 No. 
 
 But what do you say of music, what also entered to a certain 
 extent into our former scheme ? 
 
 Music, he said, as you will remember, was the counterpart 
 of gymnastics, and trained the guardians by the influences of 
 habit, by harmony making them harmonious, by rhythm rhyth- 
 mical, but not giving them science; and the words, whether 
 fabulous or possibly true, had kindred elements of rhythm and 
 harmony in them. But in music there was nothing which tend- 
 ed to that good which you are now seeking. 
 
 You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection ; in music 
 there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of 
 knowledge is there, my dear Glaucon, which is of the desired 
 nature ; since all the useful arts were reckoned mean by us ? 
 
 1 Reading ovvov
 
 2i8 PLATO 
 
 Undoubtedly ; and yet if music and gymnastics are excluded, 
 and the arts are also excluded, what remains ? 
 
 Well, I said, there may be nothing left of our special sub- 
 jects ; and then we shall have to take something which is not 
 special, but of the universal application. 
 
 What may that be? 
 
 A something which all arts and sciences and intelligences 
 use in common, and which everyone first has to learn among 
 the elements of education. 
 
 What is that ? 
 
 The little matter of distinguishing one, two, and three in 
 a word, number and calculation: do not all arts and sciences 
 necessarily partake of them ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then the art of war partakes of them ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Then Palamedes, whenever he appears in tragedy, proves 
 Agamemnon ridiculously unfit to be a general. Did you never 
 remark how he declares that he had invented number, and had 
 numbered the ships and set in array the ranks of the army at 
 Troy ; which implies that they had never been numbered before, 
 and Agamemnon must be supposed literally to have been in- 
 capable of counting his own fleet how could he if he was ig- 
 norant of number? And if that is true, what sort of general 
 must he have been ? 
 
 I should say a very strange one, if this was as you say. 
 
 Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of 
 arithmetic ? 
 
 Certainly he should, if he is to have the smallest understand- 
 ing of military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to 
 be a man at all. 
 
 I should like to know whether you have the same notion 
 which I have of this study? 
 
 What is your notion ? 
 
 It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seek- 
 ing, and which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have 
 been rightly used ; for the true use of it is simply to draw the 
 soul toward being. 
 
 Will you explain your meaning? he said. 
 
 I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the inquiry
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 219 
 
 with me, and say "yes " or " no " when I attempt to distinguish 
 in my own mind what branches of knowledge have this attract- 
 ing power, in order that we may have clearer proof that arith- 
 metic is, as I suspect, one of them. 
 
 Explain, he said. 
 
 I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds ; some 
 of them do not invite thought because the sense is an adequate 
 judge of them ; while in the case of other obects sense is so un- 
 trustworthy that further inquiry is imperatively demanded. 
 
 You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which 
 the senses are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in 
 light and shade. 
 
 No, I said, that is not at all my meaning. 
 
 Then what is your meaning ? 
 
 When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do 
 not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects 
 are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon 
 the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid 
 idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illus- 
 tration will make my meaning clearer : here are three ringers 
 a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here 
 comes the point. 
 
 What is it? 
 
 Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the 
 middle or at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick 
 or thin it makes no difference; a finger is a finger all the 
 same. In these cases a man is not compelled to ask of thought 
 the question, What is a finger ? for the sight never intimates to 
 the mind that a finger is other than a finger. 
 
 True. 
 
 And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing 
 here which invites or excites intelligence. 
 
 There is not, he said. 
 
 But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the 
 fingers ? Can sight adequately perceive them ? and is no differ- 
 ence made by the circumstance that one of the fingers is in the 
 middle and the other at the extremity? And in like manner 
 does the touch adequately perceive the qualities of thickness or
 
 220 PLATO 
 
 thinness, of softness or hardness ? And so of the other senses ; 
 do they give perfect intimations of such matters ? Is not their 
 mode of operation on this wise the sense which is concerned 
 with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with 
 the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the 
 same thing is felt to be both hard and soft ? 
 
 You are quite right, he said. 
 
 And must not the soul be perplexed at this intimation which 
 the sense gives of a hard which is also soft? What, again, is 
 the meaning of light and heavy, if that which is light is also 
 heavy, and that which is heavy, light ? 
 
 Yes, he said, these intimations which the soul receives are 
 very curious and require to be explained. 
 
 Yes, I said, and in these perplexities the soul naturally sum- 
 mons to her aid calculation and intelligence, that she may see 
 whether the several objects announced to her are one or two. 
 
 True. 
 
 And if they turn out to be two, is not each of them one and 
 different? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And if each is one, and both are two, she will conceive the 
 two as in a state of division, for if they were undivided they 
 could only be conceived of as one ? 
 
 True. 
 
 The eye certainly did see both small and great, but only in 
 a confused manner; they were not distinguished. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Whereas the thinking mind, intending to light up the chaos, 
 was compelled to reverse the process, and look at small and 
 great as separate and not confused. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Was not this the beginning of the inquiry, " What is great ? " 
 and "What is small?" 
 
 Exactly so. 
 
 And thus arose the distinction of the visible and the intel- 
 ligible. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 This was what I meant when I spoke of impressions which 
 invited the intellect, or the reverse those which are simul- 
 taneous with opposite impressions, invite thought ; those which 
 are not simultaneous do not.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 221 
 
 I understand, he said, and agree with you. 
 
 And to which class do unity and number belong? 
 
 I do not know, he replied. 
 
 Think a little and you will see that what has preceded will 
 supply the answer ; for if simple unity could be adequately per- 
 ceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were say- 
 ing in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract 
 toward being; but when there is some contradiction always 
 present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the concep- 
 tion of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, 
 and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks, 
 " What is absolute unity ? " This is the way in which the study 
 of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind 
 to the contemplation of true being. 
 
 And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one ; 
 for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multi- 
 tude? 
 
 Yes, I said ; and this being true of one must be equally true 
 of all number ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And all arithmetic and calculation have to do with number? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And they appear to lead the mind toward truth? 
 
 Yes, in a very remarkable manner. 
 
 Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, 
 having a double use, military and philosophical ; for the man of 
 war must learn the art of number or he will not know how to 
 array his troops, and the philosopher also, because he has to 
 rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being, and 
 therefore he must be an arithmetician. 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And our guardian is both warrior and philosopher? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then this is a kind of knowledge which legislation may fitly 
 prescribe ; and we must endeavor to persuade those who are to 
 be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, 
 not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see 
 the nature of numbers with the mind only ; nor again, like mer- 
 chants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but 
 for the sake of their military use, and of the soul herself ; and
 
 222 PLATO 
 
 because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becom- 
 ing to truth and being. 
 
 That is excellent, he said. 
 
 Yes, I said, and now having spoken of it, I must add how 
 charming the science is ! and in how many ways it conduces to 
 our desired end, if pursued in the spirit of a philosopher, and 
 not of a shopkeeper ! 
 
 How do you mean ? 
 
 I mean, as I was saying, that arithmetic has a very great and 
 elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract 
 number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or 
 tangible objects into the argument. You know how steadily 
 the masters of the art repel and ridicule anyone who attempts 
 to divide absolute unity when he is calculating, and if you 
 divide, they multiply, 1 taking care that one shall continue one 
 and not become lost in fractions. 
 
 That is very true. 
 
 Now, suppose a person were to say to them : O my friends, 
 what are these wonderful numbers about which you are rea- 
 soning, in which, as you say, there is a unity such as you de- 
 mand, and each unit is equal, invariable, indivisible what 
 would they answer ? 
 
 They would answer, as I should conceive, that they were 
 speaking of those numbers which can only be realized in 
 thought. 
 
 Then you see that this knowledge may be truly called neces- 
 sary, necessitating as it clearly does the use of the pure intelli- 
 gence in the attainment of pure truth ? 
 
 Yes ; that is a marked characteristic of it. 
 
 And have you further observed that those who have a natural 
 talent for calculation are generally quick at every other kind of 
 knowledge ; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical 
 training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, 
 always become much quicker than they would otherwise have 
 been? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 And indeed, you will not easily find a more difficult study, 
 and not many as difficult. 
 
 1 Meaning either (i) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of 
 fractions ; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the 
 fractions of one continue to be units.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 223 
 
 You will not. 
 
 And, for all these reasons, arithmetic is a kind of knowledge 
 in which the best natures should be trained, and which must 
 not be given up. 
 
 I agree. 
 
 Let this then be made one of our subjects of education. And 
 next, shall we inquire whether the kindred science also con- 
 cerns us? 
 
 You mean geometry ? 
 
 Exactly so. 
 
 Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry 
 which relates to war; for in pitching a camp or taking up a 
 position or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any 
 other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a 
 march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is 
 not a geometrician. 
 
 Yes, I said, but for that purpose a very little of either geome- 
 try or calculation will be enough ; the question relates rather 
 to the greater and more advanced part of geometry whether 
 that tends in any degree to make more easy the vision of the 
 idea of good ; and thither, as I was saying, all things tend which 
 compel the soul to turn her gaze toward that place, where is 
 the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to 
 behold. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us ; 
 if becoming only, it does not concern us ? 
 
 Yes, that is what we assert. 
 
 Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry 
 will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat con- 
 tradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. 
 
 How so ? 
 
 They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, 
 in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending 
 and applying and the like they confuse the necessities of ge- 
 ometry with those of daily life ; whereas knowledge is the real 
 object of the whole science. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 Then must not a further admission be made? 
 
 What admission?
 
 224 
 
 PLATO 
 
 That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge 
 of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient. 
 
 That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and is true. 
 
 Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul toward 
 truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that 
 which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. 
 
 Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. 
 
 Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the 
 inhabitants of your fair city should by all means learn geometry. 
 Moreover, the science has indirect effects, which are not small. 
 
 Of what kind? he said. 
 
 There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said ; 
 and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any- 
 one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehen- 
 sion than one who has not. 
 
 Yes, indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between 
 them. 
 
 Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge 
 which our youth will study ? 
 
 Let us do so, he replied. 
 
 And suppose we make astronomy the third what do you 
 
 say 
 
 I am strongly inclined to it, he said ; the observation of the 
 seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general 
 as it is to the farmer or sailor. 
 
 I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes 
 you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless 
 studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in 
 every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pur- 
 suits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and reillumined ; and 
 is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it 
 alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: 
 one class of those who will agree with you and will take your 
 words as a revelation ; another class to whom they will be ut- 
 terly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle 
 tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from 
 them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which 
 of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely 
 say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the 
 argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do 
 not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 225 
 
 I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly 
 on my own behalf. 
 
 Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the 
 order of the sciences. 
 
 What was the mistake? he said. 
 
 After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids 
 in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves; whereas 
 after the second dimension, the third, which is concerned with 
 cubes and dimensions of depth, ought to have followed. 
 
 That is true, Socrates ; but so little seems to be known as yet 
 about these subjects. 
 
 Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons : in the first place, no 
 government patronizes them ; this leads to a want of energy in 
 the pursuit of them, and they are difficult ; in the second place, 
 students cannot learn them unless they have a director. But 
 then a director can hardly be found, and, even if he could, as 
 matters now stand, the students, who are very conceited, would 
 not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the 
 whole State became the director of these studies and gave honor 
 to them ; then disciples would want to come, and there would be 
 continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made ; 
 since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and 
 maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their 
 votaries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their 
 way by their natural charm, and very likely, if they had the help 
 of the State, they would some day emerge into light. 
 
 Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them. But I do 
 not clearly understand the change in the order. First you be- 
 gan with a geometry of plane surfaces ? 
 
 Yes, I said. 
 
 And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step 
 backward ? 
 
 Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry ; the ludicrous state 
 of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have fol- 
 lowed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy, 
 or motion of solids. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Then assuming that the science now omitted would come into 
 existence if encouraged by the State, let us go on to astronomy, 
 which will be fourth.
 
 226 PLATO 
 
 The right order, he replied. And now, Socrates, as you re- 
 buked the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, 
 my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For everyone, as 
 I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look up- 
 ward and leads us from this world to another. 
 
 Everyone but myself, I said; to everyone else this may be 
 clear, but not to me. 
 
 And what, then, would you say? 
 
 I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into 
 philosophy appear to me to make us look downward, and not 
 upward. 
 
 What do you mean ? he asked. 
 
 You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception 
 of our knowledge of the things above. And I dare say that if 
 a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceil- 
 ing, you would still think that his mind was the percipient, and 
 not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a 
 simpleton : but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is 
 of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upward, and 
 whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, 
 seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he 
 can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science ; his soul 
 is looking downward, not upward, whether his way to knowl- 
 edge is by water or by land, whether he floats or only lies on his 
 back. 
 
 I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I 
 should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any 
 manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are 
 speaking? 
 
 I will tell you, I said : The starry heaven which we behold 
 is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the 
 fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be 
 deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness 
 and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and 
 carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true 
 number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be appre- 
 hended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with 
 a view to that higher knowledge ; their beauty is like the beauty
 
 THE REPUBLIC 227 
 
 of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Dae- 
 dalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to be- 
 hold ; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the ex- 
 quisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of 
 thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true 
 double, or the truth of any other proportion. 
 
 No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. 
 
 And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when 
 he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think 
 that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator 
 of them in the most perfect manner ? But he will never imag- 
 ine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the 
 month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and 
 to one another, and any other things that are material and visi- 
 ble can also be eternal and subject to no deviation that would 
 be absurd ; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in 
 investigating their exact truth. 
 
 I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. 
 
 Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should em- 
 ploy problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach 
 the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of 
 reason to be of any real use. 
 
 That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astron- 
 omers. 
 
 Yes, I said ; and there are many other things which must also 
 have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to 
 be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable 
 study ? 
 
 No, he said, not without thinking. 
 
 Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of 
 them are obvious enough even to wits no better than ours ; and 
 there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser per- 
 sons. 
 
 But where are the two? 
 
 There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one 
 already named. 
 
 And what may that be ? 
 
 The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be 
 what the first is to the eyes ; for I conceive that as the eyes are 
 designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmo-
 
 228 PLATO 
 
 nious motions; and these are sister sciences as the Pythago- 
 reans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? 
 
 Yes, he replied. 
 
 But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had 
 better go and learn of them ; and they will tell us whether there 
 are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, 
 we must not lose sight of our own higher object. 
 
 What is that? 
 
 There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, 
 and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short 
 of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the 
 science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing hap- 
 pens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and con- 
 sonances which are heard only, and their labor, like that of the 
 astronomers, is in vain. 
 
 Yes, by heaven ! he said ; and 'tis as good as a play to hear 
 them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them; 
 they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons 
 catching a sound from their neighbor's wall * one set of them 
 declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have 
 found the least interval which should be the unit of measure- 
 ment ; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into 
 the same either party setting their ears before their under- 
 standing. 
 
 You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the 
 strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument : I might 
 carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the 
 blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against 
 the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound; 
 but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that 
 these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pytha- 
 goreans, of whom I was just now proposing to inquire about 
 harmony. For they too are in error, like the astronomers ; they 
 investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but 
 they never attain to problems that is to say, they never reach 
 the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers 
 are harmonious and others not. 
 
 That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. 
 
 A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful ; that is, 
 
 1 Or, " close alongside of their neighbor's instruments, as if to catch a sound from them."
 
 THE REPUBLIC 229 
 
 if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good; but if 
 pursued in any other spirit, useless. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommun- 
 ion and connection with one another, and come to be considered 
 in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the 
 pursuit of them have a value for our objects; otherwise there 
 is no profit in them. 
 
 I suspect so ; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. 
 
 What do you mean ? I said ; the prelude, or what ? Do you 
 not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain 
 which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard 
 the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? 
 
 Assuredly not, he said ; I have hardly ever known a mathe- 
 matician who was capable of reasoning. 
 
 But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and 
 take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of 
 them? 
 
 Neither can this be supposed. 
 
 And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn 
 of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, 
 but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to im- 
 itate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us 
 after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all 
 the sun himself. And so with dialectic ; when a person starts 
 on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and 
 without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure 
 intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, 
 he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as 
 in the case of sight at the end of the visible. 
 
 Exactly, he said. 
 
 Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? 
 
 True. 
 
 But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their trans- 
 lation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the 
 ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his pres- 
 ence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and 
 the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their 
 weak eyes the images 1 in the water (which are divine), and 
 
 1 Omitting ivravda Se irpbs QavrdvuaTa. The word 6tla is bracketed by Stallbaum.
 
 230 
 
 PLATO 
 
 are the shadows of true existence (not shadows of images cast 
 by a light of fire, which compared with the sun is only an 
 image) this power of elevating the highest principle in the 
 soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, 
 with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which 
 is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is bright- 
 est in the material and visible world this power is given, as 
 I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which 
 have been described. 
 
 I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be 
 hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still 
 to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in pass- 
 ing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And 
 so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all 
 this, and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the 
 chief strain, 1 and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what 
 is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what 
 are the paths which lead thither ; for these paths will also lead 
 to our final rest. 
 
 Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, 
 though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image 
 only, but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether 
 what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot 
 venture to say ; but you would have seen something like reality ; 
 of that I am confident. 
 
 Doubtless, he replied. 
 
 But I must also remind you that the power of dialectic alone 
 can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous 
 sciences. 
 
 Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. 
 
 And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other 
 method of comprehending by any regular process all true ex- 
 istence, or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature ; 
 for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opin- 
 ions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and 
 construction, or for the preservation of such productions and 
 constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as 
 we were saying, have some apprehension of true being geom- 
 etry and the like they only dream about being, but never can 
 
 1 A play upon the work vinos, which means both " law " and " strain."
 
 THE REPUBLIC 231 
 
 they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hy- 
 potheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an 
 account of them. For when a man knows not his own first 
 principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are 
 also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine 
 that such a fabric of convention can ever become science ? 
 
 Impossible, he said. 
 
 Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first 
 principle and is the only science which does away with hy- 
 potheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the 
 soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her 
 gentle aid lifted upward; and she uses as handmaids and 
 helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have 
 been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought 
 to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opin- 
 ion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous 
 sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute 
 about names when we have realities of such importance to con- 
 sider ? 
 
 Why, indeed, he said, when any name will do which ex- 
 presses the thought of the mind with clearness ? 
 
 At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions ; 
 two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first divis- 
 ion science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the 
 fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with 
 becoming, and intellect with being; and so to make a propor- 
 tion : 
 
 " As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. 
 And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understand- 
 ing to the perception of shadows." 
 
 But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the 
 subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long inquiry, 
 many times longer than this has been. 
 
 As far as I understand, he said, I agree. 
 
 And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician 
 as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing? 
 And he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart 
 this conception, in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree 
 also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much?
 
 232 
 
 PLATO 
 
 Yes, he said ; how can I deny it ? 
 
 And you would say the same of the conception of the good ? 
 Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the 
 idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objec- 
 tions, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, 
 but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argu- 
 ment unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows 
 neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends 
 only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion, 
 and not by science ; dreaming and slumbering in this life, before 
 he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has 
 his final quietus. 
 
 In all that I should most certainly agree with you. 
 
 And surely you would not have the children of your ideal 
 State, whom you are nurturing and educating if the ideal 
 ever becomes a reality you would not allow the future rulers 
 to be like posts, 1 having no reason in them, and yet to be set in 
 authority over the highest matters? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Then you will make a law that they shall have such an edu- 
 cation as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking 
 and answering questions ? 
 
 Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. 
 
 Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the 
 sciences, and is set over them ; no other science can be placed 
 higher the nature of knowledge can no further go? 
 
 I agree, he said. 
 
 But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way 
 they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 Yes, clearly. 
 
 You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference 
 again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the 
 fairest ; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should 
 also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. 
 
 And what are these? 
 
 Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition ; for 
 
 , literally "lines," probably the starting-point of a race-course.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 233 
 
 i 
 the mind more often faints from the severity of study than 
 
 from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the 
 mind's own, and is not shared with the body. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good 
 memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labor 
 in any line ; or he will never be able to endure the great amount 
 of bodily exercise and to go through all the intellectual disci- 
 pline and study which we require of him. 
 
 Certainly, he said; he must have natural gifts. 
 
 The mistake at present is that those who study philosophy 
 have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason 
 why she has fallen into disrepute: her true sons should take 
 her by the hand, and not bastards. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halt- 
 ing industry I mean, that he should not be half industrious 
 and half idle : as, for example, when a man is a lover of gym- 
 nastics and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater 
 rather than a lover of the labor of learning or listening or in- 
 quiring. Or the occupation to which he devotes himself may 
 be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lame- 
 ness. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And as to truth, I said, is not a soul equally to be deemed 
 halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood and is extremely 
 indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient 
 of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a 
 swinish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at 
 being detected? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, 
 and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish be- 
 tween the true son and the bastard ? for where there is no dis- 
 cernment of such qualities, States and individuals uncon- 
 sciously err ; and the State makes a ruler, and the individual a 
 friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, 
 is in a figure lame or a bastard. 
 
 That is very true, he said. 
 
 All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered
 
 234 
 
 PLATO 
 
 by us ; and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system 
 of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice 
 herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the 
 saviours of the constitution and of the State ; but, if our pupils 
 are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we 
 shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than 
 she has to endure at present. 
 
 That would not be creditable. 
 
 Certainly not, I said; and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest 
 into earnest I am equally ridiculous. 
 
 In what respect? 
 
 I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke 
 with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so 
 undeservedly trampled under foot of men I could not help feel- 
 ing a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace : and my 
 anger made me too vehement. 
 
 Indeed ! I was listening, and did not think so. 
 
 But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was. And now let 
 me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose 
 old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delu- 
 sion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn 
 many things for he can no more learn much than he can run 
 much ; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And, therefore, calculation and geometry and all the other 
 elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, 
 should be presented to the mind in childhood; not, however, 
 under any notion of forcing our system of education. 
 
 Why not ? 
 
 Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition 
 of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, 
 does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired 
 under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but 
 let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be 
 better able to find out the natural bent. 
 
 That is a very rational notion, he said. 
 
 Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken 
 to see the battle on horseback ; and that if there were no danger
 
 THE REPUBLIC 235 
 
 they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have 
 a taste of blood given them ? 
 
 Yes, I remember. 
 
 The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things 
 labors, lessons, dangers and he who is most at home in all 
 of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. 
 
 At what age ? 
 
 At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over: the 
 period, whether of two or three years, which passes in this sort 
 of training is useless for any other purpose ; for sleep and ex- 
 ercise are unpropitious to learning ; and the trial of who is first 
 in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to 
 which our youth are subjected. 
 
 Certainly, he replied. 
 
 After that time those who are selected from the class of 
 twenty years old will be promoted to higher honor, and the 
 sciences which they learned without any order in their early 
 education will now be brought together, and they will be able 
 to see the natural relationship of hem to one another and to 
 true being. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes 
 lasting root. 
 
 Yes, I said ; and the capacity for such knowledge is the great 
 criterion of dialectical talent : the comprehensive mind is always 
 the dialectical. 
 
 I agree with you, he said. 
 
 These, I said, are the points which you must consider; and 
 those who have most of this comprehension, and who are most 
 steadfast in their learning, and in their military and other ap- 
 pointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of thirty will 
 have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated 
 to higher honor ; and you will have to prove them by the help 
 of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is able to give up 
 the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth 
 to attain absolute being : And here, my friend, great caution is 
 required. 
 
 Why great caution ? 
 
 Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dia- 
 lectic has introduced? 
 
 What evil? he said.
 
 236 PLATO 
 
 The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or in- 
 excusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them: 
 
 In what way make allowance ? 
 
 I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a suppo- 
 sititious son who is brought up in great wealth ; he is one of a, 
 great and numerous family, and has many flatterers. When 
 he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his 
 real parents ; but who the real are he is unable to discover. Can 
 you guess how he will be likely to behave toward his flatterers 
 and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he 
 is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows ? 
 Or shall I guess for you? 
 
 If you please. 
 
 Then I should say that while he is ignorant of the truth he 
 will be likely to honor his father and his mother and his sup- 
 posed relations more than the flatterers ; he will be less inclined 
 to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against 
 them ; and he will be less willing to disobey them in any im- 
 portant matter. 
 
 He will. 
 
 But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that 
 he would diminish his honor and regard for them, and would 
 become more devoted to the flatterers ; their influence over him 
 would greatly increase ; he would now live after their ways, and 
 openly associate with them, and, unless he were of an unusually 
 good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his 
 supposed parents or other relations. 
 
 Well, all that is very probable. But how is the image appli- 
 cable to the disciples of philosophy ? 
 
 In this way : you know that there are certain principles about 
 justice and honor, which were taught us in childhood, and 
 under their parental authority we have been brought up, obey- 
 ing and honoring them. 
 
 That is true. 
 
 There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which 
 flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us 
 who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and 
 honor the maxims of their fathers.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 337 
 
 True. 
 
 Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit 
 asks what is fair or honorable, and he answers as the legislator 
 has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute 
 his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is 
 honorable any more than dishonorable, or just and good any 
 more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most 
 valued, do you think that he will still honor and obey them as 
 before ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And when he ceases to think them honorable and natural 
 as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be ex- 
 pected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his 
 desires ? 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a 
 breaker of it ? 
 
 Unquestionably. 
 
 Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such 
 as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most 
 excusable. 
 
 Yes, he said ; and, I may add, pitiable. 
 
 Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about 
 our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must 
 be taken in introducing them to dialectic. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 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 pull- 
 ing 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 de- 
 feats 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
 
 238 PLATO 
 
 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 char- 
 acter will increase instead of diminishing the honor of the pur- 
 suit. 
 
 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 mil- 
 itary 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 distin- 
 guished 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 per- 
 forming 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.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 239 
 
 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 minis- 
 ters 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 in- 
 habitants 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.
 
 BOOK VIII 
 
 FOUR FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON 
 
 AND so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that 
 in the perfect State wives and children are to be in com- 
 mon; and that all education and the pursuits of war 
 and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and 
 the bravest warriors are to be their kings ? 
 
 That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. 
 
 Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the 
 governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers 
 and place them in houses such as we were describing, which 
 are common to all, and contain nothing private, or individual ; 
 and about their property, you remember what we agreed ? 
 
 Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary 
 possessions of mankind ; they were to be warrior athletes and 
 guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual 
 payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of 
 themselves and of the whole State. 
 
 True, I said ; and now that this division of our task is con- 
 cluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may 
 return into the old path. 
 
 There is no difficulty in returning ; you implied, then as now, 
 that you had finished the description of the State : you said that 
 such a State was good, and that the man was good who an- 
 swered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent 
 things to relate both of State and man. And you said further, 
 that if this was the true form, then the others were false ; and 
 of the false forms, you said, as I remember, that there were 
 four principal ones, and that their defects, and the defects of 
 the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining. 
 
 240
 
 THE REPUBLIC 241 
 
 When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to 
 who was the best and who was the worst of them, we were to 
 consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and the 
 worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four 
 forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polemar- 
 chus and Adeimantus put in their word ; and you began again, 
 and have found your way to the point at which we have now 
 arrived. 
 
 Your recollection, I said, is most exact. 
 
 Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again 
 in the same position ; and let me ask the same questions, and do 
 you give me the same answer which you were about to give me 
 then. 
 
 Yes, if I can, I will, I said. 
 
 I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four consti- 
 tutions of which you were speaking. 
 
 That question, I said, is easily answered: the four govern- 
 ments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are 
 first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded ; 
 what is termed oligarchy comes next; this is not equally ap- 
 proved, and is a form of government which teems with evils : 
 thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although 
 very different: and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, 
 which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst dis- 
 order of a State. I do not know, do you ? of any other consti- 
 tution which can be said to have a distinct character. There 
 are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and 
 some other intermediate forms of government. But these are 
 nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and 
 among barbarians. 
 
 Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of 
 government which exist among them. 
 
 Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the disposi- 
 tions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one 
 as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that States 
 are made of " oak and rock," and not out of the human natures 
 which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and 
 draw other things after them ? 
 
 Yes, he said, the States are as the men are ; they grow out of 
 human characters. 
 16
 
 24 a PLATO 
 
 Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions 
 of individual minds will also be five ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call 
 just and good, we have already described. 
 
 We have. 
 
 Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of nat- 
 ures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the 
 Spartan polity ; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyran- 
 nical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most un- 
 just, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the 
 relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of 
 pure justice or pure injustice. The inquiry will then be com- 
 pleted. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injus- 
 tice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the con- 
 clusions of the argument to prefer justice. 
 
 Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. 
 
 Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view 
 to clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to 
 the individual, and begin with the government of honor? I 
 know of no name for such a government other than timocracy 
 or perhaps timarchy. We will compare with this the like 
 character in the individual ; and, after that, consider oligarchy 
 and the oligarchical man; and then again we will turn our 
 attention to democracy and the democratical man; and lastly, 
 we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a 
 look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory 
 decision. 
 
 That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very 
 suitable. 
 
 First, then, I said, let us inquire how timocracy (the govern- 
 ment of honor) arises out of aristocracy (the government of 
 the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions 
 of the actual governing power ; a government which is united, 
 however small, cannot be moved. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what man- 
 ner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among 
 themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner 
 of Homer, pray the muses to tell us " how discord first arose " ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 243 
 
 Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest 
 with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty 
 tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest ? 
 
 How would they address us? 
 
 After this manner: A city which is thus constituted can 
 hardly be shaken ; but, seeing that everything which has a be- 
 ginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will 
 not last forever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the 
 dissolution : In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in ani- 
 mals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of 
 soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of 
 each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over 
 a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to 
 the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom 
 and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which 
 regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which 
 is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring 
 children into the world when they ought not. Now that which 
 is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect 
 number, 1 but the period of human birth is comprehended in a 
 number in which first increments by involution and evolution 
 (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four 
 terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make 
 all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. 2 
 The base of these (3) with a third added (4), when combined 
 with five (20) and raised to the third power, furnishes two har- 
 monies; the first a square which is 100 times as great (400 = 
 4 X ioo), 3 and the other a figure having one side equal to the 
 former, but oblong, 4 consisting of ioo numbers squared upon 
 rational diameters of a square (i.e., omitting fractions), the 
 side of which is five (7 X 7 49 X ioo = 4900) , each of them 
 being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the 
 fractions, sc. 50) or less by 5 two perfect squares of irrational 
 diameters (of a square the side of which is five =50 + 50 = 
 
 1 I.e., a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors, i, 2, 3, so 
 that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations 
 represented by i, 2, 3 are also completed. 
 
 4 Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean 
 triangle. The terms will then be 3", 4*, 5*, which together = 6 s = 216. 
 
 3 Or the first a square, which is ioo x ioo = 10000. The whole number will then be 17, 
 500 = a square of ioo and an oblong of ioo by 75. 
 
 4 Reading n-pojuqVr) Si. 
 
 1 Or, "consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters," etc. = ioo. For 
 other explanations of the passage see Introduction.
 
 244 PLATO 
 
 100) ; and 100 cubes of three (27 X 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 
 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical 
 figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For 
 when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and 
 unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not 
 be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will 
 be appointed by their predecessor, still they will be unworthy 
 to hold their father's places, and when they come into power 
 as guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking care of 
 us, the muses, first by undervaluing music ; which neglect will 
 soon extend to gymnastics ; and hence the young men of your 
 State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation 
 rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of 
 testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod's, 
 are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be 
 mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will 
 arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always 
 and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the muses 
 affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever 
 arising ; and this is their answer to us. 
 
 Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. 
 
 Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the 
 muses speak falsely? 
 
 And what do the muses say next ? 
 
 When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different 
 ways : the iron and brass fell to acquiring money, and land, and 
 houses, and gold, and silver ; but the gold and silver races, not 
 wanting money, but having the true riches in their own nature, 
 inclined toward virtue and the ancient order of things. There 
 was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute 
 their land and houses among individual owners ; and they en- 
 slaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had formerly 
 protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them sub- 
 jects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war 
 and in keeping a watch against them. 
 
 I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the 
 change. 
 
 And the new government which thus arises will be of a 
 form intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy? 
 
 Very true.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 245 
 
 Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, 
 how will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a 
 mean between oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly fol- 
 low one and partly the other, and will also have some pecul- 
 iarities. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 In the honor given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior- 
 class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the 
 institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gym- 
 nastics and military training in all these respects this State 
 will resemble the former. 
 
 True. 
 
 But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because 
 they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made 
 up of mixed elements ; and in turning from them to passionate 
 and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war 
 rather than peace ; and in the value set by them upon military 
 stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting 
 wars this State will be for the most part peculiar. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes, I said ; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, 
 like those who live in oligarchies ; they will have a fierce secret 
 longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark 
 places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the de- 
 posit and concealment of them; also castles which are just 
 nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums 
 on their wives, or on any others whom they please. 
 
 That is most true, he said. 
 
 And they are miserly because they have no means of openly 
 acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that 
 which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, 
 stealing their pleasures and running away like children from 
 the law, their father : they have been schooled not by gentle 
 influences but by force, for they have neglected her who is the 
 true muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have 
 honored gymnastics more than music. 
 
 Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you 
 describe is a mixture of good and evil. 
 
 Why, there is a mixture, I said ; but one thing, and one thing 
 only, is predominantly seen the spirit of contention and am-
 
 246 PLATO 
 
 bition ; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or 
 spirited element. 
 
 Assuredly, he said. 
 
 Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which 
 has been described in outline only ; the more perfect execution 
 was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of 
 the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust ; and to go 
 through all the States and all the characters of men, omitting 
 none of them, would be an interminable labor. 
 
 Very true, he replied. 
 
 Now what man answers to this form of government how 
 did he come into being, and what is he like ? 
 
 I think, said Adeimantus, that in the spirit of contention 
 which characterizes him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. 
 
 Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point ; but 
 there are other respects in which he is very different. 
 
 In what respects ? 
 
 He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated 
 and yet a friend of culture ; and he should be a good listener but 
 no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, un- 
 like the educated man, who is too proud for that; and he 
 will also be courteous to freemen, and remarkably obedient to 
 authority ; he is a lover of power and a lover of honor ; claiming 
 to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent, or on any ground of 
 that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of 
 arms ; he is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. 
 
 Yes, that is the type of character that answers to timocracy. 
 
 Such a one will despise riches only when he is young; but 
 as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, 
 because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is 
 not single-minded toward virtue, having lost his best guardian. 
 
 Who was that ? said Adeimantus. 
 
 Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and 
 takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his vir- 
 tue throughout life. 
 
 Good, he said. 
 
 Such, I said, is the timocratical youth, and he is like the timo- 
 cratical State. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 His origin is as follows: He is often the young son of a
 
 THE REPUBLIC 247 
 
 brave father, who dwells in an ill-governed city, of which he 
 declines the honors and offices, and will not go to law, or exert 
 himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order 
 that he may escape trouble. 
 
 And how does the son come into being? 
 
 The character of the son begins to develop when he hears 
 his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the 
 government, of which the consequence is that she has no prece- 
 dence among other women. Further, when she sees her hus- 
 band not very eager about money, and instead of battling and 
 railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens 
 to him quietly ; and when she observes that his thoughts always 
 centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable 
 indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father 
 is only half a man and far too easy-going : adding all the other 
 complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so 
 fond of rehearsing. 
 
 Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their 
 complaints are so like themselves. 
 
 And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are 
 supposed to be attached to the family, from time to time talk 
 privately in the same strain to the son ; and if they see anyone 
 who owes money to his father, or is wronging him in any way, 
 and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when 
 he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be 
 more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad 
 and he hears and sees the same sort of thing : those who do their 
 own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no 
 esteem, while the busy-bodies are honored and applauded. The 
 result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things 
 hearing, too, the words of his father, and having a nearer 
 view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and 
 others is drawn opposite ways: while his father is watering 
 and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are 
 encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not 
 originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at 
 last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives 
 up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of 
 contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambi- 
 tious.
 
 248 PLATO 
 
 You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. 
 Then we have now, I said, the second form of government 
 and the second type of character ? 
 We have. 
 Next, let us look at another man who, as vEschylus says, 
 
 " Is set over against another State; " 
 
 or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. 
 
 And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? 
 
 A government resting on a valuation of property, in which 
 the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. 
 
 I understand, he replied. 
 
 Ought I not to begin by describing how the change from 
 timocracy to oligarchy arises? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one 
 passes into the other. 
 
 How? 
 
 The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individ- 
 uals is the ruin of timocracy ; they invent illegal modes of ex- 
 penditure ; for what do they or their wives care about the law ? 
 
 Yes, indeed. 
 
 And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, 
 and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. 
 
 Likely enough. 
 
 And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think 
 of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when 
 riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance 
 the one always rises as the other falls. 
 
 True. 
 
 And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the 
 State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonored. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And what is honored is cultivated, and that which has no 
 honor is neglected. 
 
 That is obvious. 
 
 And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men 
 become lovers of trade and money ; they honor and look up to
 
 THE REPUBLIC 249 
 
 the rich man, and make a ruler of him, and dishonor the poor 
 man. 
 
 They do so. 
 
 They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money 
 as the qualification of citizenship; the sum is higher in one 
 place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less ex- 
 clusive; and they allow no one whose property falls below the 
 amount fixed to have any share in the government. These 
 changes in the constitution they effect by force of arms, if in- 
 timidation has not already done their work. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy 
 is established. 
 
 Yes, he said ; but what are the characteristics of this form of 
 government, and what are the defects of which we were 
 speaking ? 1 
 
 First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. 
 Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen ac- 
 cording to their property, and a poor man were refused permis- 
 sion to steer, even though he were a better pilot ? 
 
 You mean that they would shipwreck? 
 
 Yes ; and is not this true of the government of anything ? 2 
 
 I should imagine so. 
 
 Except a city ? or would you include a city ? 
 
 Nay, he said, the case of a city is the strongest of all, inas- 
 much as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult 
 of all. 
 
 This, then, will be the first great defect of oligarchy ? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And here is another defect which is quite as bad. 
 
 What defect? 
 
 The inevitable division: such a State is not one, but two 
 States, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are 
 living on the same spot and always conspiring against one 
 another. 
 
 That, surely, is at least as bad. 
 
 Another discreditable feature is, that, for a like reason, they 
 are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the 
 multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the 
 
 1 Compare supra, 544 C. ' Omitting f> nv*s.
 
 2$0 
 
 PLATO 
 
 enemy ; or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, 
 they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. 
 And at the same time their fondness for money makes them 
 unwilling to pay taxes. 
 
 How discreditable ! 
 
 And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same 
 persons have too many callings they are husbandmen, trades- 
 men, warriors, all in one. Does that look well ? 
 
 Anything but well. 
 
 There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, 
 and to which this State first begins to be liable. 
 
 What evil? 
 
 A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his 
 property ; yet after the sale he may dwell in the city of which he 
 is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horse- 
 man, nor hoplite, but only a poor, helpless creature. 
 
 Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this State. 
 
 The evil is certainly not prevented there ; for oligarchies have 
 both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. 
 
 True. 
 
 But think again : In his wealthy days, while he was spending 
 his money, was a man of this sort a whit more good to the State 
 for the purposes of citizenship ? Or did he only seem to be a 
 member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither 
 ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift? 
 
 As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spend- 
 thrift. 
 
 May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is 
 like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague 
 of the city as the other is of the hive ? 
 
 Just so, Socrates. 
 
 And God has made the flying drones, Adeimantus, all with- 
 out stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some 
 without stings, but others have dreadful stings ; of the stingless 
 class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the 
 stingers come all the criminal class, as they are termed. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, some- 
 where in that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves and 
 cut-purses and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 351 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Well, I said, and in oligarchical States do you not find 
 paupers ? 
 
 Yes, he said; nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a 
 ruler. 
 
 And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many 
 criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and 
 whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force ? 
 
 Certainly, we may be so bold. 
 
 The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of 
 education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the State ? 
 
 True. 
 
 Such, then, is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy ; 
 and there may be many other evils. 
 
 Very likely. 
 
 Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the 
 rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let 
 us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the indi- 
 vidual who answers to this State. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 Does not the timocratical man change into the oligarchical on 
 this wise? 
 
 How? 
 
 A time arrives when the representative of timocracy has a 
 son : at first he begins by emulating his father and walking in 
 his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering 
 against the State as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he 
 has are lost; he may have been a general or some other high 
 officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by in- 
 formers, and either put to death or exiled or deprived of the 
 privileges of a citizen, and all his property taken from him. 
 
 Nothing more likely. 
 
 And the son has seen and known all this he is a ruined man, 
 and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion head- 
 foremost from his bosom's throne ; humbled by poverty he takes 
 to money-making, and by mean and miserly savings and hard 
 work gets a fortune together. Is not such a one likely to seat 
 the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and 
 to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and 
 chain and scimitar ?
 
 252 PLATO 
 
 Most true, he replied. 
 
 And when he has made reason and spirit sit down on the 
 ground obediently on either side of their sovereign, and taught 
 them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of 
 how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not 
 allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and 
 rich men, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisi- 
 tion of wealth and the means of acquiring it. 
 
 Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as 
 the conversion of the ambitious youth into the avaricious one. 
 
 And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth ? 
 
 Yes, he said ; at any rate the individual out of whom he came 
 is like the State out of which oligarchy came. 
 
 Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between 
 them. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they 
 set upon wealth ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Also in their penurious, laborious character; the individual 
 only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines his expendi- 
 ture to them ; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that 
 they are unprofitable. 
 
 True. 
 
 He is a shabby fellow, who saves something out of everything 
 and makes a purse for himself; and this is the sort of man 
 whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the State 
 which he represents ? 
 
 He appears to me to be so; at any rate money is highly 
 valued by him as well as by the State. 
 
 You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. 
 
 I imagine not, he said ; had he been educated he would never 
 have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief 
 honor. 1 
 
 Excellent ! I said. Yet consider : Must we not further admit 
 that owing to this want of cultivation there will be found in him 
 drone-like desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly 
 kept down by his general habit of life? 
 
 True. 
 
 1 Reading cu iri.ua. MATTO. EC, fyt &' iy A, according to Schneider's excellent emendation.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 253 
 
 Do you know where you will have to look if you want to 
 discover his rogueries ? 
 
 Where must I look? 
 
 You should see him where he has some great opportunity of 
 acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. 
 
 Aye. 
 
 It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings 
 which give him a reputation for honesty, he coerces his bad 
 passions by an enforced virtue ; not making them see that they 
 are wrong, or taming them by reason, but by necessity and 
 fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natu- 
 ral desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same 
 whenever he has to spend what is not his own. 
 
 Yes, and they will be strong in him, too. 
 
 The man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two 
 men, and not one; but, in general, his better desires will be 
 found to prevail over his inferior ones. 
 
 True. 
 
 For these reasons such a one will be more respectable than 
 most people ; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious 
 soul will flee far away and never come near him. 
 
 I should expect so. 
 
 And surely the miser individually will be an ignoble com- 
 petitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of 
 honorable ambition ; he will not spend his money in the contest 
 for glory ; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites 
 and inviting them to help and join in the struggle ; in true oli- 
 garchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his re- 
 sources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and 
 saves his money. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money- 
 maker answers to the oligarchical State? 
 
 There can be no doubt. 
 
 Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have 
 still to be considered by us ; and then we will inquire into the 
 ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgment.
 
 254 PLATO 
 
 That, he said, is our method. 
 
 Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into 
 democracy arise? Is it not on this wise: the good at which 
 such a State aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which 
 is insatiable? 
 
 What then? 
 
 The rulers being aware that their power rests upon their 
 wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spend- 
 thrift youth because they gain by their ruin ; they take interest 
 from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own 
 wealth and importance ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit 
 of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same 
 State to any considerable extent ; one or the other will be disre- 
 garded. 
 
 That is tolerably clear. 
 
 And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of care- 
 lessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been 
 reduced to beggary ? 
 
 Yes, often. 
 
 And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to 
 sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have 
 forfeited their citizenship; a third class are in both predica- 
 ments ; and they hate and conspire against those who have got 
 their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for 
 revolution. 
 
 That is true. 
 
 On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they 
 walk, and pretending not even to see those whom they have 
 already ruined, insert their sting that is, their money into 
 someone else who is not on his guard against them, and recover 
 the parent sum many times over multiplied into a family of chil- 
 dren: and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the 
 State. 
 
 Yes, he said, there are plenty of them that is certain. 
 
 The evil blazes up like a fire ; and they will not extinguish it 
 either by restricting a man's use of his own property, or by 
 another remedy. 
 
 What other?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 255 
 
 One which is the next best, and has the advantage of com- 
 pelling the citizens to look to their characters : Let there be a 
 general rule that everyone shall enter into voluntary contracts 
 at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money- 
 making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly 
 lessened in the State. 
 
 Yes, they will be greatly lessened. 
 
 At present the governors, induced by the motives which I 
 have named, treat their subjects badly; while they and their 
 adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are 
 habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and 
 mind; they do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either 
 pleasure or pain. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 They themselves care only for making money, and are as 
 indifferent as the pauper to the cultivation of virtue. 
 
 Yes, quite as indifferent. 
 
 Such is the state of affairs which prevails among them. And 
 often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, 
 whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, 
 on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow-soldiers or fellow- 
 sailors ; aye, and they may observe the behavior of each other 
 in the very moment of danger for where danger is, there is 
 no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich and very 
 likely the wiry, sunburnt poor man may be placed in battle 
 at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoilt his com- 
 plexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh when he sees such 
 a one puffing and at his wits'-end, how can he avoid drawing 
 the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one 
 has the courage to despoil them? And when they meet in 
 private will not people be saying to one another, " Our war- 
 riors are not good for much " ? 
 
 Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of 
 talking. 
 
 And, as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch 
 from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when 
 there is no external provocation, a commotion may arise with- 
 in in the same way wherever there is weakness in the State 
 there is also likely to be illness, of which the occasion may 
 be very slight, the one party introducing from without theii
 
 256 
 
 PLATO 
 
 oligarchical, the other their democratical allies, and then the 
 State falls sick, and is at war with herself; and may be at 
 times distracted, even when there is no external cause. 
 
 Yes, surely. 
 
 And then democracy comes into being after the poor have 
 conquered their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing 
 some, while to the remainder they give an equal share of free- 
 dom and power ; and this is the form of government in which 
 the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the 
 revolution has been effected by arms, or whether fear has 
 caused the opposite party to withdraw. 
 
 And now what is their manner of life, and what sort of a 
 government have they? for as the government is, such will 
 be the man. 
 
 Clearly, he said. 
 
 In the first place, are they not free; and is not the city full 
 of freedom and frankness a man may say and do what he 
 likes? 
 
 Tis said so, he replied. 
 
 And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to 
 order for himself his own life as he pleases? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 Then in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety 
 of human natures? 
 
 There will. 
 
 This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being 
 like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort 
 of flower. 1 And just as women and children think a variety 
 of colors to be of all things most charming, so there are many 
 men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners 
 and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of 
 States. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Yes, my good sir, and there will be no better in which to 
 look for a government. 
 
 Why? 
 
 Because of the liberty which reigns there they have a com- 
 plete assortment of constitutions; and he who has a mind to 
 
 1 Omitting ' n,^v ; <ij.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 257 
 
 establish a State, as we have been doing, must go to a democ- 
 racy as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and 
 pick out the one that suits him ; then, when he has made his 
 choice, he may found his State. 
 
 He will be sure to have patterns enough. 
 
 And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in 
 this State, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, 
 unless you like, or to go to war when the rest go to war, or 
 to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so 
 disposed there being no necessity also, because some law for- 
 bids you to hold office or be a dicast, that you should not hold 
 office or be a dicast, if you have a fancy is not this a way 
 of life which for the moment is supremely delightful? 
 
 For the moment, yes. 
 
 And is not their humanity to the condemned 1 in some cases 
 quite charming ? Have you not observed how, in a democracy, 
 many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or 
 exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world 
 the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares? 
 
 Yes, he replied, many and many a one. 
 
 See, too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and the 
 " don't care " about trifles, and the disregard which she shows 
 of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the 
 foundation of the city as when we said that, except in the 
 case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good 
 man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid 
 things of beauty and make of them a joy and a study how 
 grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under 
 her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make 
 a statesman, and promoting to honor anyone who professes 
 to be the people's friend. 
 
 Yes, she is of a noble spirit. 
 
 These and other kindred characteristics are proper to 
 democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of 
 variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals 
 and unequals alike. 
 
 We know her well. 
 
 Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual 
 
 1 Or, " the philosophical temper of the condemned." 
 I?
 
 258 PLATO 
 
 is, or rather consider, as in the case of the State, how he 
 comes into being. 
 
 Very good, he said. 
 
 Is not this the way he is the son of the miserly and oli- 
 garchical father who has trained him in his own habits? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And, like his father, he keeps under by force the pleasures 
 which are of the spending and not of the getting sort, being 
 those which are called unnecessary? 
 
 Obviously. 
 
 Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish 
 which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleas- 
 ures? 
 
 I should. 
 
 Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get 
 rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And 
 they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature 
 to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and 
 cannot help it. 
 
 True. 
 
 We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? 
 
 We are not. 
 
 And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes 
 pains from his youth upward of which the presence, more- 
 over, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good 
 shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? 
 
 Yes, certainly. 
 
 Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that 
 we may have a general notion of them? 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and con- 
 diments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, 
 be of the necessary class? 
 
 That is what I should suppose. 
 
 The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does 
 us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they 
 are good for health ? 
 
 Certainly.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 259 
 
 And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate 
 food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, 
 if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, 
 and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, 
 may be rightly called unnecessary? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 May we not say that these desires spend, and that the 
 others make money because they conduce to production? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And of the pleasures of love, and all other pleasures, the 
 same holds good? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was sur- 
 feited in pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave 
 of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subject to 
 the necessary only was miserly and oligarchical? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Again, let us see how the democratical man goes out of 
 the oligarchical : the following, as I suspect, is commonly the 
 process. 
 
 What is the process? 
 
 When a young man who has been brought up as we were 
 just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted 
 drones' honey and has come to associate with fierce and crafty 
 natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refine- 
 ments and varieties of pleasure then, as you may imagine, 
 the change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him 
 into the democratical ? 
 
 Inevitably. 
 
 And as in the city like was helping like, and the change 
 was effected by an alliance from without assisting one division 
 of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class 
 of desires coming from without to assist the desires within 
 him, that which is akin and alike again helping that which 
 is akin and alike? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And if there be any ally which aids the oligarchical prin- 
 ciple within him, whether the influence of a father or of kin- 
 dred, advising or rebuking him, then there arise in his soul 
 a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with 
 himself.
 
 260 PLATO 
 
 It must be so. 
 
 And there are times when the democratical principle gives 
 way to the oligarchical, and some of his desires die, and others 
 are banished ; a spirit of reverence enters into the young man's 
 soul, and order is restored. 
 
 Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. 
 
 And then, again, after the old desires have been driven out, 
 fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he 
 their father does not know how to educate them, wax fierce 
 and numerous. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. 
 
 They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret in- 
 tercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's 
 soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments 
 and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in 
 the minds of men who are dear to the gods, and are their best 
 guardians and sentinels. 
 
 None better. 
 
 False and boastful conceits and phrases mount upward and 
 take their place. 
 
 They are certain to do so. 
 
 And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus- 
 eaters, and takes up his dwelling there, in the face of all men ; 
 and if any help be sent by his friends to the oligarchical part 
 of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the King's 
 fastness ; and they will neither allow the embassy itself to 
 enter, nor if private advisers offer the fatherly counsel of the 
 aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a bat- 
 tle and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call 
 silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and 
 temperance, which they nick-name unmanliness, is trampled in 
 the mire and cast forth; they persuade men that moderation 
 and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so, 
 by the help of a rabble of evil appetites, they drive them be- 
 yond the border. 
 
 Yes, with a will. 
 
 And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of 
 him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by
 
 THE REPUBLIC 261 
 
 them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their 
 house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in 
 bright array, having garlands on their heads, and a great com- 
 pany with them, hymning their praises and calling them by 
 sweet names ; insolence they term " breeding," and anarchy 
 " liberty," and waste " magnificence," and impudence " cour- 
 age." And so the young man passes out of his original nature, 
 which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom 
 and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. 
 Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. 
 After this he lives on, spending his money and labor and 
 time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as on necessary 
 ones; but if he be fortunate, and is not too much disordered 
 in his wits, when years have elapsed, and the heyday of pas- 
 sion is over supposing that he then readmits into the city 
 some part of the exiled virtues, and does not wholly give him- 
 self up to their successors in that case he balances his pleas- 
 ures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the govern- 
 ment of himself into the hands of the one which comes first 
 and wins the turn ; and when he has had enough of that, then 
 into the hands of another; he despises none of them, but 
 encourages them all equally. 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true 
 word of advice; if anyone says to him that some pleasures 
 are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of 
 evil desires, and that he ought to use and honor some, and 
 chastise and master the others whenever this is repeated to 
 him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and 
 that one is as good as another. 
 
 Yes, he said ; that is the way with him. 
 Yes, I said, he lives from day to day indulging the appetite 
 of the hour ; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains 
 of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and tries to 
 get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes 
 idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the 
 life of a philosopher ; often he is busy with politics, and starts 
 to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; 
 and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is 
 in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that.
 
 262 PLATO 
 
 His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted exist- 
 ence he terms joy and bliss and freedom ; and so he goes on. 
 
 Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. 
 
 Yes, I said ; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome 
 of the lives of many; he answers to the State which we de- 
 scribed as fair and spangled. And many a man and many 
 a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a con- 
 stitution and many an example of manners are contained in him. 
 
 Just so. 
 
 Let him then be set over against democracy; he may truly 
 be called the democratic man. 
 
 Let that be his place, he said. 
 
 Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State 
 alike, tyranny and the tyrant ; these we have now to consider. 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise? 
 that it has a democratic origin is evident. 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same 
 manner as democracy from oligarchy I mean, after a sort? 
 
 How? 
 
 The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means 
 by which it was maintained was excess of wealth am I not 
 right ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all 
 other things for the sake of money-getting were also the ruin 
 of oligarchy? 
 
 True. 
 
 And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable 
 desire brings her to dissolution? 
 
 What good ? 
 
 Freedom, I replied ; which, as they tell you in a democracy, 
 is the glory of the State and that therefore in a democracy 
 alone will the freeman of nature deign to dwell. 
 
 Yes ; the saying is in everybody's mouth. 
 
 I was going to observe, that the insatiable desire of this 
 and the neglect of other things introduce the change in democ- 
 racy, which occasions a demand for tyranny. 
 
 How so?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 263 
 
 When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil 
 cup-bearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply 
 of the strong wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very 
 amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to ac- 
 count and punishes them, and says that they are cursed oli- 
 garchs. 
 
 Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. 
 
 Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by 
 her " slaves " who hug their chains, and men of naught ; she 
 would have subjects who are like rulers, and rulers who are 
 like subjects: these are men after her own heart, whom she 
 praises and honors both in private and public. Now, in such 
 a State, can liberty have any limit? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and 
 ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. 
 
 How do you mean? 
 
 I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to 
 the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level 
 with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either 
 of his parents ; and this is his freedom ; and the metic is equal 
 with the citizen, and the citizen with the metic, and the 
 stranger is quite as good as either. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the way. 
 
 And these are not the only evils, I said there are several 
 lesser ones : In such a state of society the master fears and 
 flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters 
 and tutors ; young and old are all alike ; and the young man 
 is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him 
 in word or deed; and old men condescend to the young and 
 are full of pleasantry and gayety ; they are loth to be thought 
 morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the man- 
 ners of the young. 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought 
 with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his 
 or her purchaser ; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and 
 equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. 
 
 Why not, as ^Eschylus says, utter the word which rises to 
 our lips?
 
 264 PLATO 
 
 That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that 
 no one who does not know would believe how much greater 
 is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion 
 of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for, 
 truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their 
 she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of march- 
 ing along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and 
 they will run at anybody who comes in their way if he does 
 not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just 
 ready to burst with liberty. 
 
 When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience 
 what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing. 
 
 And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sen- 
 sitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least 
 touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease 
 to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will 
 have no one over them. 
 
 Yes, he said, I know it too well. 
 
 Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning 
 out of which springs tyranny. 
 
 Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step? 
 
 The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same 
 disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democ- 
 racy the truth being that the excessive increase of anything 
 often causes a reaction in the opposite direction; and this is 
 the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal 
 life, but above all in forms of government. 
 
 True. 
 
 The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, 
 seems only to pass into excess of slavery. 
 
 Yes, the natural order. 
 
 And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the 
 most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most 
 extreme form of liberty? 
 
 As we might expect. 
 
 That, however, was not, as I believe, your question you 
 rather desired to know what is that disorder which is gen- 
 erated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of 
 both? 
 
 Just so, he replied.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 265 
 
 Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spend- 
 thrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the 
 more timid the followers, the same whom we were compar- 
 ing to drones, some stingless, and others having stings. 
 
 A very just comparison. 
 
 These two classes are the plagues of every city in which 
 they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the 
 body. And the good physician and lawgiver of the State 
 ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep them at a distance and 
 prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they have 
 anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their 
 cells cut out as speedily as possible. 
 
 Yes, by all means, he said. 
 
 Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, 
 let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into 
 three classes ; for in the first place freedom creates rather more 
 drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical 
 State. 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. 
 
 How so? 
 
 Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and 
 driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather 
 strength; whereas in a democracy they are almost the en- 
 tire ruling power, and while the keener sort speak and act, 
 the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a word 
 to be said on the other side; hence in democracies almost 
 everything is managed by the drones. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Then there is another class which is always being severed 
 from the mass. 
 
 What is that ? 
 
 They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is 
 sure to be the richest. 
 
 Naturally so. 
 
 They are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest 
 amount of honey to the drones. 
 
 Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people 
 who have little. 
 
 And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed 
 upon them.
 
 266 PLATO 
 
 That is pretty much the case, he said. 
 
 The people are a third class, consisting of those who work 
 with their own hands; they are not politicians, and have not 
 much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and 
 most powerful class in a democracy. 
 
 True, he said; but then the multitude is seldom willing to 
 congregate unless they get a little honey. 
 
 And do they not share? I said. Do not their leaders de- 
 prive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the 
 people; at the same time taking care to reserve the larger 
 part for themselves? 
 
 Why, yes, he said, to that extent the people do share. 
 
 And the persons whose property is taken from them are 
 compelled to defend themselves before the people as they best 
 can? 
 
 What else can they do? 
 
 And then, although they may have no desire of change, the 
 others charge them with plotting against the people and being 
 friends of oligarchy? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the end is that when they see the people, not of their 
 own accord, but through ignorance, and because they are de- 
 ceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last 
 they are forced to become oligarchs in reality; they do not 
 wish to be, but the sting of the drones torments them and 
 breeds revolution in them. 
 
 That is exactly the truth. 
 
 Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one 
 another. 
 
 True. 
 
 The people have always some champion whom they set over 
 them and nurse into greatness. 
 
 Yes, that is their way. 
 
 This, and no other, is the root from which a tyrant springs ; 
 when he first appears above ground he is a protector. 
 
 Yes, that is quite clear. 
 
 How, then, does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? 
 Clearly when he does what the man is said to do in the tale 
 of the Arcadian temple of Lycaean Zeus. 
 
 What tale?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 267 
 
 The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single 
 human victim minced up with the entrails of other victims is 
 destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? 
 
 Oh, yes. 
 
 And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob 
 entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the 
 blood of kinsmen; by the favorite method of false accusa- 
 tion he brings them into court and murders them, making the 
 life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips 
 tasting the blood of his fellow-citizens; some he kills and 
 others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition 
 of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be 
 his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his 
 enemies, or from being a man become a wolf that is, a tyrant ? 
 
 Inevitably. 
 
 This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the 
 rich? 
 
 The same. 
 
 After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of 
 his enemies, a tyrant full grown. 
 
 That is clear. 
 
 And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him con- 
 demned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assas- 
 sinate him. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is their usual way. 
 
 Then comes the famous request for a body-guard, which 
 is the device of all those who have got thus far in their tyran- 
 nical career " Let not the people's friend," as they say, " be 
 lost to them." 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 The people readily assent ; all their fears are for him they 
 have none for themselves. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of 
 being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as 
 the oracle said to Crcesus, 
 
 " By pebbly Hermus's shore he flees and rests not, and is not 
 ashamed to be a coward." l 
 
 1 Herodotus, i. 55.
 
 2 68 PLATO 
 
 And quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never 
 be ashamed again. 
 
 But if he is caught he dies. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen, not 
 " larding the plain " with his bulk, but himself the overthrower 
 of many, standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in 
 his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. 
 
 No doubt, he said. 
 
 And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and 
 also of the State in which a creature like him is generated. 
 
 Yes, he said, let us consider that. 
 
 At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, 
 and he salutes everyone whom he meets; he to be called a 
 tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private! 
 liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his 
 followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to everyone! 
 
 Of course, he said. 
 
 But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest 
 or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he 
 is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the 
 people may require a leader. 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Has he not also another object, which is that they may be 
 impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to de- 
 vote themselves to their daily wants and therefore less likely 
 to conspire against him? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions 
 of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have 
 a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the 
 mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant 
 must be always getting up a war. 
 
 He must. 
 
 Now he begins to grow unpopular. 
 
 A necessary result. 
 
 Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who 
 are in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, 
 and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is 
 being done.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 269 
 
 Yes, that may be expected. 
 
 And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them; 
 he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is 
 good for anything. 
 
 He cannot. 
 
 And therefore he must look about him and see who is val- 
 iant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy ; happy 
 man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion 
 against them whether he will or no, until he has made a pur- 
 gation of the State. 
 
 Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. 
 
 Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians 
 make of the body; for they take away the worse and leave 
 me better part, but he does the reverse. 
 
 If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. 
 
 What a blessed alternative, I said : to be compelled to 
 dwell only with the many bad, and to be by them hated, or 
 not to live at all ! 
 
 Yes, that is the alternative. 
 
 And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens the 
 more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he re- 
 quire? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure 
 them? 
 
 They will flock to him, he said, of their own accord, if he 
 pays them. 
 
 By the dog! I said, here are more drones, of every sort 
 and from every land. 
 
 Yes, he said, there are. 
 
 But will he not desire to get them on the spot? 
 
 How do you mean? 
 
 He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set 
 them free and enrol them in his body-guard. 
 
 To be sure, he said; and he will be able to trust them best 
 of all. 
 
 What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be; he 
 has put to death the others and has these for his trusted fK^ids. 
 
 Yes, he said; they are quite of his sort. 
 
 Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has
 
 270 PLATO 
 
 called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, 
 while the good hate and avoid him. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing and Euripides a great 
 tragedian. 
 
 Why so? 
 
 Why, because he is the author of the pregnant saying, 
 
 " Tyrants are wise by living with the wise; " 
 
 and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the 
 tyrant makes his companions. 
 
 Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as godlike; and 
 many other things of the same kind are said by him and by 
 the other poets. 
 
 And therefore, I said, the tragic poets being wise men will 
 forgive us and any others who live after our manner, if we 
 do not receive them into our State, because they are the eulo- 
 gists of tyranny. 
 
 Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive 
 us. 
 
 But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, 
 and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the 
 cities over to tyrannies and democracies. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honor the 
 greatest honor, as might be expected, from tyrants, and the 
 next greatest from democracies; but the higher they ascend 
 our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems 
 unable from shortness of breath to proceed farther. 
 
 True. 
 
 But we are wandering from the subject: Let us therefore 
 return and inquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair, 
 and numerous, and various, and ever-changing army of his. 
 
 If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will 
 confiscate and spend them; and in so far as the fortunes of 
 attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the 
 taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the 
 people. 
 
 And when these fail? 
 
 Why, clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions,
 
 THE REPUBLIC 271 
 
 whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's 
 estate. 
 
 You mean to say that the people, from whom he has de- 
 rived his being, will maintain him and his companions? 
 
 Yes, he said; they cannot help themselves. 
 
 But what if the people fly into a passion, and aver that a 
 grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but 
 that the father should be supported by the son? The father 
 did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order 
 that when his son became a man he should himself be the ser- 
 vant of his own servants and should support him and his rab- 
 ble of slaves and companions; but that his son should pro- 
 tect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from 
 the government of the rich and aristocratic, as they are termed. 
 And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any 
 other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and 
 his undesirable associates. 
 
 By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what a 
 monster he has been fostering in his bosom; and, when he 
 wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his 
 son strong. 
 
 Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use vio- 
 lence? What! beat his father if he opposes him? 
 
 Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. 
 
 Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged 
 parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be 
 no longer a mistake: as the saying is, the people who would 
 escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen 
 into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, 
 getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest 
 and bitterest form of slavery. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 Very well ; and may we not rightly say that we have suffi- 
 ciently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of 
 the transition from democracy to tyranny? 
 
 Yes, quite enough, he said. 
 
 "\ 

 
 BOOK IX 
 
 ON WRONG OR RIGHT GOVERNMENT, AND THE 
 PLEASURES OF EACH 
 
 SOCRATES, ADEIMANTUS 
 
 LAST of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we 
 have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the 
 democratical ? and how does he live, in happiness or 
 in misery? 
 
 Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. 
 
 There is, however, I said, a previous question which re- 
 mains unanswered. 
 
 What question? 
 
 I do not think that we have adequately determined the nat- 
 ure and number of the appetites, and until this is accom- 
 plished the inquiry will always be confused. 
 
 Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. 
 
 Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to 
 understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appe- 
 tites I conceive to be unlawful; everyone appears to have 
 them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws 
 and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them 
 either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak ; 
 while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are 
 more of them. 
 
 Which appetites do you mean? 
 
 I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and hu- 
 man and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within 
 us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and, having shaken 
 off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there is no 
 conceivable folly or crime not excepting incest or any other 
 unnatural union, or parricide, or the eating of forbidden food 
 
 272
 
 THE REPUBLIC 973 
 
 which at such a time, when he has parted company with 
 all shame and sense, a man may not be ready to commit. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 But when a man's pulse is healthy and temperate, and when 
 before going to sleep he has awakened his rational powers, and 
 fed them on noble thoughts and inquiries, collecting himself 
 in meditation ; after having first indulged his appetites neither 
 too much nor too little, but just enough to lay them to sleep, 
 and prevent them and their enjoyments and pains from in- 
 terfering with the higher principle which he leaves in the soli- 
 tude of pure abstraction, free to contemplate and aspire to the 
 knowledge of the unknown, whether in past, present, or future : 
 when again he has allayed the passionate element, if he has 
 a quarrel against anyone I say, when, after pacifying the 
 two irrational principles, he rouses up the third, which is rea- 
 son, before he takes his rest, then, as you know, he attains 
 truth most nearly, and is least likely to be the sport of fan- 
 tastic and lawless visions. 
 
 1 quite agree. 
 
 In saying this I have been running into a digression; but 
 the point which I desire to note is that in all of us, even in 
 good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers 
 out in sleep. Pray, consider whether I am right, and you 
 agree with me. 
 
 Yes, I agree. 
 
 And now remember the character which we attributed to 
 the democratic man. He was supposed from his youth up- 
 ward to have been trained under a miserly parent, who en- 
 couraged the saving appetites in him, but discountenanced the 
 unnecessary, which aim only at amusement and ornament? 
 
 True. 
 
 And then he got into the company of a more refined, licen- 
 tious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways 
 rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his 
 father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his cor- 
 ruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted mid- 
 way and led a life, not of vulgar and slavish passion, but of 
 what he deemed moderate indulgence in various pleasures. 
 After this manner the democrat was generated out of the 
 oligarch ? 
 18
 
 274 
 
 PLATO 
 
 Yes, he said; that was our view of him, and is so still. 
 
 And now, I said, years will have passed away, and you 
 must conceive this- man, such as he is, to have a son, who is 
 brought up in his father's principles. 
 
 I can imagine him. 
 
 Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen 
 to the son which has already happened to the father: he is 
 drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is 
 termed perfect liberty ; and his father and friends take part 
 with his moderate desires, and the opposite party assist the 
 opposite ones. As soon as these dire magicians and tyrant- 
 makers find that they are losing their hold on him, they con- 
 trive to implant in him a master-passion, to be lord over his 
 idle and spendthrift lusts a sort of monstrous winged drone 
 that is the only image which will adequately describe him. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the only adequate image of him. 
 
 And when his other lusts, amid clouds of incense and per- 
 fumes and garlands and wines, and all the pleasures of a dis- 
 solute life, now let loose, come buzzing around him, nourish- 
 ing to the utmost the sting of desire which they implant in 
 his drone-like nature, then at last this lord of the soul, hav- 
 ing Madness for the captain of his guard, breaks out into a 
 frenzy ; and if he finds in himself any good opinions or appe- 
 tites in process of formation, 1 and there is in him any sense 
 of shame remaining, to these better principles he puts an end, 
 and casts them forth until he has purged away temperance and 
 brought in madness to the full. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the way in which the tyrannical man 
 is generated. 
 
 And is not this the reason why, of old, love has been called 
 a tyrant? 
 
 I should not wonder. 
 
 Further, I said, has not a drunken man also the spirit of 
 a tyrant? 
 
 He has. 
 
 And you know that a man who is deranged, and not right 
 in his mind, will fancy that he is able to rule, not only over 
 men, but also over the gods? 
 
 That he will. 
 
 * Or, "opinions or appetites such as are deemed to be good.**
 
 THE REPUBLIC 275 
 
 And the tyrannical man in the true sense of the word comes 
 into being when, either under the influence of nature or 
 habit, or both, he becomes drunken, lustful, passionate? O 
 my friend, is not that so? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 Such is the man and such is his origin. And next, how 
 does he live ? 
 
 Suppose, as people facetiously say, you were to tell me. 
 
 I imagine, I said, at the next step in his progress, that there 
 will be feasts and carousals and revellings and courtesans, and 
 all that sort of thing; Love is the lord of the house within 
 him, and orders all the concerns of his soul. 
 
 That is certain. 
 
 Yes ; and every day and every night desires grow up many 
 and formidable, and their demands are many. 
 
 They are indeed, he said. 
 
 His revenues, if he has any, are soon spent. 
 
 True. 
 
 Then come debt and the cutting down of his property. 
 
 Of course. 
 
 When he has nothing left, must not his desires, crowding 
 in the nest like young ravens, be crying aloud for food ; and 
 he, goaded on by them, and especially by love himself, who 
 is in a manner the captain of them, is in a frenzy, and would 
 fain discover whom he can defraud or despoil of his property, 
 in order that he may gratify them? 
 
 Yes, that is sure to be the case. 
 
 He must have money, no matter how, if he is to escape 
 horrid pains and pangs. 
 
 He must. 
 
 And as in himself there was a succession of pleasures, and 
 the new got the better of the old and took away their rights, 
 so he being younger will claim to have more than his father 
 and his mother, and if he has spent his own share of the prop- 
 erty, he will take a slice of theirs. 
 
 No doubt he will. 
 
 And if his parents will not give way, then he will try first 
 of all to cheat and deceive them. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And if he fails, then he will use force and plunder them.
 
 2^6 PLATO 
 
 Yes, probably. 
 
 And if the old man and woman fight for their own, what 
 then, my friend? Will the creature feel any compunction at 
 tyrannizing over them? 
 
 Nay, he said, I should not feel at all comfortable about his 
 parents. 
 
 But, O heavens! Adeimantus, on account of some new- 
 fangled love of a harlot, who is anything but a necessary con- 
 nection, can you believe that he would strike the mother who 
 is his ancient friend and necessary to his very existence, and 
 would place her under the authority of the other, when she 
 is brought under the same roof with her; or that, under like 
 circumstances, he would do the same to his withered old 
 father, first and most indispensable of friends, for the sake 
 of some newly found blooming youth who is the reverse of 
 indispensable ? 
 
 Yes, indeed, he said; I believe that he would. 
 
 Truly, then, I said, a tyrannical son is a blessing to his 
 father and mother. 
 
 He is indeed, he replied. 
 
 He first takes their property, and when that fails, and 
 pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then 
 he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly 
 wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile 
 the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave 
 judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others 
 which have just been emancipated, and are now the body- 
 guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic 
 days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, 
 were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that 
 he is under the dominion of Love, he becomes always and in 
 waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream 
 only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden 
 food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, 
 and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a 
 king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the per- 
 formance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain him- 
 self and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil 
 communications have brought in from without, or those whom 
 he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason
 
 THE REPUBLIC 277 
 
 of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a pict- 
 ure of his way of life? 
 
 Yes, indeed, he said. 
 
 And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the 
 rest of the people are well disposed, they go away and be- 
 come the body-guard of mercenary soldiers of some other 
 tyrant who may probably want them for a war; and if there 
 is no war, they stay at home and do many little pieces of mis- 
 chief in the city. 
 
 What sort of mischief? 
 
 For example, they are the thieves, burglars, cut-purses, foot- 
 pads, robbers of temples, man-stealers of the community; or 
 if they are able to speak, they turn informers and bear false 
 witness and take bribes. 
 
 A small catalogue of evils, even if the perpetrators of them 
 are few in number. 
 
 Yes, I said; but small and great are comparative terms, 
 and all these things, in the misery and evil which they inflict 
 upon a State, do not come within a thousand miles of the 
 tyrant; when this noxious class and their followers grow 
 numerous and become conscious of their strength, assisted by 
 the infatuation of the people, they choose from among them- 
 selves the one who has most of the tyrant in his own soul, 
 and him they create their tyrant. 
 
 Yes, he said, and he will be the most fit to be a tyrant. 
 
 If the people yield, well and good; but if they resist him, 
 as he began by beating his own father and mother, so now, 
 if he has the power, he beats them, and will keep his dear 
 old fatherland or motherland, as the Cretans say, in subjec- 
 tion to his young retainers whom he has introduced to be their 
 rulers and masters. This is the end of his passions and desires. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 When such men are only private individuals and before they 
 get power, this is their character; they associate entirely with 
 their own flatterers or ready tools; or if they want anything 
 from anybody, they in their turn are equally ready to bow 
 down before them: they profess every sort of affection for 
 them ; but when they have gained their point they know them 
 no more. 
 
 Yes, truly.
 
 278 PLATO 
 
 They are always either the masters or servants and never 
 the friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true free- 
 dom or friendship. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And may we not rightly call such men treacherous? 
 
 No question. 
 
 Also they are utterly unjust, if we were right in our no- 
 tion of justice? 
 
 Yes, he said, and we were perfectly right. 
 
 Let us, then, sum up in a word, I said, the character of the 
 worst man : he is the waking reality of what we dreamed. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 And this is he who being by nature most of a tyrant bears 
 rule, and the longer he lives the more of a tyrant he becomes. 
 
 That is certain, said Glaucon, taking his turn to answer. 
 
 And will not he who has been shown to be the wickedest, 
 be also the most miserable? and he who has tyrannized long- 
 est and most, most continually and truly miserable; although 
 this may not be the opinion of men in general ? 
 
 Yes, he said, inevitably. 
 
 And must not the tyrannical man be like the tyrannical 
 State, and the democratical man like the democratical State; 
 and the same of the others? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And as State is to State in virtue and happiness, so is man 
 in relation to man? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 Then comparing our original city, which was under a king, 
 and the city which is under a tyrant, how do they stand as to 
 virtue ? 
 
 They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very 
 best and the other is the very worst. 
 
 There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and 
 therefore I will at once inquire whether you would arrive at 
 a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. 
 And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at 
 the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may per- 
 haps have a few retainers about him ; but let us go as we 
 ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and 
 then we will give our opinion.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 279 
 
 A fair invitation, he replied; and I see, as everyone must, 
 that a tyranny is the wretchedest form of government, and the 
 rule of a king the happiest. 
 
 And in estimating the men, too, may I not fairly make a 
 like request, that I should have a judge whose mind can enter 
 into and see through human nature? he must not be like a 
 child who looks at the outside and is dazzled at the pompous 
 aspect which the tyrannical nature assumes to the beholder, 
 but let him be one who has a clear insight. May I suppose 
 that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one 
 who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with 
 him, and been present at his daily life and known him in his 
 family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy 
 attire, and again in the hour of public danger he shall tell 
 us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when com- 
 pared with other men? 
 
 That again, he said, is a very fair proposal. 
 
 Shall I assume that we ourselves are able and experienced 
 judges and have before now met with such a person? We 
 shall then have someone who will answer our inquiries. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 Let me ask you not to forget the parallel of the individual 
 and the State; bearing this in mind, and glancing in turn 
 from one to the other of them, will you tell me their respec- 
 tive conditions? 
 
 What do you mean ? he asked. 
 
 Beginning with the State, I replied, would you say that a 
 city which is governed by a tyrant is free or enslaved? 
 
 No city, he said, can be more completely enslaved. 
 
 And yet, as you see, there are freemen as well as masters 
 in such a State? 
 
 Yes, he said, I see that there are a few; but the people, 
 speaking generally, and the best of them are miserably de- 
 graded and enslaved. 
 
 Then if the man is like the State, I said, must not the same 
 rule prevail? His soul is full of meanness and vulgarity 
 the best elements in him are enslaved ; and there is a small 
 ruling part, which is also the worst and maddest. 
 
 Inevitably. 
 
 And would you say that the soul of such a one is the soul 
 of a freeman or of a slave?
 
 2 8o PLATO 
 
 He has the soul of a slave, in my opinion. 
 
 And the State which is enslaved under a tyrant is utterly 
 incapable of acting voluntarily? 
 
 Utterly incapable. 
 
 And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking 
 of the soul taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what 
 she desires; there is a gadfly which goads her, and she is 
 full of trouble and remorse? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor? 
 
 Poor. 
 
 And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And must not such a State and such a man be always full 
 of fear? 
 
 Yes, indeed. 
 
 Is there any State in which you will find more of lamenta- 
 tion and sorrow and groaning and pain? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And is there any man in whom you will find more of this 
 sort of misery than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury 
 of passions and desires? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyran- 
 nical State to be the most miserable of States? 
 
 And I was right, he said. 
 
 Certainly, I said. And when you see the same evils in the 
 tyrannical man, what do you say of him? 
 
 I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men. 
 
 There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong. 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost ex- 
 treme of misery. 
 
 Then who is more miserable? 
 
 One of whom I am about to speak. 
 
 Who is that ? 
 
 He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a 
 private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of 
 being a public tyrant. 
 
 From what has been said, I gather that you are right.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 281 
 
 Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a 
 little more certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all 
 questions, this respecting good and evil is the greatest. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, 
 throw a light upon this subject. 
 
 What is your illustration? 
 
 The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many 
 slaves: from them you may form an idea of the tyrant's con- 
 dition, for they both have slaves; the only difference is that 
 he has more slaves. 
 
 Yes, that is the difference. 
 
 You know that they live securely and have nothing to ap- 
 prehend from their servants? 
 
 What should they fear? 
 
 Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this? 
 
 Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together 
 for the protection of each individual. 
 
 Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the 
 master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and 
 property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, 
 where there are no freemen to help him will he not be in 
 an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be 
 put to death by his slaves? 
 
 Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. 
 
 The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter 
 divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of free- 
 dom and other things, much against his will he will have 
 to cajole his own servants. 
 
 Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. 
 
 And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to sur- 
 round him with neighbors who will not suffer one man to 
 be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the 
 offender, would take his life? 
 
 His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be every- 
 where surrounded and watched by enemies. 
 
 And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will 
 be bound he who being by nature such as we have described, 
 is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and 
 greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never
 
 282 PLATO 
 
 allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other 
 freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman 
 hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who 
 goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. 
 
 Very true/he said. 
 
 And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed 
 in his own person the tyrannical man, I mean whom you 
 just now decided to be the most miserable of all will not 
 he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private 
 life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He 
 has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: 
 he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass 
 his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with 
 other men. 
 
 Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. 
 
 Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual 
 tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to 
 be the worst? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the 
 real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation 
 and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. 
 He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has 
 more wants than anyone, ancl is truly poor, if you know how 
 to inspect the whole soul of him : all his life long he is beset 
 with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as 
 the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance 
 holds? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from 
 having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, 
 more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, 
 than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of 
 every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely 
 miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as 
 himself. 
 
 No man of any sense will dispute your words. 
 
 Come, then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical 
 contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your 
 opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, and
 
 THE REPUBLIC 283 
 
 in what order the others follow : there are five of them in all 
 they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, 
 tyrannical. 
 
 The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be 
 choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the 
 order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, 
 happiness and misery. 
 
 Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce that the son 
 of Ariston (the best) has decided that the best and justest 
 is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal 
 man and king over himself; and that the worst and most un- 
 just man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who 
 being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant 
 of his State ? 
 
 Make the proclamation yourself, he said. 
 
 And shall I add, " whether seen or unseen by gods and 
 men"? 
 
 Let the words be added. 
 
 Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is an- 
 other, which may also have some weight. 
 
 What is that? 
 
 The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: 
 seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been di- 
 vided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, 
 furnish a new demonstration. 
 
 Of what nature? 
 
 It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures 
 correspond ; also three desires and governing powers. 
 
 How do you mean? he said. 
 
 There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a 
 man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, hav- 
 ing many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the 
 general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and 
 vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other 
 sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also 
 money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by 
 t " help of money. 
 
 That is true, he said. 
 
 If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third 
 part were concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall
 
 284 PLATO 
 
 back on a single notion ; and might truly and intelligibly de- 
 scribe this part of the soul as loving gain or money. 
 
 I agree with you. 
 
 Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling 
 and conquering and getting fame? 
 
 True. 
 
 Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious would the 
 term be suitable ? 
 
 Extremely suitable. 
 
 On the other hand, everyone sees that the principle of knowl- 
 edge is wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either 
 of the others for gain or fame. 
 
 Far less. 
 
 " Lover of wisdom," " lover of knowledge," are titles which 
 we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, an- 
 other in others, as may happen? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes 
 of men lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, lovers of gain? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their sev- 
 eral objects? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of 
 them in turn which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be 
 found praising his own and depreciating that of others: the 
 money-maker will contrast the vanity of honor or of learning 
 if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold 
 and silver? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And the lover of honor what will be his opinion? Will 
 he not think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the 
 pleasure of learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke 
 and nonsense to him? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And are we to suppose, 1 I said, that the philosopher sets 
 
 1 Reading with Grasere and Hermann rt oiw/ic0a, and omitting oiiSir, which is not found 
 in the best MSS.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 285 
 
 any value on other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure 
 of knowing the truth, and in that pursuit abiding, ever learn- 
 ing, not so far indeed from the heaven of pleasure? Does 
 he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that 
 if there were no necessity for them, he would rather not have 
 them? 
 
 There can be no doubt of that, he replied. 
 
 Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each 
 are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or 
 less honorable, or better or worse, but which is the more 
 pleasant or painless how shall we know who speaks truly? 
 
 I cannot myself tell, he said. 
 
 Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better 
 than experience, and wisdom, and reason? 
 
 There cannot be a better, he said. 
 
 Then, I said, reflect. Of the three individuals, which has 
 the greatest experience of all the pleasures which we enumer- 
 ated? Has the lover of gain, in learning the nature of essen- 
 tial truth, greater experience of the pleasure of knowledge 
 than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain? 
 
 The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for 
 he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleas- 
 ures from his childhood upward: but the lover of gain in all 
 his experience has not of necessity tasted or, I should rather 
 say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted the sweet- 
 ness of learning and knowing truth. 
 
 Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the 
 lover of gain, for he has a double experience? 
 
 Yes, very great. 
 
 Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honor, 
 or the lover of honor of the pleasures of wisdom? 
 
 Nay, he said, all three are honored in proportion as they 
 attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and 
 the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they 
 all receive honor they all have experience of the pleasures of 
 honor ; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge 
 of true being is known to the philosopher only. 
 
 His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than 
 anyone ? 
 
 Far better.
 
 2 86 PLATO 
 
 And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experi- 
 ence? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judg- 
 ment is not possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but 
 only by the philosopher? 
 
 What faculty? 
 
 Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought 
 to rest. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or 
 blame of the lover of gain would surely be the most trust- 
 worthy ? 
 
 Assuredly. 
 
 Or if honor, or victory, or courage, in that case the judg- 
 ment of the ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 But since experience and wisdom and reason are the 
 judges 
 
 The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures 
 which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are 
 the truest. 
 
 And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the in- 
 telligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and 
 that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the 
 pleasantest life. 
 
 Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority 
 when he approves of his own life. 
 
 And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, 
 and the pleasure which is next? 
 
 Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honor ; who is nearer 
 to himself than the money-maker. 
 
 Last comes the lover of gain? 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the 
 unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which 
 is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers 
 in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite
 
 THE REPUBLIC 287 
 
 true and pure all others are a shadow only ; and surely this 
 will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls? 
 
 Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself? 
 
 I will work out the subject and you shall answer my ques- 
 tions. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain? 
 
 True. 
 
 And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor 
 pain? 
 
 There is. 
 
 A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the 
 soul about either that is what you mean? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 You remember what people say when they are sick? 
 
 What do they say? 
 
 That after all nothing is pleasanter than health. But then 
 they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they 
 were ill. 
 
 Yes, I know, he said. 
 
 And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must 
 have heard them say that there is nothing pleasanter than to 
 get rid of their pain? 
 
 I have. 
 
 And there are many other cases of suffering in which the 
 mere rest and cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoy- 
 ment, are extolled by them as the greatest pleasure? 
 
 Yes, he said ; at the time they are pleased and well content 
 to be at rest. 
 
 Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation 
 will be painful ? 
 
 Doubtless, he said. 
 
 Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will 
 also be pain? 
 
 So it would seem. 
 
 But can that which is neither become both? 
 
 I should say not. 
 
 And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are 
 they not? 
 
 Yes.
 
 288 PLATO 
 
 But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest 
 and not motion, and in a mean between them ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence 
 of pain is pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 This, then, is an appearance only, and not a reality ; that is 
 to say, the rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison 
 of what is painful, and painful in comparison of what is pleas- 
 ant; but all these representations, when tried by the test of 
 true pleasure, are not real, but a sort of imposition? 
 
 That is the inference. 
 
 Look at the other class of pleasures which have no ante- 
 cedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps 
 may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or 
 pain of pleasure. 
 
 What are they, he said, and where shall I find them? 
 
 There are many of them : take as an example, the pleasures 
 of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; 
 they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain 
 behind them. 
 
 Most true, he said. 
 
 Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure 
 is the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure. 
 
 No. 
 
 Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach 
 the soul through the body are generally of this sort they are 
 reliefs of pain. 
 
 That is true. 
 
 And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of 
 a like nature? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Shall I give you an illustration of them? 
 
 Let me hear. 
 
 You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper 
 and lower and middle region? 
 
 I should. 
 
 And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle 
 region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he 
 who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come,
 
 THE REPUBLIC 289 
 
 would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he 
 has never seen the true upper world? 
 
 To be sure, he said ; how can he think otherwise ? 
 
 But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly 
 imagine, that he was descending? 
 
 No doubt. 
 
 All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper 
 and middle and lower regions? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced 
 in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, 
 should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and 
 the intermediate state ; so that when they are only being 
 drawn toward the painful they feel pain and think the pain 
 which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when 
 drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, 
 they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety 
 and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting 
 pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black 
 with gray instead of white can you wonder, I say, at this? 
 
 No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder 
 at the opposite. 
 
 Look at the matter thus: Hunger, thirst, and the like, are 
 inanitions of the bodily state ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? 
 
 True. 
 
 And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions 
 of either ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or 
 from that which has more existence the truer? 
 
 Clearly, from that which has more. 
 
 What classes of things have a greater share of pure ex- 
 istence, in your judgment those of which food and drink and 
 condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the 
 class which contains true opinion and knowledge and mind 
 and all the different kinds of virtue? Put the question in this 
 way : Which has a more pure being that which is concerned 
 with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such 
 19
 
 290 
 
 PLATO 
 
 a nature, and is found in such natures ; or that which is con- 
 cerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself 
 variable and mortal? 
 
 Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is con- 
 cerned with the invariable. 
 
 And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowl- 
 edge in the same degree as of essence? 
 
 Yes, of knowledge in the same degree. 
 
 And of truth in the same degree? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have 
 less of essence ? 
 
 Necessarily. 
 
 Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the 
 service of the body have less of truth and essence than those 
 which are in the service of the soul? 
 
 Far less. 
 
 And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than 
 the soul? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a 
 more real existence, is more really filled than that which is 
 filled with less real existence and is less real? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which 
 is according to nature, that which is more really filled with 
 more real being will more really and truly enjoy true pleas- 
 ure; whereas that which participates in less real being will 
 be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an 
 illusory and less real pleasure? 
 
 Unquestionably. 
 
 Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are al- 
 ways busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up 
 again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at 
 random throughout life, but they never pass into the true 
 upper world ; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find 
 their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do 
 they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with 
 their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to 
 the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and
 
 THE REPUBLIC 291 
 
 breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick 
 and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made 
 of iron ; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable 
 lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not sub- 
 stantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also un- 
 substantial and incontinent. 
 
 Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the 
 many like an oracle. 
 
 Their pleasures are mixed with pains how can they be 
 otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the 
 true, and are colored by contrast, which exaggerates both light 
 and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane 
 desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesich- 
 orus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen 
 at Troy, in ignorance of the truth. 
 
 Something of that sort must inevitably happen. 
 
 And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate 
 element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who car- 
 ries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is 
 envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry 
 and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honor and victory 
 and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense? 
 
 Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited ele- 
 ment also. 
 
 Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money 
 and honor, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance 
 and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after 
 and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also 
 have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attain- 
 able to them, inasmuch as they follow truth ; and they will 
 have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which 
 is best for each one is also most natural to him? 
 
 Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural. 
 
 And when the whole soul follows the philosophical prin- 
 ciple, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and 
 do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the 
 best and truest pleasures of which they are capable? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails 
 in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue
 
 292 
 
 PLATO 
 
 after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their 
 own? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the greater the interval which separates them from 
 philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be 
 the pleasure? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest 
 distance from law and order? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at 
 the greatest distance? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the royal and orderly desires are nearest? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true 
 or natural pleasure, and the king at the least? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the 
 king most pleasantly? 
 
 Inevitably. 
 
 Would you know the measure of the interval which sepa- 
 rates them? 
 
 Will you tell me? 
 
 There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two 
 spurious : now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point 
 beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of 
 law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave 
 pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his in- 
 feriority can only be expressed in a figure. 
 
 How do you mean? 
 
 I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from 
 the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be 
 wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as 
 to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch? 
 
 He will. 
 
 And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count 
 as one royal and aristocratical ?
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 293 
 
 Yes, he is third. 
 
 Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space 
 of a number which is three times three? 
 
 Manifestly. 
 
 The shadow, then, of tyrannical pleasure determined by the 
 number of length will be a plane figure. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there 
 is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which 
 the tyrant is parted from the king. 
 
 Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum. 
 
 Or if some person begins at the other end and measures 
 the interval by which the king is parted from the tyrant in 
 truth of pleasure, he will find him, when the multiplication is 
 completed, living 729 * times more pleasantly, and the tyrant 
 more painfully by this same interval. 
 
 What a wonderful calculation! And how enormous is the 
 distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to 
 pleasure and pain ! 
 
 Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly 
 concerns human life, if human beings are concerned with days 
 and nights and months and years. 
 
 Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. 
 
 Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure 
 to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater 
 in propriety of life and in beauty and virtue? 
 
 Immeasurably greater. 
 
 Well, I said, and now having arrived at this stage of the 
 argument, we may revert to the words which brought us 
 hither: Was not someone saying that injustice was a gain 
 to the perfectly unjust who was reputed to be just? 
 
 Yes, that was said. 
 
 Now, then, having determined the power and quality of 
 justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. 
 
 What shall we say to him? 
 
 Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his 
 own words presented before his eyes. 
 
 Of what sort? 
 
 An ideal image of the soul, like the composite creations of 
 
 * 729 nearly equals the number of days and nights in the year.
 
 294 PLATO 
 
 ancient mythology, such as the Chimera, or Scylla, or Cerberus, 
 and there are many others in which two or more different 
 natures are said to grow into one. 
 
 There are said to have been such unions. 
 
 Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many- 
 headed monster , having a ring of heads of all manner of 
 beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and meta- 
 morphose at will. 
 
 You suppose marvellous powers in the artist; but, as lan- 
 guage is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let 
 there be such a model as you propose. 
 
 Suppose now that you make a second form as of a lion, and 
 a third of a man, the second smaller than the first, and the 
 third smaller than the second. 
 
 That, he said, is an easier task; and I have made them as 
 you say. 
 
 And now join them, and let the three grow into one. 
 
 That has been accomplished. 
 
 Next fashion the outside of them into a single image, as of 
 a man, so that he who is not able to look within, and sees only 
 the outer hull, may believe the beast to be a single human 
 creature. 
 
 I have done so, he said. 
 
 And now, to him who maintains that it is profitable for the 
 human creature to be unjust, and unprofitable to be just, let 
 us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature 
 to feast the multitudinous monster and strengthen the lion and 
 the lion-like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who 
 is consequently liable to be dragged about at the mercy of 
 either of the other two ; and he is not to attempt to familiarize 
 or harmonize them with one another he ought rather to suf- 
 fer them to fight, and bite and devour one another. 
 
 Certainly, he said; that is what the approver of injustice 
 says. 
 
 To him the supporter of justice makes answer that he 
 should ever so speak and act as to give the man within him 
 in some way or other the most complete mastery over the 
 entire human creature. He should watch over the many- 
 headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and culti- 
 vating the gentle qualities, and preventing the wild ones from
 
 THE REPUBLIC 295 
 
 growing; he should be making the lion-heart his ally, and in 
 common care of them all should be uniting the several parts 
 with one another and with himself. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice 
 will say. 
 
 And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, 
 honor, or advantage, the approver of justice is right and 
 speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and 
 ignorant ? 
 
 Yes, from every point of view. 
 
 Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who 
 is not intentionally in error. " Sweet sir," we will say to him, 
 "what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is 
 not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or 
 rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which sub- 
 jects the man to the beast?" He can hardly avoid saying, 
 Yes can he, now? 
 
 Not if he has any regard for my opinion. 
 
 But, if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another 
 question : " Then how would a man profit if he received gold 
 and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest 
 part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who 
 sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if 
 he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be 
 the gainer, however large might be the sum which he re- 
 ceived? And will anyone say that he is not a miserable 
 caitiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that 
 which is most godless and detestable? Eriphyle took the 
 necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a 
 bribe in order to compass a worse ruin." 
 
 Yes, said Glaucon, far worse I will answer for him. 
 
 Has not the intemperate been censured of old, because in 
 him the huge multiform monster is allowed to be too much at 
 large ? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the 
 lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and 
 gains strength ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And luxury and softness are blamed, because they relax 
 and weaken this same creature, and make a coward of him?
 
 296 PLATO 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who 
 subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and, 
 for the sake of money, of which he can never have enough, 
 habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the 
 mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey? 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And why are mean employments and manual arts a re- 
 proach? Only because they imply a natural weakness of the 
 higher principle ; the individual is unable to control the creat- 
 ures within him, but has to court them, and his great study 
 is how to flatter them. 
 
 Such appears to be the reason. 
 
 And therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule 
 like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant 
 of the best, in whom the Divine rules ; not, as Thrasymachus 
 supposed, to the injury of the servant, but because everyone 
 had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him ; 
 or, if this be impossible, then by an external authority, in 
 order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same 
 government, friends and equals. 
 
 True, he said. 
 
 And this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which 
 is the ally of the whole city ; and is seen also in the authority 
 which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them 
 be free until we have established in them a principle analogous 
 to the constitution of a State, and by cultivation of this higher 
 element have set up in their hearts a guardian and ruler like 
 our own, and when this is done they may go their ways. 
 
 Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. 
 
 From what point of view, then, and on what ground can 
 we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance or 
 other baseness, which will make him a worse man, even 
 though he acquire money or power by his wickedness? 
 
 From no point of view at all. 
 
 What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and un- 
 punished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas 
 he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his 
 nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him 
 is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by
 
 THE REPUBLIC 297 
 
 the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more 
 than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength, 
 and health, in proportion as the soul is more honorable than 
 the body. 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 To this nobler purpose the man of understanding will devote 
 the energies of his life. And in the first place, he will honor 
 studies which impress these qualities on his soul, and will dis- 
 regard others? 
 
 Clearly, he said. 
 
 In the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and train- 
 ing, and so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational 
 pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary 
 matter ; his first object will be not that he may be fair or strong 
 or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he 
 will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the 
 harmony of the soul? 
 
 Certainly he will, if he has true music in him. 
 
 And in the acquisition of wealth there is a principle of order 
 and harmony which he will also observe ; he will not allow him- 
 self to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap 
 up riches to his own infinite harm ? 
 
 Certainly not, he said. 
 
 He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed 
 that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from 
 superfluity or from want ; and upon this principle he will regu- 
 late his property and gain or spend according to his means. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And, for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy 
 such honors as he deems likely to make him a better man ; but 
 those, whether private or public, which are likely to disorder 
 his life, he will avoid? 
 
 Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman. 
 
 By the dog of Egypt, he will ! in the city which is his own 
 he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, 
 unless he have a divine call. 
 
 I understand ; you mean that he will be a ruler in the city 
 of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only; 
 for I do not believe that there is such a one anywhere on earth ? 
 
 In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks,
 
 298 PLATO 
 
 which he who desires may behold, and beholding, may set his 
 own house in order. 1 But whether such a one exists, or ever 
 will exist in fact, is no matter ; for he will live after the manner 
 of that city, having nothing to do with any other. 
 I think so, he said. 
 
 1 Or, " take up his abode there."
 
 BOOK X 
 
 THE RECOMPENSE OF LIFE 
 
 SOCRATES, GLAUCON 
 
 OF the many excellences which I perceive in the order of 
 our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases 
 me better than the rule about poetry. 
 
 To what do you refer? 
 
 To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought 
 not to be received ; as I see far more clearly now that the parts 
 of the soul have been distinguished. 
 
 What do you mean ? 
 
 Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my"\ 
 words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative 
 tribe but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imita- > 
 tions are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that 
 the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them. ' 
 
 Explain the purport of your remark. 
 
 Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest 
 youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes 
 the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and 
 teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a 
 man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore 
 I will speak out. 
 
 Very good, he said. 
 
 Listen to me, then, or, rather, answer me. 
 
 Put your question. 
 
 Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know. 
 
 A likely thing, then, that I should know. 
 
 Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner 
 than the keener. 
 
 Very true, he said ; but in your presence, even if I had any 
 
 299
 
 300 
 
 PLATO 
 
 faint notion, I could not muster courage to utter it. Will you 
 inquire yourself? 
 
 Well, then, shall we begin the inquiry in our usual manner : 
 Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we 
 assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form ; do you 
 understand me ? 
 
 I do. 
 
 Let us take any common instance ; there are beds and tables 
 in the world plenty of them, are there not ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But there are only two ideas or forms of them one the idea 
 of a bed, the other of a table. 
 
 True. 
 
 And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes 
 a table for our use, in accordance with the idea that is our 
 way of speaking in this and similar instances but no artificer 
 makes the ideas themselves : how could he ? 
 
 Impossible. 
 
 And there is another artist I should like to know what you 
 would say of him. 
 
 Who is he ? 
 
 One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen. 
 
 What an extraordinary man ! 
 
 Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying 
 so. For this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every 
 kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things 
 the earth and heaven, and the things which are in heaven or 
 under the earth ; he makes the gods also. 
 
 He must be a wizard and no mistake. 
 
 Oh ! you are incredulous, are you ? Do you mean that there 
 
 is no such maker or creator, or that in one sense there might 
 
 1\/ be a maker of all these things, but in another not ? Do you see 
 
 that there is a way in which you could make them all yourself ? 
 
 What way? 
 
 An easy way enough ; or rather, there are many ways in 
 which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none 
 quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round you 
 would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the 
 earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the 
 other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 301 
 
 Yes, he said ; but they would be appearances only. 
 
 Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And > 
 the painter, too, is, as I conceive, just such another a creator ) 
 of appearances, is he not ? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is un- 
 true. And yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates 
 a bed? 
 
 Yes, he said, but not a real bed. 
 
 And what of the maker of the bed ? were you not saying that 
 he too makes, not the idea which, according to our view, is the 
 essence of the bed, but only a particular bed? 
 
 Yes, I did. 
 
 Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make 
 true existence, but only some semblance of existence; and if 
 anyone were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or 
 of any other workman, has real existence, he could hardly be/ 
 supposed to be speaking the truth. 
 
 At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was 
 not speaking the truth. , -~\ i 
 
 No wonder, then, that his work, too, is an indistinct expres- I 1 s 
 sion of truth. 
 
 No wonder. 
 
 Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered 
 we inquire who this imitator is? 
 
 If you please. 
 
 Well, then, here are three beds : one existing in nature, which i . \ 7, 
 is made by God, as I think that we may say for no one else 
 can be the maker ? 
 
 No. 
 
 There is another which is the work of the carpenter ? 
 
 , r 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the work of the painter is a third ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who 
 superintend them : God, the maker of the bed, and the painter ? 
 
 Yes, there are three of them. 
 
 God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed 
 in nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither 
 ever have been nor ever will be made by God.
 
 302 
 
 PLATO 
 
 Why is that? 
 
 Because even if He had made but two, a third would still 
 appear behind them which both of them would have for their 
 idea, and that would be the ideal bed and not the two others. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 God knew this, and he desired to be the real maker of a real 
 bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore 
 he created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only. 
 
 So we believe. 
 
 Shall we, then, speak of him as the natural author or maker 
 of the bed ? 
 
 Yes, he replied ; inasmuch as by the natural process of crea- 
 tion he is the author of this and of all other things. 
 
 And what shall we say of the carpenter is not he also the 
 maker of the bed ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But would you call the painter a creator and maker? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? 
 
 I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the 
 imitator of that which the others make. 
 
 Good, I said ; then you call him who is third in the descent 
 from nature an imitator? 
 
 Certainly, he said. 
 
 And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, therefore, like all 
 other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from 
 the trqth? 
 
 That appears to be so. 
 
 Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about 
 the painter ? I would like to know whether he may be thought 
 to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the 
 creations of artists ? 
 
 The latter. 
 
 As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine 
 this. 
 
 What do you mean ? 
 
 I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of 
 view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and 
 the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. 
 And the same of all things.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 303 
 
 Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent. 
 
 Now let me ask you another question : Which is the art of 
 painting designed to be an imitation of things as they are, or 
 as they appear of appearance or of reality? 
 
 Of appearance. 
 
 Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and 
 can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of 
 them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will 
 paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows 
 nothing of their arts ; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive 
 children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of 
 a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are 
 looking at a real carpenter. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man 
 who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, 
 and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than 
 any other man whoever tells us this, I think that we can only 
 imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been 
 deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he 
 thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze 
 the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, 
 and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all 
 things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for 
 that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his 
 subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be 
 a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not 
 be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imi- 
 tators and been deceived by them ; they may not have remem- 
 bered when they saw their works that these were but imitations 
 thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made with- 
 out any knowledge of theJruth. because they are appearances 
 only and not realities ? Or, after all, they may be in the right, 
 and poets do really know the things about which they seem to 
 the many to speak so well ? 
 
 The question, he said, should by all means be considered. 
 
 Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the 
 original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself
 
 34 
 
 \rtj* 
 
 PLATO 
 
 f 
 
 to the image-making branch ? Would he allow imitation to be 
 
 the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in 
 him? 
 
 I should say not. 
 
 The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be 
 interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire 
 to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, 
 instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to 
 be the theme of them. 
 
 Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater 
 honor and profit. 
 
 Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about 
 medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally 
 refer : we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether 
 he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school 
 of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only 
 talks about medicine and other arts at second-hand; but we 
 have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, edu- 
 cation, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, 
 and we may fairly ask him about them. " Friend Homer," 
 then we say to him, " if you are only in the second remove from 
 truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third not an 
 image maker or imitator and if you are able to discern what 
 pursuits make men betterorworse in private or public life, tell 
 us what State was ever better governed by your help? The 
 good order of Lacedsemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other 
 cities, great and small, have been similarly benefited by others ; 
 but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and 
 have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charon- 
 das, and there is Solon who is renowned among us ; but what 
 city has anything to say about you ? " Is there any city which 
 he might name ? \ 
 
 I think not, said Glauton ; not even the Homerids themselves 
 pretend that he was a legislator. 
 
 Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on 
 successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was 
 alive ? 
 
 There is not. 
 
 Or is there any invention 1 of his, applicable to the arts or to 
 
 1 Omitting i.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 35 
 
 human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the 
 Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is 
 attributed to him? 
 
 There is absolutely nothing of the kind. 
 
 But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately 
 a guide or teacher of any ? Had he in his lifetime friends who 
 loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity 
 a Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras, 
 who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose fol- 
 lowers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was 
 named after him ? 
 
 Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For, surely, Soc- 
 rates, Creophylr.s, the companion of Homer, that child of 
 flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly 
 ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly 
 neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive ? 
 
 Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, 
 Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and im- 
 prove mankind if he had possessed knowledge, and not been a 
 mere imitator can you imagine, I say, that he would not have 
 had many followers, and been honored and loved by them? 
 Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos and a host of 
 others have only to whisper to their contemporaries : " You 
 will never be able to manage either your own house or your 
 own State until you appoint us to be your ministers of educa- 
 tion " and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect 
 in making men love them that their companions all but carry 
 them about on their shoulders. And is it conceivable that the 
 contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have al- 
 lowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had 
 really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not 
 have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have 
 compelled them to stay at home with them ? Or, if the master 
 would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him 
 about everywhere, until they had got education enough? 
 
 Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true. 
 
 Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, 
 beginning with Homer, are only imitators ; they copy images 
 of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The 
 poet is like a painter who, as \Veyhave already observed, will
 
 306 PLATO 
 
 make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of 
 cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know 
 no more than he does, and judge only by colors and figures. 
 
 Quite so. 
 
 In like manner the poet with his words and phrases x may 
 be said to lay on the colors of the several arts, himself under- 
 standing their nature only enough to imitate them; and other 
 people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his 
 words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tac- 
 tics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he 
 / \ speaks very well such is the sweet influence which melody 
 / and rhythm by nature have. And I tfimk that you must have 
 V observM again and again what a poor appearance the tales of 
 poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon 
 them, and recited in simple prose. 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but 
 only blooming ; and now the bloom of youth has passed away 
 from them? 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 Here is another point : The imitator or maker of the image 
 knows nothing of true existence ; he knows appearances only. 
 Am I not right ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied 
 with half an explanation. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will 
 paint a bit ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the worker in leather and brass will make them? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins ? 
 Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make 
 them ; only the horseman who knows how to use them he 
 knows their right form. 
 
 Most true. 
 
 And may we not say the same of all things? 
 
 What? 
 
 1 Or, " with his nouns and verbs."
 
 THE REPUBLIC 307 
 
 That there are three arts which are concerned with all things : 
 one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates 
 them? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, 
 animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative 1 
 to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. ' 
 
 True. 
 
 Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of 
 them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad quali- 
 ties which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute- 
 player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory 
 to the performer ; he will tell him how he ought to make them, 
 and the other will attend to his instructions ? 
 
 Of course. 
 
 The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about 
 the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding 
 in him, will do what he is told by him ? 
 
 True. 
 
 The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or bad- 
 ness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief ; and this 
 he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being 
 compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will 
 have knowledge ? 
 
 True. 
 
 But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use 
 whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he 
 have right opinion from being compelled to associate with an- 
 other who knows and gives him instructions about what he 
 should draw? 
 
 Neither. 
 
 Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have ^ 
 knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations ? 
 
 I suppose not. 
 
 The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence 
 about his own creations? 
 
 Nay, very much the reverse. 
 
 And still he will go on imitating without knowing what 
 makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to 
 imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant 
 multitude ?
 
 308 PLATO 
 
 Just so. 
 
 Thus far, then, we are pretty well agreed that the imitator 
 has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Im- 
 itation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, 
 whether they write in iambic or in heroic verse, are imitators 
 in the highest degree ? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown 
 by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from 
 the truth? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is ad- 
 dressed ? 
 
 What do you mean? 
 
 I will explain : The body which is large when seen near, ap- 
 pears small when seen at a distance ? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the same objects appear straight when looked at out 
 of the water, and crooked when in the water ; and the concave 
 becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colors to which 
 the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed 
 within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on 
 which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and 
 shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect 
 upon us like magic. 
 
 True. 
 
 And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing 
 come to the rescue of the human understanding there is the 
 beauty of them and the apparent greater or less, or more or 
 heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way be- 
 fore calculation and measure and weight? 
 
 Most true. 
 
 And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and 
 rational principle in the soul ? 
 
 To be sure. 
 
 And when this principle measures and certifies that some 
 things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, 
 there occurs an apparent contradiction ? 
 
 True. 
 
 But were we not saying that such a contradiction is impos-
 
 THE REPUBLIC 309 
 
 sible the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the 
 same time about the same thing? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to 
 measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in ac- 
 cordance with measure? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which 
 trusts to measure and calculation ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior 
 principles of the soul? 
 
 No doubt. 
 
 This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive 
 when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, 
 when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, 
 and the companions and friends and associates of a* principle 
 within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they 
 have no true or healthy aim. 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and 
 has inferior offspring. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to 
 the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry ? 
 
 Probably the same would be true of poetry. 
 
 Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy 
 of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the 
 faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or 
 bad. 
 
 By all means. 
 
 We may state the question thus : Imitation imitates the ac- 
 tions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as 
 they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice 
 or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? 
 
 No, there is nothing else. 
 
 But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity 
 with himself or, rather, as in the instance of sight there were 
 confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, 
 so here also are there not strife and inconsistency in his life ?
 
 3 io 
 
 PLATO 
 
 though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember 
 that all this has been already admitted ; and the soul has been 
 acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar 
 oppositions occurring at the same moment? 
 
 And we were right, he said. 
 
 Yes, I said, thus far we were right ; but there was an omis- 
 sion which must now be supplied. 
 
 What was the omission? 
 
 Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune 
 to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, 
 will bear the loss with more equanimity than another? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although 
 he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? 
 
 The latter, he said, is the truer statement. 
 
 Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out 
 against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is 
 alone ? 
 
 It will make a great difference whether he is seen or not. 
 
 When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many 
 things which he would be ashamed of anyone hearing or seeing 
 him do? 
 
 True. 
 
 There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him 
 resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing 
 him to indulge his sorrow ? 
 
 True. 
 
 But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and 
 from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two 
 distinct principles in him? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 One of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law ? 
 
 How do you mean ? 
 
 The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, 
 and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no 
 knowing whether such things are good or evil ; and nothing is 
 gained by impatience ; also, because no human thing is of seri- 
 ous importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at 
 the moment is most required. 
 
 What is most required ? he asked.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 311 
 
 That we should take counsel about what has happened, and 
 when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way 
 which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a 
 fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting 
 up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply 
 a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing 
 the cry of sorrow by the healing art. 
 
 Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of 
 fortune. 
 
 Yes, I said ; and the higher principle is ready to follow this 
 suggestion of reason? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of 
 our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of 
 them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? 
 
 Indeed, we may. 
 
 And does not the latter I mean the rebellious principle 
 furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas 
 the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, 
 is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially 
 at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a 
 theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are 
 strangers. 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by 
 nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the 
 rational principle in the soul ; but he will prefer the passionate 
 and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? 
 
 Clearly. 
 
 And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side 
 of the painter, for he is like him in two ways : first, inasmuch 
 as his creations have an inferior degree of truth in this, I say, 
 he is like him ; and he is also like him in being concerned with 
 an inferior part of the soul ; and therefore we shall be right in 
 refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he 
 awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and im- 
 pairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to 
 have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the 
 soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil 
 constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no
 
 312 
 
 PLATO 
 
 discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at 
 one time great and at another small he is a manufacturer of 
 images and is very far removed from the truth. 1 
 
 Exactly. 
 
 But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in 
 our accusation : the power which poetry has of harming even 
 the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is 
 surely an awful thing? 
 
 Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say. 
 
 Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we 
 listen to a passage of Homer or one of the tragedians, in which 
 he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows 
 in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast the best 
 of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in 
 raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings 
 most. 
 
 Yes, of course, I know. 
 
 But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you 
 may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality 
 we would fain be quiet and patient ; this is the manly part, and 
 the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed 
 to be the part of a woman. 
 
 Very true, he said. 
 
 Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who 
 is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be 
 ashamed of in his own person ? 
 
 No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable. 
 
 Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view. 
 
 What point of view ? 
 
 If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a 
 natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping 
 and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under con- 
 trol in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the 
 poets; the better nature in each of us, not having been suffi- 
 ciently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic ele- 
 ment to break loose because the sorrow is another's ; and the 
 spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in 
 praising and pitying anyone who comes telling him what a good 
 man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks 
 
 1 Reading ctiwAoirotovFTa . . . a^ctrrwra.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 313 
 
 that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious 
 and lose this and the poem too ? Few persons ever reflect, as I 
 should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of 
 evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sor- 
 row which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes 
 of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. 
 
 How very true ! 
 
 And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There 
 are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and 
 yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear 
 them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all dis- 
 gusted at their unseemliness ; the case of pity is repeated ; there 
 is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a 
 laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because 
 you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out 
 again ; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, 
 you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the 
 comic poet at home. 
 
 Quite true, he said. 
 
 And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other 
 affections, of desire, and pain, and pleasure, which are held to 
 be inseparable from every action in all of them poetry feeds 
 and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets 
 them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are 
 ever to increase in happiness and virtue. 
 
 I cannot deny it. 
 
 Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of 
 the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator 
 of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the 
 ordering of human things, and that you should take him up 
 again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole 
 life according to him, we may love and honor those who say 
 these things they are excellent people, as far as their lights\ 
 extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the 
 greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers ; but we must re- 
 main firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises 
 of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted 
 into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the 
 honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and 
 the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever
 
 3 i4 PLATO 
 
 been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in 
 our State. 
 
 That is most true, he said. 
 
 And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let 
 this our defence serve to show the reasonableness of our former 
 judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the 
 tendencies which we have described ; for reason constrained us. 
 But that she may not impute to us any harshness or want of 
 politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between 
 philosophy and poetry ; of which there are many proofs, such 
 as the saying of " the yelping hound howling at her lord," or 
 of one " mighty in the vain talk of fools," and " the mob of 
 sages circumventing Zeus," and the " subtle thinkers who are 
 beggars after all " ; and there are innumerable other signs of 
 ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us 
 assure our sweet friend and the sister art of imitation, that if 
 she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we 
 shall be delighted to receive her we are very conscious of her 
 charms ; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I 
 dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I 
 am, especially when she appears in Homer? 
 
 Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed. 
 
 Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from 
 exile, but upon this condition only that she make a defence 
 of herself in lyrical or some other metre? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are 
 lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in 
 prose on her behalf : let them show not only that she is pleasant, 
 but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen 
 in a kindly spirit ; for if this can be proved we shall surely be 
 the gainers I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a 
 delight? 
 
 Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers. 
 
 If her defence fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons 
 who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon 
 themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their 
 interests, so, too, must we after the manner of lovers give her 
 up, though not without a struggle. We, too, are inspired by 
 that love of poetry which the education of noble States has im-
 
 THE REPUBLIC 315 
 
 planted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her 
 best and truest ; but so long as she is unable to make good her 
 defence, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which 
 we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains ; that 
 we may not fall away into the childish love of her which capti- 
 vates the many. At all events we are well aware * that poetry 
 being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously 
 as attaining to the truth ; and he who listens to her, fearing for 
 the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his 
 guard against her seductions and make our words his law. 
 
 Yes, he said, I quite agree with you. 
 
 Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, 
 greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And 
 what will anyone be profited if under the influence of honor or 
 money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he 
 neglect justice and virtue? 
 
 Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I 
 believe that anyone else would have been. 
 
 And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and 
 rewards which await virtue. 
 
 What, are there any greater still? If there are, they must 
 be of an inconceivable greatness. 
 
 Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time? The 
 whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little 
 thing in comparison with eternity ? 
 
 Say rather ' nothing ' he replied. 
 
 And should an immortal being seriously think of this little 
 space rather than of the whole ? 
 
 Of the whole, certainly. But why do you ask? 
 
 Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal 
 and imperishable? 
 
 He looked at me in astonishment, and said : No, by heaven : 
 And are you really prepared to maintain this ? 
 
 Yes, I said, I ought to be, and you too there is no difficulty 
 in proving it. 
 
 I see a great difficulty; but I should like to hear you state 
 this argument of which you make so light. 
 
 Listen, then. 
 
 1 Or, if we accept Madvig's ingenious but unnecessary emendation, fVrfptffa, " At all 
 vents we will sing, that," etc.
 
 3 i6 PLATO 
 
 I am attending. 
 
 There is a thing which you call good and another which you 
 call evil? 
 
 Yes, he replied. 
 
 Would you agree with me in thinking that the corrupting 
 and destroying element is the evil, and the saving and improv- 
 ing element the good ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 And you admit that everything has a good and also an evil ; 
 as ophthalmia is the evil of the eyes and disease of the whole 
 body ; as mildew is of corn, and rot of timber, or rust of copper 
 and iron : in everything, or in almost everything, there is an in- 
 herent evil and disease? 
 
 Yes, he said. 
 
 And anything which is infected by any of these evils is made 
 evil, and at last wholly dissolves and dies? 
 
 True. 
 
 The vice and evil which are inherent in each are the destruc- 
 tion of each ; and if these do not destroy them there is nothing 
 else that will; for good certainly will not destroy them, nor, 
 again, that which is neither good nor evil. 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 If, then, we find any nature which having this inherent cor- 
 ruption cannot be dissolved or destroyed, we may be certain 
 that of such a nature there is no destruction ? 
 
 That may be assumed. 
 
 Well, I said, and is there no evil which corrupts the soul ? 
 
 Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now 
 passing in review : unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, 
 ignorance. 
 
 But does any of these dissolve or destroy her ? and here do 
 not let us fall into the error of supposing that the unjust and 
 foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own in- 
 justice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the 
 body : The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and re- 
 duces and annihilates the body ; and all the things of which 
 we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their 
 own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and 
 so destroying them. Is not this true? 
 
 Yes.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 317 
 
 Consider the soul in like manner. Does the injustice or 
 other evil which exists in the soul waste and consume her? 
 Do they by attaching to the soul and inhering in her at last 
 bring her to death, and so separate her from the body? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 And yet, I said, it is unreasonable to suppose that anything 
 can perish from without through affection of external evil 
 which could not be destroyed from within by a corruption of 
 its own? 
 
 It is, he replied. 
 
 Consider, I said, Glaucon, that even the badness of food, 
 whether staleness, decomposition, or any other bad quality, 
 when confined to the actual food, is not supposed to destroy 
 the body ; although, if the badness of food communicates cor- 
 ruption to the body, then we should say that the body has been 
 destroyed by a corruption of itself, which is disease, brought 
 on by this ; but that the body, being one thing, can be destroyed 
 by the badness of the food, which is another, and which does 
 not engender any natural infection this we shall absolutely 
 deny? 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And, on the same principle, unless some bodily evil can pro- 
 duce an evil of the soul, we must not suppose that the soul, 
 which is one thing, can be dissolved by any merely external 
 evil which belongs to another ? 
 
 Yes, he said, there is reason in that. 
 
 Either, then, let us refute this conclusion, or, while it remains 
 unrefuted, let us never say that fever, or any other disease, or 
 the knife put to the throat, or even the cutting up of the whole 
 body into the minutest pieces, can destroy the soul, until she 
 herself is proved to become more unholy or unrighteous in con- 
 sequence of these things being done to the body ; but that the 
 soul, or anything else if not destroyed by an internal evil, can 
 be destroyed by an external one, is not to be affirmed by any 
 man. 
 
 And surely, he replied, no one will ever prove that the souls 
 of men become more unjust in consequence of death. 
 
 But if someone who would rather not admit the immortality 
 of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really 
 become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right,
 
 318 PLATO 
 
 I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be 
 fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by 
 the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and 
 which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from 
 that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands 
 of others as the penalty of their deeds ? 
 
 Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will 
 not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. 
 But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that in- 
 justice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps 
 the murderer alive aye, and well awake, too ; so far removed 
 is her dwelling-place from being a house of death. 
 
 True, I said ; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul 
 is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is ap- 
 pointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul 
 or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be 
 the destruction. 
 
 Yes, that can hardly be. 
 
 But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether 
 inherent or external, must exist forever, and, if existing for- 
 ever, must be immortal ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 That is the conclusion, I said ; and, if a true conclusion, then 
 the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed 
 they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, 
 for the increase of the immortal natures must come from some- 
 thing mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 But this we cannot believe reason will not allow us any 
 more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be 
 full of variety and difference and dissimilarity. 
 
 What do you mean? he said. 
 
 The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must 
 be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of 
 many elements ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, 
 and there are many other proofs ; but to see her as she really 
 is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the 
 body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the
 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 319 
 
 eye of reason, in her original purity ; and then her beauty will 
 be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which 
 we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus far, 
 we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at pres- 
 ent, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in 
 a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glau- 
 cus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his 
 natural members are broken off and crushed and damaged by 
 the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown 
 over them of sea-weed and shells and stones, so that he is more 
 like some monster than he is to his own natural form. And 
 the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured 
 by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must 
 we look. 
 
 Where, then? 
 
 At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and 
 what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kin- 
 dred with the immortal and eternal and divine ; also how differ- 
 ent she would become if, wholly following this superior princi- 
 ple, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which 
 she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and 
 things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around 
 her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good 
 things in this life as they are termed : then you would see her as 
 she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, 
 or what her nature is. Of her affections and of the forms 
 which she takes in this present life I think that we have now 
 said enough. 
 
 True, he replied. 
 
 And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argu- 
 ment ; x we have not introduced the rewards and glories of 
 justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer 
 and Hesiod ; but justice in her own nature has been shown to 
 be the best for the soul in her own nature. Let a man do what 
 is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if 
 in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. 
 
 Very true. 
 
 And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enu- 
 merating how many and how great are the rewards which jus- 
 
 1 Reading airf\vffdfjif6<n.
 
 32 o PLATO 
 
 tice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and 
 men, both in life and after death. 
 
 Certainly not, he said. 
 
 Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argu- 
 ment ? 
 
 What did I borrow? 
 
 The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and 
 the unjust just : for you were of opinion that even if the true 
 state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and 
 men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the 
 argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against 
 pure injustice. Do you remember? 
 
 I should be much to blame if I had forgotten. 
 
 Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice 
 that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and 
 which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored 
 to her by us ; * since she has been shown to confer reality, and 
 not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been 
 taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of 
 appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own. 
 
 The demand, he said, is just. 
 
 In the first place, I said and this is the first thing which 
 you will have to give back the nature both of the just and un- 
 just is truly known to the gods. 
 
 Granted. 
 
 And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend 
 and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the 
 beginning? 
 
 True. 
 
 And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from 
 them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the 
 necessary consequence of former sins ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when 
 he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, 
 all things will in the end work together for good to him in life 
 and death ; for the gods have a care of anyone whose desire is 
 to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the 
 divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? 
 
 1 Reading rifuay.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 321 
 
 Yes, he said ; if he is like God he will surely not be neglected 
 by him. 
 
 And of the unjust may not the opposite be supposed? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Such, then, are the palms of victory which the gods give the 
 just? 
 
 That is my conviction. 
 
 And what do they receive of men ? Look at things as they 
 really are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the 
 case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the 
 goal, but not back again from the goal : they go off at a great 
 pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their 
 ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown; but 
 the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and 
 is crowned. And this is the way with the just ; he who endures 
 to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a 
 good report and carries off the prize which men have to bestow. 
 
 True. 
 
 And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the bless- 
 ings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust. I 
 shall say of them, what you were saying of the others, that as 
 they grow older, they become rulers in their own city if they 
 care to be ; they marry whom they like and give in marriage to 
 whom they will; all that you said of the others I now say of 
 these. And, on the other hand, of the unjust I say that the 
 greater number, even though they escape in their youth, are 
 found out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, 
 and when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike 
 by stranger and citizen ; they are beaten, and then come those 
 things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them ; they will 
 be racked and have their eyes burned out, as you were saying. 
 And you may suppose that I have repeated the remainder of 
 your tale of horrors. But will you let me assume, without re- 
 citing them, that these things are true ? 
 
 Certainly, he said, what you say is true. 
 
 These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which are 
 bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this present life, 
 in addition to the other good things which justice of herself 
 provides. 
 
 Yes, he said ; and they are fair and lasting. 
 
 21
 
 PLATO 
 
 And yet, I said, all these are as nothing either in number or 
 greatness in comparison with those other recompenses which 
 await both just and unjust after death. And you ought to hear 
 them, and then both just and unjust will have received from us 
 a full payment of the debt which the argument owes to them. 
 
 Speak, he said; there are few things which I would more 
 gladly hear. 
 
 Well, I said, I will tell you a tale ; not one of the tales whicli 
 Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinoiis, yet this, too, is a tale of 
 a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth. He 
 was slain in battle, and ten days afterward, when the bodies 
 of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his 
 body was found unaffected by decay, and carried away home to 
 be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the 
 funeral pyre, he returned to life and told them what he had seen 
 in the other world. He said that when his soul left the body he 
 went on a journey with a great company, and that they came 
 to a mysterious place at which there were two openings in the 
 earth ; they were near together, and over against them were 
 two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate 
 space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after 
 they had given judgment on them and had bound their sen- 
 tences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the 
 right hand ; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them 
 to descend by the lower way on the left hand ; these also bore 
 the symbols of their deeds, but fastened on their backs. He 
 drew near, and they told him that he was to be the messenger 
 who would carry the report of the other world to them, and 
 they bade him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in 
 that place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls de- 
 parting at either opening of heaven and earth when sentence 
 had been given on them ; and at the two other openings other 
 souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with 
 travel, some descending out of heaven clean and bright. And 
 arriving ever and anon they seemed to have come from a long 
 journey, and they went forth with gladness into the meadow, 
 where they encamped as at a festival ; and those who knew one 
 another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from 
 earth curiously inquiring about the things above, and the souls 
 which came from heaven about the things beneath. And they
 
 THE REPUBLIC 323 
 
 told one another of what had happened by the way, those from 
 below weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the things 
 which they had endured and seen in their journey beneath the 
 earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years), while those 
 from above were describing heavenly delights and visions of 
 inconceivable beauty. The story, Glaucon, would take too long 
 to tell ; but the sum was this : He said that for every wrong 
 which they had done to anyone they suffered tenfold ; or once 
 in a hundred years such being reckoned to be the length of 
 man's life, and the penalty being thus paid ten times in a thou- 
 sand years. If, for example, there were any who had been 
 the cause of many deaths, or had betrayed or enslaved cities 
 or armies, or been guilty of any other evil behavior, for each 
 and all of their offences they received punishment ten times 
 over, and the rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness 
 were in the same proportion. I need hardly repeat what he 
 said concerning young children dying almost as soon as they 
 were born. Of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of 
 murderers, 1 there were retributions other and greater far which 
 he described. He mentioned that he was present when one of 
 the spirits asked another, " Where is Ardiaeus the Great ? " 
 (Now this Ardiaeus lived a thousand years before the time of 
 Er : he had been the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, and had 
 murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and was said to 
 have committed many other abominable crimes.) The answer 
 of the other spirit was : " He comes not hither, and will never 
 come." And this, said he, was one of the dreadful sights 
 which we ourselves witnessed. We were at the mouth of the 
 cavern, and, having completed all our experiences, were about 
 to reascend, when of a sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several 
 others, most of whom were tyrants ; and there were also, be- 
 sides the tyrants, private individuals who had been great crimi- 
 nals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the 
 upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a 
 roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or someone who 
 had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend ; and then wild 
 men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, 
 seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they 
 bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and 
 
 1 Reading aurxpot.
 
 PLATO 
 
 flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road 
 at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to 
 the passers-by what were their crimes, and that 2 they were 
 being taken away to be cast into hell. And of all the many 
 terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none 
 like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they 
 should hear the voice ; and when there was silence, one by one 
 they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the 
 penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. 
 
 Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried 
 seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their 
 journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came 
 to a place where they could see from above a line of light, 
 straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven 
 and through the earth, in color resembling the rainbow, only 
 brighter and purer ; another day's journey brought them to the 
 place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of 
 the chains of heaven let down from above : for this light is the 
 belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, 
 like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extend- 
 ed the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. 
 The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the 
 whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. 
 Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and 
 the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl 
 which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser 
 one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight 
 in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show 
 their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all to- 
 gether form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the 
 spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. 
 The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the 
 seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions 
 the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the 
 sixth ; then comes the eighth ; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is 
 sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. 
 The largest (or fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or 
 sun) is brightest ; the eighth (or moon) colored by the reflected 
 light of the seventh ; the second and fifth ( Saturn and Mer- 
 
 * Readingfat[oTi.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 325 
 
 cury) are in color like one another, and yellower than the pre- 
 ceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth 
 (Mars) is reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. 
 Now the whole spindle has the same motion ; but, as the whole 
 revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in 
 the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth ; next in swift- 
 ness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; 
 third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of 
 this reversed motion, the fourth ; the third appeared fourth, and 
 the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity ; 
 and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes 
 round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight 
 together form one harmony; and round about, at equal inter- 
 vals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon 
 her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who 
 are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, 
 Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their 
 voices the harmony of the sirens Lachesis singing of the past, 
 Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future ; Clotho from time 
 to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution 
 of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with 
 her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis 
 laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with 
 the other. 
 
 When Er and the spirits arrived, their duty was to go at once 
 to Lachesis ; but first of all there came a prophet who arranged 
 them in order ; then he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and 
 samples of lives, and having mounted a high pulpit, spoke as 
 follows : " Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Neces- 
 sity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. 
 Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose 
 your genius ; and let him who draws the first lot have the first 
 choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Vir- 
 tue is free, and as a man honors or dishonors her he will have 
 more or less of her ; the responsibility is with the chooser God 
 is justified." When the Interpreter had thus spoken he scat- 
 tered lots indifferently among them all, and each of them took 
 up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he was not 
 allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived the number 
 which he had obtained. Then the Interpreter placed on the
 
 326 PLATO 
 
 ground before them the samples of lives ; and there were many 
 more lives than the souls present, and they were of all sorts. 
 There were lives of every animal and of man in every condition. 
 And there were tyrannies among them, some lasting out the 
 tyrant's life, others which broke off in the middle and came to 
 an end in poverty and exile and beggary ; and there were lives 
 of famous men, some who were famous for their form and 
 beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or, 
 again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors ; and 
 some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities. 
 And of women likewise ; there was not, however, any definite 
 character in them, because the soul, when choosing a new life, 
 must of necessity become different. But there was every other 
 quality, and they all mingled with one another, and also with 
 elements of wealth and poverty, and disease and health; and 
 there were mean states also. And here, my dear Glaucon, is 
 the supreme peril of our human state ; and therefore the utmost 
 care should be taken. Let each one of us leave every other 
 kind of knowledge and seek and follow one thing only, if per- 
 adventure he may be able to learn and may find someone who 
 will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, 
 and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he 
 has opportunity. He should consider the bearing of all these 
 things which have been mentioned severally and collectively 
 upon virtue ; he should know what the effect of beauty is when 
 combined with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what 
 are the good and evil consequences of noble and humble birth, 
 of private and public station, of strength and weakness, of 
 cleverness and dulness, and of all the natural and acquired gifts 
 of the soul, and the operation of them when conjoined ; he will 
 then look at the nature of the soul, and from the consideration 
 of all these qualities he will be able to determine which is the 
 better and which is the worse; and so he will choose, giving 
 the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more un- 
 just, and good to the life which will make his soul more just; 
 all else he will disregard. For we have seen and know that this 
 is the best choice both in life and after death. A man must 
 take with him into the world below an adamantine faith in truth 
 and right, that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of 
 wealth or the other allurements of evil, lest, coming_uj>on tyran-
 
 THE REPUBLIC 327 
 
 nies and similar villanies, he do irremediable wrongs to others 
 and suffer yet worse himself ; but let him know how to choose 
 the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possi- 
 ble, not only in this life but in all that which is to come. For 
 this is the way of happiness. 
 
 And according to the report of the messenger from the other 
 world this was what the prophet said at the time : " Even for 
 the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there 
 is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not 
 him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair." 
 And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came for- 
 ward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny; his mind 
 having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not 
 thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at 
 first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to de- 
 vour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and 
 saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament 
 over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet; 
 for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, 
 he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than 
 himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and 
 in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue 
 was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And 
 it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the 
 greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they 
 had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims who 
 came from earth, having themselves suffered and seen others 
 suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inex- 
 perience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many 
 of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for 
 a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world 
 dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had 
 been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, 
 as the messenger reported, be happy here, and also his journey 
 to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and 
 underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, 
 he said, was the spectacle sad and laughable and strange ; for 
 the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experi- 
 ence of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once 
 been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to
 
 328 PLATO 
 
 the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they 
 had been his murderers ; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras 
 choosing the life of a nightingale; birds, on the other hand, 
 like the swans and other musicians, wanting to be men. The 
 soul which obtained the twentieth x lot chose the life of a lion, 
 and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would 
 not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him 
 in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, 
 who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated 
 human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle 
 came the lot of Atalanta ; she, seeing the great fame of an ath- 
 lete, was unable to resist the temptation: and after her there 
 followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into 
 the nature of a woman cunning in the arts ; and far away among 
 the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting 
 on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odys- 
 seus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be 
 the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had 
 disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a consid- 
 erable time in search of the life of a private man who had no 
 cares; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying 
 about and had been neglected by everybody else ; and when he 
 saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot 
 been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. 
 And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also men- 
 tion that there were animals tame and wild who changed into 
 one another and into corresponding human natures the good 
 into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of com- 
 binations. 
 
 All the souls had now chosen their lives, and they went in 
 the order of their choice to Lachesis, who sent with them the 
 genius whom they had severally chosen, to be the guardian of 
 their lives and the fulfiller of the choice: this genius led the 
 souls first to Clotho, and drew them within the revolution of 
 the spindle impelled by her hand, thus ratifying the destiny of 
 each ; and then, when they were fastened to this, carried them 
 to Atropos, who spun the threads and made them irreversible, 
 whence without turning round they passed beneath the thrpne 
 of Necessity ; and when they had all passed, they marched on 
 
 1 Reading txoanjy.
 
 THE REPUBLIC 329 
 
 in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness, which was a 
 barren waste destitute of trees and verdure; and then toward 
 evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose 
 water no vessel can hold ; of this they were all obliged to drink 
 a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom 
 drank more than was necessary ; and each one as he drank for- 
 got all things. Now after they had gone to rest, about the 
 middle of the night there were a thunderstorm and earthquake, 
 and then in an instant they were driven upward in all manner 
 of ways to their birth, like stars shooting. He himself was 
 hindered from drinking the water. But in what manner or by 
 what means he returned to the body he could not say ; only, in 
 the morning, awaking suddenly, he found himself lying on the 
 pyre. 
 
 And thus, Glaucon, the tale has been saved and has not per- 
 ished, and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken ; 
 and we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness, and 
 our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is that we 
 hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and 
 virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able 
 to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall 
 we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remain- 
 ing here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round 
 to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well 
 with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand 
 years which we have been describing.
 
 
 
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