Republic

Nay, my good fellow, do your best to make the matter clear to us also: it will be no bad investment[*](κείσεται of an investment perhaps. Cf. Plautus, Rudens 939 bonis quod bene fit, haud perit.) for you—any benefit that you bestow on such company as this. For I tell you for my part that I am not convinced, neither do I think that injustice is more profitable[*](Isocrates viii. 31 and elsewhere seems to be copying Plato’s idea that injustice can never be profitable in the higher sense of the word. Cf. also the proof in the Hipparchus that all true κέρδος is ἀγαθόν.) than justice, not even if one gives it free scope and does not hinder it of its will.[*](Plato neglects for the present the refinement that the unjust man does not do what he really wishes, since all desire the good. Cf. 438 A, 577 D, and Gorgias 467 B.) But, suppose, sir, a man to be unjust and to be able to act unjustly either because he is not detected or can maintain it by violence,[*](Cf. 365 D.) all the same he does not convince me that it is more profitable than justice. Now it may be that there is someone else among us who feels in this way and that I am not the only one. Persuade us, then, my dear fellow, convince us satisfactorily that we are ill advised in preferring justice to injustice.And how am I to persuade you?[*](Thrasymachus has stated his doctrine. Like Dr. Johnson he cannot supply brains to understand it. Cf. Gorgias 489 C, 499 B, Meno 75 D.) he said. If you are not convinced by what I just now was saying, what more can I do for you? Shall I take the argument and ram[*](The language is idiomatic, and the metaphor of a nurse feeding a baby, Aristophanes Eccl. 716, is rude. Cf. Shakespeare, He crams these words into my ears against the stomach of my sense.) it into your head? Heaven forbid! I said, don’t do that. But in the first place when you have said a thing stand by it,[*](Cf. Socrates’ complaint of Callicles’ shifts, Gorgias 499 B-C, but Cf. 334 E, 340 B-C.) or if you shift your ground change openly and don’t try to deceive us. But, as it is, you see, Thrasymachus—let us return to the previous examples—you see that while you began by taking the physician in the true sense of the word, you did not think fit afterwards to be consistent and maintain with precision the notion of the true shepherd, but you apparently think that he herds his sheep in his quality of shepherd not with regard to what is best for the sheep but as if he were a banqueter about to be feasted with regard to the good cheer or again with a view to the sale of them as if he were a money-maker and not a shepherd. But the art of the shepherd[*](The art = the ideal abstract artist. See on 342 A-C. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1098 a 8 ff. says that the function of a harper and that of a good harper are generically the same. Cf. Crito 48 A.) surely is concerned with nothing else than how to provide what is best for that over which is set, since its own affairs, its own best estate, are entirely sufficiently provided for so long as it in nowise fails of being the shepherd’s art. And in like manner I supposed that we just now were constrained to acknowledge that every form of rule[*](Aristotle’s despotic rule over slaves would seem to be an exception (Newman, Introduction Aristotle Politics p. 245.). But that too should be for the good of the slave; infra 590 D.) in so far as it is rule considers what is best for nothing else than that which is governed and cared for by it, alike in political and private rule. Why, do you think that the rulers and holders of office in our cities—the true rulers[*](See on 343 B, Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1102 a 8. The new point that good rulers are reluctant to take office is discussed to 347 E, and recalled later, 520 D. See Newman, l.c. pp. 244-245, Dio Cass. xxxvi. 27. 1.)—willingly hold office and rule? I don’t think, he said, I know right well they do.

But what of other forms of rule, Thrasymachus? Do you not perceive that no one chooses of his own will to hold the office of rule, but they demand pay, which implies that not to them will benefit accrue from their holding office but to those whom they rule? For tell me this: we ordinarily say, do we not, that each of the arts is different from others because its power or function is different? And, my dear fellow, in order that we may reach some result, don’t answer counter to your real belief.[*](Cf. Gorgias 495 A. But elsewhere Socrates admits that the argument may be discussed regardless of the belief of the respondent (349 A). Cf. Thompson on Meno 83 D, Campbell on Soph. 246 D.) Well, yes, he said, that is what renders it different. And does not each art also yield us benefit[*](As each art has a specific function, so it renders a specific service and aims at a specific good. This idea and the examples of the physician and the pilot are commonplaces in Plato and Aristotle.) that is peculiar to itself and not general,[*](Hence, as argued below, from this abstract point of view wage-earning, which is common to many arts, cannot be the specific service of any of them, but must pertain to the special art μισθωτική. This refinement is justified by Thrasymachus’ original abstraction of the infallible craftsman as such. It also has this much moral truth, that the good workman, as Ruskin says, rarely thinks first of his pay, and that the knack of getting well paid does not always go with the ability to do the work well. See Aristotle on χρηματιστική, Politics i. 3 (1253 b 14).) as for example medicine health, the pilot’s art safety at sea, and the other arts similarly? Assuredly. And does not the wage-earner’s art yield wage? For that is its function. Would you identify medicine and the pilot’s art? Or if you please to discriminate precisely as you proposed, none the more if a pilot regains his health because a sea voyage is good for him, no whit the more, I say, for this reason do you call his art medicine, do you? Of course not, he said. Neither, I take it, do you call wage-earning medicine if a man earning wages is in health. Surely not. But what of this? Do you call medicine wage-earning, if a man when giving treatment earns wages? No, he said. And did we not agree that the benefit derived from each art is peculiar to it? So be it, he said. Any common or general benefit that all craftsmen receive, then, they obviously derive from their common use of some further identical thing. It seems so, he said. And we say that the benefit of earning wages accrues to the craftsmen from their further exercise of the wage-earning art. He assented reluctantly. Then the benefit, the receiving of wages does not accrue to each from his own art. But if we are to consider it precisely medicine produces health but the fee-earning art the pay, and architecture a house but the fee-earning art accompanying it the fee, and so with all the others, each performs its own task and benefits that over which it is set, but unless pay is added to it is there any benefit which the craftsman receives from the craft? Apparently not, he said. Does he then bestow no benefit either when he works for nothing? I’ll say he does. Then, Thrasymachus, is not this immediately apparent, that no art or office provides what is beneficial for itself—but as we said long ago it provides and enjoins what is beneficial to its subject, considering the advantage of that, the weaker, and not the advantage the stronger?