Republic

Once more, you could use a dirk to trim vine branches and a knife and many other instruments.Certainly.But nothing so well, I take it, as a pruning-knife fashioned for this purpose.That is true.Must we not then assume this to be the work or function of that?We must.You will now, then, I fancy, better apprehend the meaning of my question when I asked whether that is not the work of a thing which it only or it better than anything else can perform.Well, he said, I do understand, and agree that the work of anything is that. Very good, said I. Do you not also think that there is a specific virtue or excellence of everything for which a specific work or function is appointed? Let us return to the same examples. The eyes we say have a function? They have. Is there also a virtue of the eyes? There is. And was there not a function of the ears? Yes. And so also a virtue? Also a virtue. And what of all other things? Is the case not the same? The same. Take note now. Could the eyes possibly fulfil their function well if they lacked their own proper excellence and had in its stead the defect? How could they? he said; for I presume you meant blindness instead of vision. Whatever, said I, the excellence may be. For I have not yet come[*](Platonic dialectic asks and affirms only so much as is needed for the present purpose.) to that question, but am only asking whether whatever operates will not do its own work well by its own virtue and badly by its own defect. That much, he said, you may affirm to be true. Then the ears, too, if deprived of their own virtue will do their work ill? Assuredly. And do we then apply the same principle to all things? I think so. Then next consider this. The soul, has it a work which you couldn’t accomplish with anything else in the world, as for example, management, rule, deliberation, and the like, is there anything else than soul to which you could rightly assign these and say that they were its peculiar work? Nothing else. And again life? Shall we say that too is the function of the soul? Most certainly, he said. And do we not also say that there is an excellence virtue of the soul? We do. Will the soul ever accomplish its own work well if deprived of its own virtue, or is this impossible? It is impossible. Of necessity, then, a bad soul will govern and manage things badly while the good soul will in all these things do well.[*](For the equivocation Cf. Charmides 172 A, Gorgias 507 C, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 14, Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1098 b 21, Newman, Introduction Aristotle Politics p. 401, Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (English ed.), ii. p. 70. It does not seriously affect the validity of the argument, for it is used only as a rhetorical confirmation of the implication that κακῶς ἄρχειν, etc. = misery and the reverse of happiness.) Of necessity. And did we not agree that the excellence or virtue of soul is justice and its defect injustice? Yes, we did. The just soul and the just man then will live well and the unjust ill? So it appears, he said, by your reasoning.

But furthermore, he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who does not the contrary.Of course.Then the just is happy and the unjust miserable.So be it, he said. But it surely does not pay to be miserable, but to be happy. Of course not. Never, then, most worshipful Thrasymachus, can injustice be more profitable than justice. Let this complete your entertainment, Socrates, at the festival of Bendis. A feast furnished by you, Thrasymachus, I said, now that you have become gentle with me and are no longer angry.[*](For similar irony cf. Gorgias 489 D, Euthydemus 304 C.) I have not dined well, however— by my own fault, not yours. But just as gluttons[*](Similarly Holmes (Poet at the Breakfast Table, p. 108) of the poet: He takes a bite out of the sunny side of this and the other, and ever stimulated and never satisfied, etc. Cf. Lucian, Demosth. Encom. 18, Julian Orat. ii. p. 69 c, Polyb. iii. 57. 7.) snatch at every dish that is handed along and taste it before they have properly enjoyed the preceding, so I, methinks, before finding the first object of our inquiry—what justice is—let go of that and set out to consider something about it, namely whether it is vice and ignorance or wisdom and virtue; and again, when later the view was sprung upon us that injustice is more profitable than justice I could not refrain from turning to that from the other topic. So that for me the present outcome of the discussion[*](Hirzel, Der Dialog, i. p. 4, n. 1, argues that διαλόγου here means inquiry (Erorterung), not the dialogue with Thrasymachus.) is that I know nothing.[*](For the profession of ignorance at the close of a Socratic dialogue Cf. Charmides 175 A-B, Lysis 222 D-E, Protagoras 361 A-B, Xenophon Memorabilia iv. 2. 39. Cf. also Introduction p. x.) For if I don’t know what the just is,[*](Knowledge of the essence or definition must precede discussion of qualities and relations. Cf Meno 71 B, 86 D-E, Laches 190 B, Gorgias 448 E.) I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue or not, and whether its possessor is or is not happy.