Republic

For there are some, it appears, who will not be contented with this sort of fare or with this way of life; but couches will have to be added thereto and tables and other furniture, yes, and relishes and myrrh and incense and girls[*](On flute-girls as the accompaniment of a banquet Cf. Symposium 176 E, Aristophanes Ach. 1090-1092, Catullus 13. 4. But apart from this, the sudden mention of an incongruous item in a list is a device of Aristophanic humor which even the philosophic Emerson did not disdain: The love of little maids and berries.) and cakes—all sorts of all of them. And the requirements we first mentioned, houses and garments and shoes, will no longer be confined to necessities,[*](τὰ ἁναγκαῖα predicatively, in the measure prescribed by necessity. Cf. 369 D the indispensable minimum of a city. The historical order is: (1) arts of necessity, (2) arts of pleasure and luxury, (3) disinterested science. Cf. Critias 110 A, Aristotle Met. 981 b 20.) but we must set painting to work and embroidery, and procure gold and ivory and similar adornments, must we not?Yes, he said. Then we shall have to enlarge the city again. For that healthy state is no longer sufficient, but we must proceed to swell out its bulk and fill it up with a multitude of things that exceed the requirements of necessity in states, as, for example, the entire class of huntsmen, and the imitators,[*](θηρευταί and μιμηταί are generalized Platonic categories, including much not ordinarily signified by the words. For a list of such Platonic generalizations Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, note 500.) many of them occupied with figures and colors and many with music—the poets and their assistants, rhapsodists, actors, chorus-dancers, contractors[*](Contractors generally, and especially theatrical managers.)—and the manufacturers of all kinds of articles, especially those that have to do with women’s adornment. And so we shall also want more servitors. Don’t you think that we shall need tutors, nurses wet[*](The mothers of the idyllic state nursed their own children, but in the ideal state the wives of the guardians are relieved of this burden by special provision. Cf. 460 D.) and dry, beauty-shop ladies, barbers[*](The rhetoricians of the empire liked to repeat that no barber was known at Rome in the first 200 or 300 years of the city.) and yet again cooks and chefs? And we shall have need, further, of swineherds; there were none of these creatures[*](Illogical idiom referring to the swine. Cf. 598 C.) in our former city, for we had no need of them, but in this city there will be this further need; and we shall also require other cattle in great numbers if they are to be eaten, shall we not? Yes. Doctors, too, are something whose services[*](χρείαις: Greek idiom could use either singular or plural. Cf. 410 A; Phaedo 87 C; Laws 630 E. The plural here avoids hiatus.) we shall be much more likely to require if we live thus than as before? Much. And the territory, I presume, that was then sufficient to feed the then population, from being adequate will become too small. Is that so or not? It is. Then we shall have to cut out a cantle[*](Cf. Isocrates iii. 34.) of our neighbor’s land if we are to have enough for pasture and ploughing, and they in turn of ours if they too abandon themselves to the unlimited[*](Cf. 591 D. Natural desires are limited. Luxury and unnatural forms of wealth are limitless, as the Greek moralists repeat from Solon down.) acquisition of wealth, disregarding the limit set by our necessary wants. Inevitably, Socrates. We shall go to war[*](The unnecessary desires are the ultimate causes of wars.Phaedo 66 C. The simple life once abandoned, war is inevitable. My lord, said St. Francis to the Bishop of Assisi, if we possessed property we should have need of arms for its defense (Sabatier, p. 81). Similarly that very dissimilar thinker, Mandeville. Cf. on 372 C. Plato recognizes the struggle for existence (Spencer, Data of Ethics, 6), and the bellum omnium contra omnes, Laws 625 E. Cf. Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, i, 2: The Republic of Plato seems in many respects divergent from the reality. And yet he contemplates war as a permanent, unalterable fact to be provided for in the ideal state. Spencer on the contrary contemplates a completely evolved society in which the ethics of militarism will disappear.) as the next step, Glaucon—or what will happen? What you say, he said. And we are not yet to speak, said I, of any evil or good effect of war, but only to affirm that we have further[*](i.e. as well as the genesis of society. 369 B.) discovered the origin of war, namely, from those things from which[*](ἐξ ὧν: i.e. ἐκ τούτων ἐξ ὧν, namely the appetites and the love of money.) the greatest disasters, public and private, come to states when they come. Certainly.

Then, my friend, we must still further enlarge our city by no small increment, but by a whole army, that will march forth and fight it out with assailants in defence of all our wealth and the luxuries we have just described.How so? he said; are the citizens themselves[*](Cf. 567 E τί δέ; αὐτόθεν. In the fourth century it was found that amateur soldiers could not compete with professionals, and war became a trade (Butcher, Demosthenes p. 17). Plato arrives at the same result by his principle one man one task (370 A-B). He is not here making citizens synonymous with soldiers nor laconizing as Adam says.) not sufficient for it? Not if you, said I, and we all were right in the admission we made when we were molding our city. We surely agreed, if you remember, that it is impossible for one man to do the work of many arts well. True, he said. Well, then, said I, don’t you think that the business of fighting is an art and a profession? It is indeed, he said. Should our concern be greater, then, for the cobbler’s art than for the art of war? By no means. Can we suppose,[*](For the thought of this a fortiori or ex contrario argument cf. 421 A.) then, that while we were at pains to prevent the cobbler from attempting to be at the same time a farmer, a weaver, or a builder instead of just a cobbler, to the end that[*](ἵνα δή ironical.) we might have the cobbler’s business well done, and similarly assigned to each and every one man one occupation, for which he was fit and naturally adapted and at which he was to work all his days, at leisure[*](Cf. 370 B-C.) from other pursuits and not letting slip the right moments for doing the work well, and that yet we are in doubt whether the right accomplishment of the business of war is not of supreme moment? Is it so easy[*](The ironical argument ex contrario is continued with fresh illustrations to the end of the chapter.) that a man who is cultivating the soil will be at the same time a soldier and one who is practising cobbling or any other trade, though no man in the world could make himself a competent expert at draughts or the dice who did not practise that and nothing else from childhood[*](Cf. on 467 A.) but treated it as an occasional business? And are we to believe that a man who takes in hand a shield or any other instrument of war springs up on that very day a competent combatant in heavy armor or in any other form of warfare—though no other tool will make a man be an artist or an athlete by his taking it in hand, nor will it be of any service to those who have neither acquired the science[*](For the three requisites, science, practice, and natural ability Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, note 596, and my paper on Φύσις, Μελέτη, Ἐπιστήμη, Tr. A. Ph. A. vol. xl., 1910.) of it nor sufficiently practised themselves in its use? Great indeed, he said, would be the value of tools in that case.[*](Cf. Thucydides ii. 40.) Then, said I, in the same degree that the task of our guardians[*](First mention. Cf. 428 D note, 414 B.) is the greatest of all, it would require more leisure than any other business and the greatest science and training. I think so, said he. Does it not also require a nature adapted to that very pursuit? Of course. It becomes our task, then, it seems, if we are able, to select which and what kind of natures are suited for the guardianship of a state. Yes, ours. Upon my word, said I, it is no light task that we have taken upon ourselves. But we must not faint so far as our strength allows.

No, we mustn’t.Do you think, said I, that there is any difference between the nature of a well-bred hound for this watch-dog’s work and of a well-born lad? What point have you in mind? I mean that each of them must be keen of perception, quick in pursuit of what it has apprehended,[*](αἰσθανόμενον: present. There is no pause between perception and pursuit.) and strong too if it has to fight it out with its captive. Why, yes, said he, there is need of all these qualities. And it must, further, be brave[*](In common parlance. Philosophically speaking, no brute is brave. Laches 196 D, 430 B.) if it is to fight well. Of course. And will a creature be ready to be brave that is not high-spirited, whether horse or dog or anything else? Have you never observed what an irresistible and invincible thing is spirit,[*](Anger (or the heart’s desire?) buys its will at the price of life, as Heracleitus says (fr. 105 Bywater). Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1105 a 9, 1116 b 23.) the presence of which makes every soul in the face of everything fearless and unconquerable? I have. The physical qualities of the guardian, then, are obvious. Yes. And also those of his soul, namely that he must be of high spirit. Yes, this too. How then, Glaucon, said I, will they escape being savage to one another[*](Cf. Spencer, Psychology 511: Men cannot be kept unsympathetic towards external enemies without being kept unsympathetic towards internal enemies. For what follows cf. Dio Chrys. Or. i. 44 R., Julian, Or. ii. 86 D.) and to the other citizens if this is to be their nature? Not easily, by Zeus, said he. And yet we must have them gentle to their friends and harsh to their enemies; otherwise they will not await their destruction at the hands of others, but will be first themselves in bringing it about. True, he said. What, then, are we to do? said I. Where shall we discover a disposition that is at once gentle and great-spirited? For there appears to be an opposition[*](The contrast of the strenuous and gentle temperamnets is a chief point in Platonic ethics and education. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, nn. 59, 70, 481.) between the spirited type and the gentle nature. There does. But yet if one lacks either of these qualities, a good guardian he never can be. But these requirements resemble impossibilities, and so the result is that a good guardian is impossible. It seems likely, he said. And I was at a standstill, and after reconsidering what we had been saying, I said, We deserve to be at a loss, my friend, for we have lost sight of the comparison that we set before ourselves.[*](Plato never really deduces his argument from the imagery which he uses to illustrate it.) What do you mean? We failed to note that there are after all such natures as we thought impossible, endowed with these opposite qualities. Where? It may be observed in other animals, but especially in that which we likened to the guardian. You surely have observed in well-bred hounds that their natural disposition is to be most gentle to their familiars and those whom they recognize, but the contrary to those whom they do not know. I am aware of that. The thing is possible, then, said I, and it is not an unnatural requirement that we are looking for in our guardian. It seems not. And does it seem to you that our guardian-to-be will also need, in addition to the being high-spirited, the further quality of having the love of wisdom in his nature?

How so? he said; I don’t apprehend your meaning. This too, said I, is something that you will discover in dogs and which is worth our wonder in the creature. What? That the sight of an unknown person angers him before he has suffered any injury, but an acquaintance he will fawn upon though he has never received any kindness from him. Have you never marvelled at that? I never paid any attention to the matter before now, but that he acts in some such way is obvious. But surely that is an exquisite trait of his nature and one that shows a true love of wisdom.[*](φιλόσοφον: etymologically here, as ὡς ἀληθῶς indicates. Your dog now is your only philosopher, says Plato, not more seriously than Rabelais (Prologue): Mais vistes vous oncques chien rencontrant quelque os medullaire: c’est comme dit Platon, lib. ii. de Rep., la beste du monde plus philosophe. Cf. Huxley, Hume , p. 104: The dog who barks furiously at a beggar will let a well-dressed man pass him without opposition. Has he not a general idea of rags and dirt associated with the idea of aversion? Dummler and others assume that Plato is satirizing the Cynics, but who were the Cynics in 380-370 B.C.?) In what respect, pray? In respect, said I, that he distinguishes a friendly from a hostile aspect by nothing save his apprehension of the one and his failure to recognize the other. How, I ask you,[*](καίτοι πῶς: humorous oratorical appeal. Cf. 360 C καίτοι.) can the love of learning be denied to a creature whose criterion of the friendly and the alien is intelligence and ignorance? It certainly cannot, he said. But you will admit, said I, that the love of learning and the love of wisdom are the same? The same, he said. Then may we not confidently lay it down in the case of man too, that if he is to be in some sort gentle to friends and familiars he must be by nature a lover of wisdom and of learning? Let us so assume, he replied. The love of wisdom, then, and high spirit and quickness and strength will be combined for us in the nature of him who is to be a good and true guardian of the state. By all means, he said. Such, then, I said, would be the basis[*](Cf. 343 E. ὑπάρχοι marks the basis of nature as opposed to teaching.) of his character. But the rearing of these men and their education, how shall we manage that? And will the consideration of this topic advance us in any way towards discerning what is the object of our entire inquiry—the origin of justice and injustice in a state—our aim must be to omit nothing of a sufficient discussion, and yet not to draw it out to tiresome length? And Glaucon’s brother replied, Certainly, I expect that this inquiry will bring us nearer to that end. Certainly, then, my dear Adeimantus, said I, we must not abandon it even if it prove to be rather long. No, we must not. Come, then, just as if we were telling stories or fables[*](Cf. Introduction pp. xxi-xxii, and Phaedrus 276 E.) and had ample leisure,[*](Plato likes to contrast the leisure of philosophy with the hurry of business and law. Cf. Theaetetus 172 C-D.) let us educate these men in our discourse. So we must. What, then, is our education?[*](For the abrupt question cf. 360 E. Plato here prescribes for all the guardians, or military class, the normal Greek education in music and gymnastics, purged of what he considers its errors. A higher philosophic education will prepare a selected few for the office of guardians par excellence or rulers. Quite unwarranted is the supposition that the higher education was not in Plato’s mind when he described the lower. Cf. 412 A, 429 D-430 C, 497 C-D, Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 650.) Or is it hard to find a better than that which long time has discovered?[*](For this conservative argument Cf. Politicus 300 B, Laws 844 A.) Which is, I suppose, gymnastics for the body[*](Qualified in 410 C. μουσική is playing the lyre, music, poetry, letters, culture, philosophy, according to context.) and for the soul music. It is. And shall we not begin education in music earlier than in gymnastics? Of course. And under music you include tales, do you not? I do. And tales are of two species, the one true and the other false[*](A slight paradox to surprise attention.)? Yes.

And education must make use of both, but first of the false?I don’t understand your meaning.Don’t you understand, I said, that we begin by telling children fables, and the fable is, taken as a whole, false, but there is truth in it also? And we make use of fable with children before gymnastics. That is so. That, then, is what I meant by saying that we must take up music before gymnastics. You were right, he said. Do you not know, then, that the beginning in every task is the chief thing,[*](Cf. Laws 753 E, 765 E, Antiphon, fr. 134 Blass.) especially for any creature that is young and tender[*](Cf. Laws 664 B, and Shelley’s Specious names,Learned in soft childhood’s unsuspecting hour, perhaps derived from the educational philosophy of Rousseau.)? For it is then that it is best molded and takes the impression[*](The image became a commonplace. Cf. Theaetetus 191 D, Horace Epistles ii. 32. 8, the Stoic τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ, and Byron’s Wax to receive and marble to retain.) that one wishes to stamp upon it. Quite so. Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer[*](Cf. the censorship proposed in Laws 656 C. Plato’s criticism of the mythology is anticipated in part by Euripides, Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and Pythagoras. Cf. Decharme, Euripides and the Spirit of his Dramas, translated by James Loeb, chap. ii. Many of the Christian Fathers repeated his criticism almost verbatim.) our children to listen to any chance stories fashioned by any chance teachers and so to take into their minds opinions for the most part contrary to those that we shall think it desirable for them to hold when they are grown up? By no manner of means will we allow it. We must begin, then, it seems, by a censorship over our storymakers, and what they do well we must pass and what not, reject. And the stories on the accepted list we will induce nurses and mothers to tell to the children and so shape their souls by these stories far rather than their bodies by their hands. But most of the stories they now tell we must reject. What sort of stories? he said. The example of the greater stories, I said, will show us the lesser also. For surely the pattern must be the same and the greater and the less must have a like tendency. Don’t you think so? I do, he said; but I don’t apprehend which you mean by the greater, either. Those, I said, that Hesiod[*](Theogony 154-181.) and Homer and the other poets related. These, methinks, composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind. Of what sort? he said; and what in them do you find fault? With that, I said, which one ought first and chiefly to blame, especially if the lie is not a pretty one. What is that? When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models. It is certainly right to condemn things like that, he said; but just what do we mean and what particular things?

There is, first of all, I said, the greatest lie about the things of greatest concernment, which was no pretty invention of him who told how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did to Cronos, and how Cronos in turn took his revenge; and then there are the doings and sufferings of Cronos at the hands of his son. Even if they were true I should not think that they ought to be thus lightly told to thoughtless young persons. But the best way would be to bury them in silence, and if there were some necessity[*](Conservative feeling or caution prevents Plato from proscribing absolutely what may be a necccessary part of traditional or mystical religion.) for relating them, that only a very small audience should be admitted under pledge of secrecy and after sacrificing, not a pig,[*](The ordinary sacrifice at the Eleusinian mysteries. Cf. Aristophanes Acharn. 747, Peace 374-375; Walter Pater, Demeter and the Pig.) but some huge and unprocurable victim, to the end that as few as possible should have heard these tales. Why, yes, said he, such stories are hard sayings. Yes, and they are not to be told, Adeimantus, in our city, nor is it to be said in the hearing of a young man, that in doing the utmost wrong he would do nothing to surprise anybody, nor again in punishing his father’s[*](Plato does not sympathize with the Samuel Butlers of his day.) wrong-doings to the limit, but would only be following the example of the first and greatest of the gods.[*](The argument, whether used in jest or earnest, was a commonplace. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. 137, Laws 941 B, Aeschylus Eumenides 640-641, Terence Eunuchus 590 At quem deum! . . . ego homuncio hoc non facerem. The Neoplatonists met the criticism of Plato and the Christian Fathers by allegorizing or refining away the immoral parts of the mythology, but St. Augustine cleverly retorts (De Civ. Dei, ii. 7): Omnes enim . . . cultores talium deorum . . . magis intuentur quid Iupiter fecerit quam quid docuerit Plato.) No, by heaven, said he, I do not myself think that they are fit to be told. Neither must we admit at all, said I, that gods war with gods[*](Cf. the protest in the Euthyphro 6 B, beautifully translated by Ruskin, Aratra Pentelici 107: And think you that there is verily war with each other among the gods? And dreadful enmities and battles, such as the poets have told, and such as our painters set forth in graven sculpture to adorn all our sacred rites and holy places. Yes, and in the great Panathenaia themselves the Peplus full of such wild picturing, is carried up into the Acropolis—shall we say that these things are true, oh Euthyphron, right-minded friend?) and plot against one another and contend—for it is not true either— if we wish our future guardians to deem nothing more shameful than lightly to fall out with one another; still less must we make battles of gods and giants the subject for them of stories and embroideries,[*](On the Panathenaic πέπλος of Athena.) and other enmities many and manifold of gods and heroes toward their kith and kin. But if there is any likelihood of our persuading them that no citizen ever quarrelled with his fellow-citizen and that the very idea of it is an impiety, that is the sort of thing that ought rather to be said by their elders, men and women, to children from the beginning and as they grow older, and we must compel the poets to keep close to this in their compositions. But Hera’s fetterings[*](The title of a play by Epicharmus. The hurling of Hephaestus, Iliad i. 586-594.) by her son and the hurling out of heaven of Hephaestus by his father when he was trying to save his mother from a beating, and the battles of the gods[*]( Iliad xx. 1-74; xxi. 385-513.) in Homer’s verse are things that we must not admit into our city either wrought in allegory[*](ὑπόνοια: the older word for allegory; Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. 19 E. For the allegorical interpretation of Homer in Plato’s time cf. Jebb, Homer, p. 89, and Mrs. Anne Bates Hersman’s Chicago Dissertation: Studies in Greek Allegorical Interpretation.) or without allegory. For the young are not able to distinguish what is and what is not allegory, but whatever opinions are taken into the mind at that age are wont to prove indelible and unalterable. For which reason, maybe, we should do our utmost that the first stories that they hear should be so composed as to bring the fairest lessons of virtue to their ears. Yes, that is reasonable, he said; but if again someone should ask us to be specific and say what these compositions may be and what are the tales, what could we name?

And I replied, Adeimantus, we are not poets,[*](The poet, like the rhetorician (Politicus 304 D), is a ministerial agent of the royal or political art. So virtually Aristotle, Politics 1336 b.) you and I at present, but founders of a state. And to founders it pertains to know the patterns on which poets must compose their fables and from which their poems must not be allowed to deviate; but the founders are not required themselves to compose fables. Right, he said; but this very thing—the patterns or norms of right speech about the gods, what would they be? Something like this, I said. The true quality of God we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse. We must. And is not God of course[*](The γε implies that God is good ex vi termini.) good in reality and always to be spoken of[*](It is charcteristic of Plato to distinguish the fact and the desirability of proclaiming it. The argument proceeds by the minute links which tempt to parody. Below τὸ ἀγαθόν, followed by οὐδ’ ἄρα . . . ὁ θεός, is in itself a refutation of the ontological identification in Plato of God and the Idea of Good. But the essential goodness of God is a commonplace of liberal and philosophical theology, from the Stoics to Whittier’s hymn, The Eternal Goodness.) as such? Certainly. But further, no good thing is harmful, is it? I think not. Can what is not harmful harm? By no means. Can that which does not harm do any evil? Not that either. But that which does no evil would not be cause of any evil either? How could it? Once more, is the good beneficent? Yes. It is the cause, then, of welfare? Yes. Then the good is not the cause of all things, but of things that are well it the cause—of things that are ill it is blameless. Entirely so, he said. Neither, then, could God, said I, since he is good, be, as the multitude say, the cause of all things, but for mankind he is the cause of few things, but of many things not the cause.[*](Anticipates the proclamation of the prophet in the final myth, 617 E: αἰτία ἑλομένου· θεὸς ἀναίτιος. The idea, elaborated in Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus, may be traced back to the speech of the Homeric Zeus in Odyssey i. 33 ἐξ ἡμεῶν γάπ φασι κάκ’ ἔμμεναι. St. Thomas distinguishes: Deus est auctor mali quod est poena, non autem mali quod est culpa.) For good things are far fewer[*](A pessimistic commoplace more emphasized in the Laws than in the Republic. Cf. Laws 896 E, where the Manichean hypothesis of an evil world-soul is suggested.) with us than evil, and for the good we must assume no other cause than God, but the cause of evil we must look for in other things and not in God. What you say seems to me most true, he replied. Then, said I, we must not accept from Homer or any other poet the folly of such error as this about the gods when he says

1. Two urns stand on the floor of the palace of Zeus and are filled with
2. Dooms he allots, one of blessings, the other of gifts that are evil,

1. Now upon evil he chances and now again good is his portion,

1. Hunger devouring drives him, a wanderer over the wide world,

1. Zeus is dispenser alike of good and of evil to mortals.