Republic

But a judge, mark you, my friend, rules soul with soul and it is not allowable for a soul to have been bred from youth up among evil souls and to have grown familiar with them, and itself to have run the gauntlet of every kind of wrong-doing and injustice so as quickly to infer from itself the misdeeds of others as it might diseases in the body, but it must have been inexperienced in evil natures and uncontaminated by them while young, if it is to be truly fair and good and judge soundly of justice. For which cause the better sort seem to be simple-minded in youth and are easily deceived by the wicked, since they do not have within themselves patterns answering to the affections of the bad.That is indeed their experience, he said. Therefore it is, said I, that the good judge must not be a youth but an old man, a late learner[*](ὀψιμαθῆ: here in a favorable sense, but usually an untranslatable Greek word for a type portrayed in a charater of Theophrastus.) of the nature of injustice, one who has not become aware of it as a property in his own soul, but one who has through the long years trained himself to understand it as an alien thing in alien souls, and to discern how great an evil it is by the instrument of mere knowledge and not by experience of his own. That at any rate, he said, appears to be the noblest kind of judge. And what is more, a good one, I said, which was the gist of your question. For he who has a good soul is good. But that cunning fellow quick to suspect evil,[*](For this type of character cf. Thucydides iii. 83, and my comments in T.A.P.A. vol. xxiv. p. 79. Cf. Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol: They who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behavior of ill men, are of the party of the latter; Stobaeus ii. p. 46 Βίας ἔφη, οἱ ἀγαθοὶ εὐαπάτητοι, Menander, fr. 845 Kock χρηστοῦ παρ’ ἀνδρὸς μηδὲν ὑπονόει κακόν.) and who has himself done many unjust acts and who thinks himself a smart trickster, when he associates with his like does appear to be clever, being on his guard and fixing his eyes on the patterns within himself. But when the time comes for him to mingle with the good and his elders, then on the contrary he appears stupid. He is unseasonably distrustful and he cannot recognize a sound character because he has no such pattern in himself. But since he more often meets with the bad than the good, he seems to himself and to others to be rather wise than foolish. That is quite true, he said. Well then, said I, such a one must not be our ideal of the good and wise judge but the former. For while badness could never come to know both virtue and itself, native virtue through education will at last acquire the science both of itself and badness.[*](Cf. George Eliot, Adam Bede, chap. xiv.: It is our habit to say that while the lower nature can never understand the higher, the higher nature commands a complete view of the lower. But I think the higher nature has to learn this comprehension by a good deal of hard experience.) This one, then, as I think, is the man who proves to be wise and not the bad man.[*](Cf. Theaetetus 176 D It is far best not to concede to the unjust that they are clever knaves, for they glory in the taunt. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 21.) And I concur, he said.

Then will you not establish by law in your city such an art of medicine as we have described in conjunction with this kind of justice? And these arts will care for the bodies and souls of such of your citizens as are truly well born, but of those who are not, such as are defective in body they will suffer to die and those who are evil-natured and incurable[*](Only the incurable suffer a purely exemplary and deterrent punishment in this world or the next. Cf. 615 E, Protagoras 325 A, Gorgias 525 C, Phaedo 113 E.) in soul they will themselves[*](ultro, as opposed to ἐάσουσιν.) put to death.This certainly, he said, has been shown to be the best thing for the sufferers themselves and for the state. And so your youths, said I, employing that simple music which we said engendered sobriety will, it is clear, guard themselves against falling into the need of the justice of the court-room. Yes, he said. And will not our musician, pursuing the same trail in his use of gymnastics, if he please, get to have no need of medicine save when indispensable[*](Cf. 405 C. Plato always allows for the limitation of the ideal by necessity.)? I think so. And even the exercises and toils of gymnastics he will undertake with a view to the spirited part of his nature[*](The welfare of the soul is always the prime object for Plato. (Cf. 591 C) But he cannot always delay to correct ordinary speech in this sense. The correction of 376 E here is of course not a change of opinion, and it is no more a criticism of Isocrates, Antidosis 180-185, than it is of Gorgias 464 B, or Soph. 228 E, or Republic 521 E.) to arouse that rather than for mere strength, unlike ordinary athletes, who treat[*](μεταχειρίζονται: this reading of Galen is more idiomatic than the MS. μεταχειριεῖται. Where English says he is not covetous of honor as other men are, Greek says he (is) not as other men are covetous of honor.) diet and exercise only as a means to muscle. Nothing could be truer, he said. Then may we not say, Glaucon, said I, that those who established[*](Plato half seriously attributes his own purposes to the founders. Cf. 405-406 on medicine and Philebus 16 C on dialectics.) an education in music and gymnastics had not the purpose in view that some attribute to them in so instituting, namely to treat the body by one and the soul by the other? But what? he said. It seems likely, I said, that they ordained both chiefly for the soul’s sake. How so? Have you not observed, said I, the effect on the disposition of the mind itself[*](For the thought cf. Euripides Suppl. 882 f. and Polybius’s account of the effect of the neglect of music on the Arcadians (iv. 20).) of lifelong devotion to gymnastics with total neglect of music? Or the disposition of those of the opposite habit? In what respect do you mean? he said. In respect of savagery and hardness or, on the other hand, of softness and gentleness? I have observed, he said, that the devotees of unmitigated gymnastics turn out more brutal than they should be and those of music softer than is good for them. And surely, said I, this savagery is a quality derived from the high-spirited element in our nature, which, if rightly trained, becomes brave, but if overstrained, would naturally become hard and harsh. I think so, he said. And again, is not the gentleness a quality which the philosophic nature would yield? This if relaxed too far would be softer than is desirable but if rightly trained gentle and orderly? That is so. But our requirement, we say,[*](Cf. 375 C. With Plato’s doctrine of the two temperaments cf. the distinction of quick-wits and hard-wits in Ascham’s Schoolmaster. Ascham is thinking of Plato, for he says: Galen saith much music marreth men’s manners; and Plato hath a notable place of the same thing in his book De rep., well marked also and excellently translated by Tully himself.) is that the guardians should possess both natures. It is. And must they not be harmoniously adjusted to one another? Of course.

And the soul of the man thus attuned is sober and brave?Certainly.And that of the ill adjusted is cowardiy and rude?It surely is.Now when a man abandons himself to music to play[*](Cf. 561 C.) upon him and pour[*](Demetrius, Περὶ Ἑρμ. 51, quotes this and the following sentence as an example of the more vivid expression following the less vivid. For the image cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Thesm. 18, Aeschylus Choeph. 451, Shakespeare, CymbelineIII. ii. 59 Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing.) into his soul as it were through the funnel of his ears those sweet, soft, and dirge-like airs of which we were just now[*](Cf. 398 D-E, where the θρηνώδεις ἁρμονίαι are rejected altogether, while here they are used to illustrate the softening effect of music on a hard temperament. It is misspent ingenuity to harp on such contradictions.) speaking, and gives his entire time to the warblings and blandishments of song, the first result is that the principle of high spirit, if he had it, is softened like iron[*](For images drawn from the tempering of metals cf. Aeschylus Agamemnon 612 and Jebb on Sophocles Ajax 650.) and is made useful instead of useless and brittle. But when he continues[*](Cf. Theaetetus 165 E ἐπέχων καὶ οὐκ ἀνιείς, and Blaydes on Aristophanes Peace 1121.) the practice without remission and is spellbound, the effect begins to be that he melts and liquefies[*](Cf. Tennyson’s Molten down in mere uxoriousness (Geraint and Enid ).) till he completely dissolves away his spirit, cuts out as it were the very sinews of his soul and makes of himself a feeble warrior.[*](A familiar Homeric reminiscence (Iliad xvii. 588) quoted also in Symposium 174 C. Cf. Froissart’s un mol chevalier.)Assuredly, he said. And if, said I, he has to begin with a spiritless[*](Etymologically ἄθυμος = deficient in θυμός.) nature he reaches this result quickly, but if high-spirited, by weakening the spirit he makes it unstable, quickly irritated by slight stimuli, and as quickly quelled. The outcome is that such men are choleric and irascible instead of high-spirited, and are peevish and discontented. Precisely so. On the other hand, if a man toils hard at gymnastics and eats right lustily and holds no truck with music and philosophy, does he not at first get very fit and full of pride and high spirit and become more brave and bold than he was? He does indeed. But what if he does nothing but this and has no contact with the Muse in any way, is not the result that even if there was some principle of the love of knowledge in his soul, since it tastes of no instruction nor of any inquiry and does not participate in any discussion or any other form of culture, it becomes feeble, deaf, and blind, because it is not aroused or fed nor are its perceptions purified and quickened? That is so, he said. And so such a man, I take it, becomes a misologist[*](A hater of rational discussion, as explained in Laches 188 C, and the beautiful passage in the Phaedo 89 D ff. Cf. Minucius Felix, Octavius 14. 6 Igitur nobis providendum est ne odio identidem sermonum laboremus. John Morley describes obscurantists as sombre hierophants of misology.) and stranger to the Muses. He no longer makes any use of persuasion by speech but achieves all his ends like a beast by violence and savagery, and in his brute ignorance and ineptitude lives a life of disharmony and gracelessness. That is entirely true, he said.