Republic

Tell me now this about him: Do you think he will be more likely to resist and fight against his grief when he is observed by his equals or when he is in solitude alone by himself?He will be much more restrained, he said, when he is on view. But when left alone, I fancy, he will permit himself many utterances which, if heard by another, would put him to shame, and will do many things which he would not consent to have another see him doing. So it is, he said. Now is it not reason and law that exhorts him to resist, while that which urges him to give way to his grief is the bare feeling itself? True. And where there are two opposite impulses[*](Cf. Laws 645 A, Phaedr. 238 C, and for the conflict in the soul also Rep. 439 B ff.) in a man at the same time about the same thing we say that there must needs be two things[*](The conflict proves that for practical purposes the soul has parts. Cf. 436 B ff.) in him. Of course. And is not the one prepared to follow the guidance of the law as the law leads and directs? How so? The law, I suppose, declares that it is best to keep quiet as far as possible in calamity and not to chafe and repine, because we cannot know what is really good and evil in such things[*](Cf. Apology, in fine.) and it advantages us nothing to take them hard, and nothing in mortal life is worthy of great concern,[*](Cf. Laws 803 B and Class. Phil. ix. p. 353, n. 3, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 143.) and our grieving checks[*](Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 99, refers to Saxo’s tale of the different effect which the news of the murder of Regner Lodbrog produced on his sons: he in whom the emotion was the weakest had the greatest energy for action.) the very thing we need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case. What thing, he said, do you mean? To deliberate,[*](Cf. Herod. i. 20 πρὸς τὸ παρεὸν βουλεύηται.) I said, about what has happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice,[*](Cf. Eurip. Electra 639 and fr. 175 πρὸς τὸ πῖπτον, Iph. Aul. 1343 and Hippol. 718 πρὸς τὰ νῦν πεπτωκότα, Epictet. ii. 5. 3. See also Stallbaum ad loc.) to determine the movements of our affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason indicates[*](Cf. 440 B, 607 B, Herod. i. 132.) would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children, clapping one’s hands to the stricken spot[*](Cf. Demosthenes’ description of how barbarians box iv. 40 (51), ἀεὶ τῆς πληγῆς ἔχεται.) and wasting the time in wailing, ever to accustom the soul to devote itself at once to the curing of the hurt and the raising up of what has fallen, banishing threnody[*](Cf. Soph. Ajax 582 θρηνεῖν ἐπῳδὰς πρὸς τομῶντι πήματι with Ovid, Met. i. 190: sed immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est.) by therapy. That certainly, he said, would be the best way to face misfortune and deal with it. Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to conform to these precepts of reason. Obviously. And shall we not say that the part of us that leads us to dwell in memory on our suffering and impels us to lamentation, and cannot get enough of that sort of thing, is the irrational and idle part of us, the associate of cowardice[*](Cf. on 603 B, p. 450, note a.)? Yes, we will say that. And does not the fretful part of us present[*](ἔχει in the sense of involves, admits of, as frequently in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. ) many and varied occasions for imitation, while the intelligent and temperate disposition, always remaining approximately the same, is neither easy to imitate nor to be understood when imitated, especially by a nondescript mob assembled in the theater? For the representation imitates a type that is alien to them.

By all means.And is it not obvious that the nature of the mimetic poet is not related to this better part of the soul and his cunning is not framed[*](For πέπηγεν cf. 530 D.) to please it, if he is to win favor with the multitude, but is devoted to the fretful and complicated type of character because it is easy to imitate?It is obvious.This consideration, then, makes it right for us to proceed to lay hold of him and set him down as the counterpart[*](ἀντίστροφον is used as in Aristot. Rhet. 1354 a 1.) of the painter; for he resembles him in that his creations are inferior in respect of reality; and the fact that his appeal is to the inferior part of the soul and not to the best part is another point of resemblance. And so we may at last say that we should be justified in not admitting him into a well-ordered state, because he stimulates and fosters this element in the soul, and by strengthening it tends to destroy the rational part, just as when in a state[*](Cf. p. 412, note d.) one puts bad men in power and turns the city over to them and ruins the better sort. Precisely in the same manner we shall say that the mimetic poet sets up in each individual soul a vicious constitution by fashioning phantoms far removed from reality, and by currying favor with the senseless element that cannot distinguish the greater from the less, but calls the same thing now one, now the other.By all means.But we have not yet brought our chief accusation against it. Its power to corrupt, with rare exceptions, even the better sort is surely the chief cause for alarm.How could it be otherwise, if it really does that? Listen and reflect. I think you know that the very best of us, when we hear Homer[*](Cf. p. 420, note a, on 595 B-C.) or some other of the makers of tragedy imitating one of the heroes who is in grief,[*](For ἐν πένθει cf. Soph. El. 290, 846, Herod. i. 46.) and is delivering a long tirade in his lamentations or chanting and beating his breast, feel pleasure,[*](Cf. Phileb. 48 A.) and abandon ourselves and accompany the representation with sympathy and eagerness,[*](See the description in Ion 535 E, and Laws 800 D.) and we praise as an excellent poet the one who most strongly affects us in this way.I do know it, of course.But when in our own lives some affliction comes to us, you are also aware that we plume ourselves upon the opposite, on our ability to remain calm and endure, in the belief that this is the conduct of a man, and what we were praising in the theatre that of a woman.[*](This is qualified in 387 E-388 A by οὐδὲ ταύταις σπουδαίαις. Cf. also 398 E.)I do note that.Do you think, then, said I, that this praise is rightfully bestowed when, contemplating a character that we would not accept but would be ashamed of in ourselves, we do not abominate it but take pleasure and approve? No, by Zeus, he said, it does not seem reasonable.

Oh yes,[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 509, note b, on 473 E.) said I, if you would consider it in this way. In what way? If you would reflect that the part of the soul that in the former case, in our own misfortunes,[*](Cf. Isoc. Panegyr. 168 for a different application.) was forcibly restrained, and that has hungered for tears and a good cry[*](This contains a hint of one possible meaning of the Aristotelian doctrine of κάθαρσις, Poet. 1449 b 27-28. Cf. κουφίζεσθαι μεθ’ ἡδονῆς Pol. 1342 a 14, and my review of Finsler, Platon u. d. Aristot. Poetik, Class. Phil. iii. p. 462. But the tone of the Platonic passage is more like that of Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies: And the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of some kind, for the noble grief we should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the police court and gather the night dew of the grave.) and satisfaction, because it is its nature to desire these things, is the element in us that the poets satisfy and delight, and that the best element in our nature, since it has never been properly educated by reason or even by habit, then relaxes its guard[*](This anticipates the idea of the censor in modern psychology.) over the plaintive part, inasmuch as this is contemplating the woes of others and it is no shame to it to praise and pity another who, claiming to be a good man, abandons himself to excess in his grief; but it thinks this vicarious pleasure is so much clear gain,[*](Cf. τῇ δ’ ἀσφαλείᾳ κερδανεῖς Eurip. Herc. Fur. 604, which is frequently misinterpreted; Herod. viii. 60. 3.) and would not consent to forfeit it by disdaining the poem altogether. That is, I think, because few are capable of reflecting that what we enjoy in others will inevitably react upon ourselves.[*](For the psychology Cf. Laws 656 B and on 385 C-D.) For after feeding fat[*](Cf. 442 A.) the emotion of pity there, it is not easy to restrain it in our own sufferings. Most true, he said. Does not the same principle apply to the laughable,[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 211, note f, La Bruyère, Des Ouvrages de l’esprit (Oeuvres, ed. M. G. Servois, i. p. 137): D’où vient que l’on rit si librement au théâtre, et que l’on a honte d’y pleurer?) namely,that if in comic representations,[*](In the Laws 816 D-E Plato says that the citizens must witness such performances since the serious cannot be learned without the laughable, nor anything without its opposite; but they may not take part in them. That is left to slaves and foreigners. Cf. also Vol. I. p. 239, note B, on 396 E.) or for that matter in private talk,[*](I.e. as opposed to public performances. Cf. Euthydem. 305 D ἐν δὲ ἰδίοις λόγοις, Theaet. 177 B, Soph. 232 C ἔν γε ταῖς ἰδίαις συνουσίαις, and Soph. 222 C προσομιλητικήν with Quintil. iii. 4. 4. Wilamowitz, Antigonos von Karystos, p. 285, fantastically says that it means prose and refers to Sophron. He compares 366 E. But see Laws 935 B-C.) you take intense pleasure in buffooneries that you would blush to practise yourself, and do not detest them as base, you are doing the same thing as in the case of the pathetic? For here again what your reason, for fear of the reputation of buffoonery, restrained in yourself when it fain would play the clown, you release in turn, and so, fostering its youthful impudence, let yourself go so far that often ere you are aware you become yourself a comedian in private. Yes, indeed, he said. And so in regard to the emotions of sex and anger, and all the appetites and pains and pleasures of the soul which we say accompany all our actions,[*](Cf. 603 C.) the effect of poetic imitation is the same. For it waters[*](Cf. 550 B.) and fosters these feelings when what we ought to do is to dry them up, and it establishes them as our rulers when they ought to be ruled, to the end that we may be better and happier men instead of worse and more miserable. I cannot deny it, said he. Then, Glaucon, said I, when you meet encomiasts of Homer who tell us that this poet has been the educator of Hellas,[*](Isocrates, Panegyr. 159, says Homer was given a place in education because he celebrated those who fought against the barbarians. Cf. also Aristoph. Frogs 1034 ff.) and that for the conduct and refinement[*](The same conjunction is implied in Protagoras’s teaching, Protag. 318 E and 317 B.) of human life he is worthy of our study and devotion, and that we should order our entire lives by the guidance of this poet, we must love[*](For the μέν Cf. Symp. 180 E, Herod. vii. 102.) and salute them as doing the best they can,[*](The condescending tone is that of Euthydem. 306 C-D.) and concede to them that Homer is the most poetic[*](Aristotle, Poet. 1453 a 29, says that Euripides is τραγικώτατος of poets.) of poets and the first of tragedians,[*](Cf. 605 C, 595 B-C.) but we must know the truth, that we can admit no poetry into our city save only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men.[*](Cf. Laws 801 D-E, 829 C-D, 397 C-D, 459 E, 468 D, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 142, and my review of Pater, Plato and Platonism, in The Dial, 14 (1893) p. 211.)

For if you grant admission to the honeyed muse[*](Cf. Laws 802 C τῆς γλυκείας Μούσης. See Finsler, Platon u. d. aristot. Poetik, pp. 61-62.) in lyric or epic, pleasure and pain will be lords of your city instead of law and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general reason as the best.Most true, he said. Let us, then, conclude our return to the topic of poetry and our apology, and affirm that we really had good grounds then for dismissing her from our city, since such was her character. For reason constrained us.[*](See on 604 C, p. 455, note h.) And let us further say to her, lest she condemn us for harshness and rusticity, that there is from of old a quarrel[*](For the quarrel between philosophy and poetry Cf. Laws 967 C-D, Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 136. It still goes on in modern times.) between philosophy and poetry. For such expressions as

the yelping hound barking at her master and mighty in the idle babble

of fools,

the mob that masters those who are too wise for their own good,

But if not, my friend, even as men who have fallen in love, if they think that the love is not good for them, hard though it be,[*](βίᾳ μέν, ὅμως δέ: Cf. Epist. iii. 316 E, and vii. 325 A, and Raeder, Rhein. Mus. lxi. p. 470, Aristoph. Clouds 1363 μόλις μὲν ἀλλ’ ὅμως, Eurip. Phoen. 1421 μόλις μέν, ἐξέτεινε δ’, and also Soph. Antig. 1105, O.T. 998, Eurip. Bacch. 1027, Hec. 843, Or. 1023, El. 753, Phoen. 1069, I.A. 688, 904.) nevertheless refrain, so we, owing to the love of this kind of poetry inbred in us by our education in these fine[*](Ironical, as καλλίστη in 562 A.) polities of ours, will gladly have the best possible case made out for her goodness and truth, but so long as she is unable to make good her defence we shall chant over to ourselves[*](For ἐπᾴδοντες Cf. Phaedo 114 D, 77 E.) as we listen the reasons that we have given as a counter-charm to her spell, to preserve us from slipping back into the childish loves of the multitude; for we have come to see that we must not take such poetry seriously as a serious thing[*](Cf. 602 B.) that lays hold on truth, but that he who lends an ear to it must be on his guard fearing for the polity in his soul[*](Cf. on 591 E, p. 412, note d.) and must believe what we have said about poetry.By all means, he said, I concur. Yes, for great is the struggle,[*](Cf. Phaedo 114 C, 107 C, Phaedr. 247 B, Gorg. 526 E, Blaydes on Aristoph. Peace 276, and for the whole sentence Phaedo 83 B-C, 465 D, 618 B-C f. and p. 404, note d, on 589 E.) I said, dear Glaucon, a far greater contest than we think it, that determines whether a man prove good or bad, so that not the lure of honor or wealth or any office, no, nor of poetry either, should incite us[*](ἐπαρθέντα: cf. 416 C.) to be careless of righteousness and all excellence. I agree with you, he replied, in view of what we have set forth, and I think that anyone else would do so too. And yet, said I, the greatest rewards of virtue and the prizes proposed for her we have not set forth. You must have in mind an inconceivable[*](Cf. 404 C, 509 A, 548 B, 588 a, Apol. 41 C, Charm. 155 D.) magnitude, he replied, if there are other things greater than those of which we have spoken.[*](Clement, Strom. iv. p. 496 B ὁθούνεκ’ ἀρετὴ τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις μόνη οὐκ ἐκ θυραίων τἀπίχειρα λαμβάνει, αὐτὴ δ’ ἑαυτὴν ἆθλα τῶν πόνων ἔχει. )? For surely the whole time from the boy to the old man would be small compared with all time.[*](Cf. on 496 A, p. 9, mote f and 498 D.) Nay, it is nothing, he said. What then? Do you think that an immortal thing[*](For the colorless use of πρᾶγμα see What Plato Said, p. 497, on Protag. 330 C-D. Cf. Shakes. Hamlet,I. iv. 67 being a thing immortal as itself.) ought to be seriously concerned for such a little time, and not rather for all time? I think so, he said; but what is this that you have in mind? Have you never perceived, said I, that our soul is immortal and never perishes? And he, looking me full in the face[*](ἐμβλέψας: Cf. Charmides 155 C.) in amazement,[*](Glaucon is surprised in spite of 498 D. Many uncertain inferences have been drawn from the fact that in spite of the Phaedo and Phaedrus(245 C ff.) interlocutors in Plato are always surprised at the idea of immortality. Cf. ibid, Introd. p. lxiv.) said, No, by Zeus, not I; but are you able to declare this? I certainly ought to be,[*](For the idiomatic εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ cf. 430 ECharm. 156 A, Menex. 236 B, 612 D.) said I, and I think you too can, for it is nothing hard. It is for me, he said; and I would gladly hear from you this thing that is not hard.[*](Cf. Protag. 341 A τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦτο, which is a little different, Herod. vii. 11 τὸ δεινὸν τὸ πείσομαι.) Listen, said I. Just speak on, he replied. You speak of[*](See Vol. I. p. 90, note a and What Plato Said, p. 567, on Cratyl. 385 B.) good and evil, do you not? I do. Is your notion of them the same as mine? What is it? That which destroys and corrupts in every case is the evil; that which preserves and benefits is the good. Yes, I think so, he said.

How about this: Do you say that there is for everything its special good and evil, as for example for the eyes ophthalmia, for the entire body disease, for grain mildew, rotting for wood, rust for bronze and iron, and, as I say, for practically everything its congenital evil and disease[*](Ruskin, Time and Tide 52 (Brantwood ed. p. 68): Every faculty of man’s soul, and every instinct of it by which he is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption,; Boethius, Cons. iii. 11 (L.C.L. trans. p. 283), things are destroyed by what is hostile; Aristot. Top. 124 a 28 εἰ γὰρ τὸ φθαρτικὸν διαλυτικόν.)?I do, he said. Then when one of these evils comes to anything does it not make the thing to which it attaches itself bad, and finally disintegrate and destroy it? Of course. Then the congenital evil of each thing and its own vice destroys it, or if that is not going to destroy it, nothing else remains that could; for obviously[*](γεvi termini. Cf. 379 A, Phaedo 106 D.) the good will never destroy anything, nor yet again will that which is neutral and neither good nor evil[*](See What Plato Said, p. 490, on Lysis 216 D.). How could it? he said. If, then, we discover[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 529, note a, on 478 D.) anything that has an evil which vitiates it, yet is not able to dissolve and destroy it, shall we not thereupon know that of a thing so constituted there can be no destruction? That seems likely, he said. Well, then, said I, has not the soul something that makes it evil? Indeed it has, he said, all the things that we were just now enumerating, injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and ignorance. Does any one of these things dissolve and destroy it? And reflect, lest we be misled by supposing that when an unjust and foolish man is taken in his injustice he is then destroyed by the injustice, which is the vice of soul. But conceive it thus: Just as the vice of body which is disease wastes and destroys it so that it no longer is a body at all,[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1309 b 28 μηδὲ ῥῖνα ποιήσει φαίνεσθαι.) in like manner in all the examples of which we spoke it is the specific evil which, by attaching itself to the thing and dwelling in it with power to corrupt, reduces it to nonentity. Is not that so? Yes. Come, then, and consider the soul in the same way.[*](The argument that follows is strictly speaking a fallacy in that it confounds the soul with the physical principle of life. Cf. on 35 C and on 352 E, Gorg. 477 B-C, and ibid, Introd. p. lxvii. But Dean Inge, Platonism and Human Immortality (Aristot. Soc., 1919, p. 288) says: Plato’s argument, in the tenth book of the Republic, for the immortality of the soul, has found a place in scholastic theology, but is supposed to have been discredited by Kant. I venture to think that his argument, that the soul can only be destroyed by an enemy (so to speak) in pari materia, is sound. Physical evils, including death, cannot touch the soul. And wickedness does not, in our experience, dissolve the soul, nor is wickedness specially apparent when the soul (if it perishes at death) would be approaching dissolution. Cf. 610 C. Someone might object that wickedness does destroy the soul, conceived as a spiritual principle.) Do injustice and other wickedness dwelling in it, by their indwelling and attachment to it, corrupt and wither it till they bring it to death and separate it from the body? They certainly do not do that, he said. But surely, said I, it is unreasonable to suppose that the vice of something else destroys a thing while its own does not. Yes, unreasonable. For observe, Glaucon, said I, that we do not think it proper to say of the body either that it is destroyed by the badness of foods themselves, whether it be staleness or rottenness or whatever it is;[*](Plato generally disregards minor distinctions when they do not affect his point.)

but when the badness of the foods themselves engenders in the body the defect of body, then we shall say that it is destroyed owing to these foods, but by[*](Cf. 610 D.) its own vice, which is disease. But the body being one thing and the foods something else, we shall never expect the body to be destroyed by their badness, that is by an alien evil that has not produced in it the evil that belongs to it by nature.You are entirely right, he replied. On the same principle, said I, if the badness of the body does not produce in the soul the soul’s badness we shall never expect the soul to be destroyed by an alien evil apart from its own defect—one thing, that is, by the evil of another. That is reasonable, he said. Either, then, we must refute this and show that we are mistaken, or,[*](For the challenge to refute or accept the argument Cf. Soph. 259 A, 257 A, Gorg. 467 B-C, 482 B, 508 A-B, Phileb. 60 D-E.) so long as it remains unrefuted, we must never say that by fever or any other disease, or yet by the knife at the throat or the chopping to bits of the entire body, there is any more likelihood of the soul perishing because of these things, until it is proved that owing to these affections of the body the soul itself becomes more unjust and unholy. But when an evil of something else occurs in a different thing and the evil that belongs to the thing is not engendered in it, we must not suffer it to be said that the soul or anything else is in this way destroyed. But you may be sure, he said, that nobody will ever prove this, that the souls of the dying are made more unjust by death. But if anyone, said I, dares to come to grips with the argument[*](Or to take the bull by the horns. For ὁμόσε ἰέναι see What Plato Said, p. 457, on Euthyph. 3 C. Cf. ἐγγὺς ἰόντες Phaedo 95 B.) and say, in order to avoid being forced to admit the soul’s immortality, that a dying man does become more wicked and unjust,[*](Herbert Spencer nearly does this: Death by starvation from inability to catch prey shows a falling short of conduct from its ideal. It recalls the argument with which Socrates catches Callicles in Gorg. 498 E, that if all pleasures are alike those who feel pleasure are good and those who feel pain are bad.) we will postulate that, if what he says is true, injustice must be fatal to its possessor as if it were a disease, and that those who catch it die because it kills them by its own inherent nature, those who have most of it quickest, and those who have less more slowly, and not, as now in fact happens, that the unjust die owing to this but by the action of others who inflict the penalty. Nay, by Zeus, he said, injustice will not appear a very terrible thing after all if it is going to be[*](For the future indicative after εἰ, usually minatory or monitory in tone, cf. Aristoph. Birds 759, Phileb. 25 D.) fatal to its possessor, for that would be a release from all troubles.[*](Cf. Phaedo 107 C, 84 B, Blaydes on Aristoph. Acharn. 757.) But I rather think it will prove to be quite the contrary, something that kills others when it can, but renders its possessor very lively indeed,[*](μάλα is humorous, as in 506 D, Euthydem 298 D, Symp. 189 A.) and not only lively but wakeful,[*](Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 32 ut iugulent hominem surgunt de nocte latrones.) so far, I ween, does it dwell[*](For the metaphor Cf. Proverbs viii. 12 σοφία κατεσκήνωσα βουλήν. Plato personifies injustice, as he does justice in 612 D,σκιαγραφία in 602 D, bravery in Laches 194 A,κολαστική in Soph. 229 A,κολακευτική Gorg. 464 C,σμικρότης Parmen. 150 A πονηρία Apol. 39 A-B, and many other abstract conceptions. See further Phileb. 63 A-B, 15 D, 24 A, Rep. 465 A-B, Laws 644 C, Cratyl. 438 D.) from deadliness. You say well, I replied; for when the natural vice and the evil proper to it cannot kill and destroy the soul, still less[*](σχολῇ: cf. 354 C, Phaedo 106 D.) will the evil appointed for the destruction of another thing destroy the soul or anything else, except that for which it is appointed.[*](Cf. 345 D.) Still less indeed, he said, in all probability.

Then since it is not destroyed by any evil whatever, either its own or alien, it is evident that it must necessarily exist always, and that if it always exists it is immortal.Necessarily, he said. Let this, then, I said, be assumed to be so. But if it is so, you will observe that these souls must always be the same. For if none perishes they could not, I suppose, become fewer nor yet more numerous.[*](Cf. Carveth Read, Man and His Superstitions p. 104: Plato thought that by a sort of law of psychic conservation there must always be the same number of souls in world. There must therefore be reincarnation. . . . ) For if any class of immortal things increased you are aware that its increase would come from the mortal and all things would end by becoming immortal.[*](Cf. Phaedo 72 C-D.) You say truly. But, said I, we must not suppose this, for reason will not suffer it nor yet must we think that in its truest nature the soul is the kind of thing that teems with infinite diversity and unlikeness and contradiction in and with itself.[*](The idea of self-contradiction is frequent in Plato. See What Plato said, p. 505, on Gorg. 482 B-C.) How am I to understand that? he said. It is not easy, said I, for a thing to be immortal that is composed of many elements[*](σύνθετον: Cf. Phaedo 78 C, Plotinus, Enneades i. 1. 12, Berkeley, Principles, 141: We have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended; and it is consequently incorruptible. . . . cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance. See also Zeller, Ph. d. Gr. ii. 1, pp. 828-829.) not put together in the best way, as now appeared to us[*](603 D. see also Frutiger, Mythes de Platon, pp. 90 f.) to be the case with the soul. It is not likely. Well, then, that the soul is immortal our recent argument and our other[*](Such as are given in the Phaedo, Phaedrus, and perhaps elsewhere.) proofs would constrain us to admit. But to know its true nature we must view it not marred by communion with the body[*](Cf. also Phaedo 82 E, 83 D-E, 81 C, and Wisdom of Solomon ix 14 φθαρτὸν γὰρ σῶμα βαρύνει ψυχήν, καὶ βρίθει τὸ γεῶδες σκῆνος νοῦν πολυφρόντιδα, for the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.) and other miseries as we now contemplate it, but consider adequately in the light of reason what it is when it is purified, and then you will find it to be a far more beautiful thing and will more clearly distinguish justice and injustice and all the matters that we have now discussed. But though we have stated the truth of its present appearance, its condition as we have now contemplated it resembles that of the sea-god Glaucus[*](See schol. Hermann vi. 362, Eurip. Or. 364 f., Apollonius, Argon. 1310 ff., Athenaeus 296 B and D, Anth. Pal. vi. 164, Frazer on Pausanias ix. 22. 7, Gädecker, Glaukos der Meeresgott, Göttingen, 1860.) whose first nature can hardly be made out by those who catch glimpses of him, because the original members of his body are broken off and mutilated and crushed and in every way marred by the waves, and other parts have attached themselves[*](Cf. Tim. 42 C προσφύντα.) to him, accretions of shells[*](Cf. Phaedr. 250 C ὀστρέου τρόπον δεδεσμευμένοι, Phaedo 110 A.) and sea-weed and rocks, so that he is more like any wild creature than what he was by nature—even such, I say, is our vision of the soul marred by countless evils. But we must look elsewhere, Glaucon. Where? said he. To its love of wisdom. And we must note the things of which it has apprehensions, and the associations for which it yearns, as being itself akin to the divine[*](Cf. Phaedo 79 D, Laws 899 D, and 494 D τὸ σιγγενὲς τῶν λόγων.) and the immortal and to eternal being, and so consider what it might be if it followed the gleam unreservedly and were raised by this impulse out of the depths of this sea in which it is now sunk, and were cleansed and scraped free[*](Cf. Phileb. 55 C περικρούωμεν, 519 A περιεκόπη.) of the rocks and barnacles which, because it now feasts on earth, cling to it in wild profusion of earthy and stony accretion by reason of these feastings that are accounted happy.[*](Cf. Charm. 158 A, Laws 695 A, 783 A. See λεγόμενα ἀγαθά491 C, 495 A, Laws 661 C.)

And then one might see whether in its real nature[*](Cf. Phaedo 246 A.In Tim. 72 D Plato says that only God knows the truth about the soul. See Laws 641 D, and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 42.) it is manifold[*](Cf. Phaedr. 271 A.) or single in its simplicity, or what is the truth about it and how.[*](ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως: cf. 621 B, Phaedo 100 D, Tim. 37 A-B, Laws 652 A, 834 E, 899 A and B.) But for the present we have, I think, fairly well described its sufferings and the forms it assumes in this human life of ours.We certainly have, he said. Then, said I, we have met all the other demands of the argument, and we have not invoked the rewards and reputes of justice as you said Homer and Hesiod[*](363 B-C.) do, but we have proved that justice in itself is the best thing for the soul itself, and that the soul ought to do justice whether it possess the ring of Gyges[*](359 D f.) or not,[*](Cf. 367 E.) or the helmet of Hades[*](Iliad v. 845, Blaydes on Aristoph. Acharn. 390.) to boot. Most true, he said. Then, said I, Glaucon, there can no longer be any objection,[*](Cf. Soph. 243 A, Laws 801 E ἄνευ φθόνων, Eurip. Hippol. 497 οὐκ ἐπίφθονον, Aeschines, De falsa legatione 167 (49). Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 406 does object and finds the passage inconsistent with the idealism of 592 and with Laws 899 D ff. and 905 B. Cf. Renan, Averroes, pp. 156-157, Guyau, Esquisse d’une morale, pp. 140-141. See Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 80 and n. 612, Idea of Justice in Plato’s Republic, pp. 197-198. Gomperz, ignoring this passage and interpreting the Republic wholly from 367 E, strangely argues that Phaedo 107 C proves that the Phaedo must have been composed at a time when Plato was less sure of the coincidence of justice and happiness. A religious thinker may in his theodicy justify the ways of God to man by arguing that worldly happiness is not the real happiness, and yet elsewhere remark that, as a rule, the righteous is not forsaken even in this world. Cf. Psalm 37.25 ff., Prov. 10.3 and passim. See Renan, Hist. du Peuple d’Israel, p. 376: Il en est de ces passages comme de tant de préceptes de l’Evangile, insensés si on en fait des articles de code, excellents si on n’y voit, que l’expression hyperbolique de hauts sentiments moraux.) can there, to our assigning to justice and virtue generally, in addition, all the various rewards and wages that they bring to the soul from men and gods, both while the man still lives and, after his death? There certainly can be none, he said. Will you, then, return to me what you borrowed[*](Cf. Polit. 267 A.) in the argument? What, pray? I granted to you that the just man should seem and be thought to be unjust and the unjust just; for you thought that, even if the concealment of these things from gods and men was an impossibility in fact, nevertheless, it ought to be conceded for the sake of the argument,[*](τοῦ λόγου ἕνεκα: not the same as λόγου ἕνεκα. See on 581 C, p. 374, note a.) in order that the decision might be made between absolute justice and absolute injustice. Or do you not remember? It would be unjust of me,[*](Cf. εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ 608 D.) he said, if I did not. Well, then, now that they have been compared and judged, I demand back from you in behalf of justice the repute that she in fact enjoys[*](For the idiom ὥσπερ ἔχει δόξης cf. 365 A ὡς . . . ἔχουσι τιμῆς, 389 C ὅπως . . . πράξεως ἔχει, Thucyd. i. 22 ὡς . . . μνήμης ἔχοι. For the thought cf. Isoc. viii. 33.) from gods and men, and I ask that we admit that she is thus esteemed in order that she may gather in the prizes[*](Cf. Phileb. 22 B and E.) which she wins from the seeming and bestows on her possessors, since she has been proved to bestow the blessings that come from the reality and not to deceive those who truly seek and win her. That is a just demand, he said. Then, said I, will not the first of these restorations be that the gods certainly[*](γεvi termini. Cf. 379 A and Class. Phil. x. p. 335.) are not unaware[*](Cf. 365 D.) of the true character of each of the two, the just and the unjust? We will restore that, he said. And if they are not concealed, the one will be dear to the gods[*](Cf. Phileb. 39 E.) and the other hateful to them, as we agreed in the beginning.[*](Cf. 352 B.) That is so.