Republic

And Adeimantus broke in and said, What will be your defence, Socrates, if anyone objects that you are not making these men very happy,[*](Adeimantus’s criticism is made from the point of view of a Thrasymachus (343 A, 345 B) or a Callicles (Gorgias 492 B-C or of Solon’s critics (cf. my note on Solon’s Trochaics to Phokos, Class. Phil . vol. vi. pp. 216 ff.). The captious objection is repeated by Aristotle, Politics 1264 b 15 ff., though he later (1325 a 9-10) himself uses Plato’s answer to it, and by moderns, as Herbert Spencer, Grote, Newman to some extent (Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, p. 69.), and Zeller (Aristotle, ii. p. 224) who has the audacity to say that Plato demanded the abolition of all private possession and the suppression of all individual interests because it is only in the Idea or Universal that he acknowledges any title to true reality. Leslie Stephen does not diverge so far from Plato when he says (Science of Ethics, p. 397): The virtuous men may be the very salt of the earth, and yet the discharge of a function socially necessary may involve their own misery. By the happiness of the whole Plato obviously maens not an abstraction but the concrete whole of which Leslie Stephen is thinking. But from a higher point of view Plato eloquently argues (465 B-C) that duty fulfilled will yield truer happiness to the guardians than seeking their own advantage in the lower sense of the word.) and that through their own fault? For the city really belongs to them and yet they get no enjoyment out of it as ordinary men do by owning lands and building fine big houses and providing them with suitable furniture and winning the favor of the gods by private sacrifices[*](Cf. 362 C, and Laws 909 D ff. where they are forbidden.) and entertaining guests and enjoying too those possessions which you just now spoke of, gold and silver and all that is customary for those who are expecting to be happy?

But they seem, one might say, to be established in idleness in the city, exactly like hired mercenaries, with nothing to do but keep guard.Yes, said I, and what is more, they serve for board-wages and do not even receive pay in addition to their food as others do,[*](Other men, ordinary men. Cf. 543 B ὧν νῦν οἱ ἄλλοι, which disposes of other interpretations and misunderstandings.) so that they will not even be able to take a journey[*](This is, for other reasons, one of the deprivations of a tyrant (579 B). The Laws strictly limits travel (949 E). Here Plato is speaking from the point of view of the ordinary citizen.) on their own account, if they wish to, or make presents to their mistresses, or spend money in other directions according to their desires like the men who are thought to be happy. These and many similar counts of the indictment you are omitting. Well, said he, assume these counts too.[*](The Platonic Socrates always states the adverse case strongly (Introduction p. xi), and observes the rule: Would you adopt a strong logical attitudeAlways allow your opponent full latitude.) What then will be our apology you ask? Yes. By following the same path I think we shall find what to reply. For we shall say that while it would not surprise us if these men thus living prove to be the most happy, yet the object on which we fixed our eyes in the establishment of our state was not the exceptional happiness of any one class but the greatest possible happiness of the city as a whole. For we thought[*](Cf. 369 A.) that in a state so constituted we should be most likely to discover justice as we should injustice in the worst governed state, and that when we had made these out we could pass judgement on the issue of our long inquiry. Our first task then, we take it, is to mold the model of a happy state—we are not isolating[*](ἀπολαβόντες, separating off,abstracting, may be used absolutely as in Gorgias 495 E, or with any object as 392 E.) a small class in it and postulating their happiness, but that of the city as a whole. But the opposite type of state we will consider presently.[*](That is 449 A and books VIII. and IX. The degenerate types of state are four, but the extreme opposite of the good state, the tyranny, is one.) It is as if we were coloring a statue and someone approached and censured us, saying that we did not apply the most beautiful pigments to the most beautiful parts of the image, since the eyes,[*](So Hippias Major 290 B.) which are the most beautiful part, have not been painted with purple but with black— we should think it a reasonable justification to reply, Don’t expect us, quaint friend, to paint the eyes so fine that they will not be like eyes at all, nor the other parts. But observe whether by assigning what is proper to each we render the whole beautiful.[*](For this principle of aesthetics Cf. Phaedrus 264 C, Aristotle Poetics 1450 b 1-2.) And so in the present case you must not require us to attach to the guardians a happiness that will make them anything but guardians. For in like manner we could[*](We know how to. For the satire of the Socialist millenium which follows cf. Introduction p. xxix, and Ruskin, Fors Clavigera. Plato may have been thinking of the scene on the shield of Achilles, Iliad xviii. 541-560.) clothe the farmers in robes of state and deck them with gold and bid them cultivate the soil at their pleasure, and we could make the potters recline on couches from left to right[*](i.e. so that the guest on the right hand occupied a lower place and the wine circulated in the same direction. Many write ἐπὶ δεξιά, but A ἐπιδέξια. Forever, ’tis a single word. Our rude forefathers thought it two.) before the fire drinking toasts and feasting with their wheel alongside to potter with when they are so disposed, and we can make all the others happy in the same fashion, so that thus the entire city may be happy.

But urge us not to this, since, if we yield, the farmer will not be a farmer nor the potter a potter, nor will any other of the types that constitute state keep its form. However, for the others it matters less. For cobblers[*](Note the ab urbe condita construction. For the thought cf. 374 B. Zeller and many who follow him are not justified in inferring that Plato would not educate the masses. (Cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, i. p. 160.) It might as well be argued that the high schools of the United States are not intended for the masses because some people sometimes emphasize their function of fitting for college. In the Republic Plato describes secondary education as a preparation for the higher training. The secondary education of the entire citizenry in the Laws marks no change of opinion (Laws 818 ff.). Cf. Introduction p. xxxiii.) who deteriorate and are spoiled and pretend to be the workmen that they are not are no great danger to a state. But guardians of laws and of the city who are not what they pretend to be, but only seem, destroy utterly, I would have you note, the entire state, and on the other hand, they alone are decisive of its good government and happiness. If then we are forming true guardians and keepers of our liberties, men least likely to harm the commonwealth, but the proponent of the other ideal is thinking of farmers and happy feasters as it were in a festival and not in a civic community, he would have something else in mind[*](The expression is loose, but the meaning is plain. The principle one man, one task makes the guardians real guardians. The assumption that their happiness is the end is incompatible with the very idea of a state. Cf. Introduction pp. xxix f. ἑστιάτορας recalls μέλλοντα ἑστιάσεσθαι345 C, but we are expected to think also of the farmers of 420 E.) than a state. Consider, then, whether our aim in establishing the guardians is the greatest possible happiness among them or whether that is something we must look to see develop in the city as a whole, but these helpers and guardians are to be constrained and persuaded to do what will make them the best craftsmen in their own work, and similarly all the rest. And so, as the entire city develops and is ordered well, each class is to be left, to the share of happiness that its nature comports.Well, he said, I think you are right. And will you then, I said, also think me reasonable in another point akin to this? What pray? Consider whether these are the causes that corrupt other[*](The guardians are δημιουργοὶ ἐλευθερίας (395 C).) craftsmen too so as positively to spoil them.[*](ὥστε καὶ κακούς, I think, means so that they become actually bad, not so that they also become bad. Cf. Lysis 217 B.) What causes? Wealth and poverty,[*](For the dangers of wealth cf. 550, 553 D, 555 B, 556 A, 562, Laws 831 C, 919 B, and for the praises of poverty cf. Aristophanes Plutus 510-591, Lucian, Nigrinus 12, Euripides fr. 55 N., Stobaeus, Flor. 94 (Meineke iii. 198), Class. Phil . vol. xxii. pp. 235-236.) said I. How so? Thus! do you think a potter who grew rich would any longer be willing to give his mind to his craft? By no means, said he. But will he become more idle and negligent than he was? Far more. Then he becomes a worse potter? Far worse too. And yet again, if from poverty he is unable to provide himself with tools and other requirements of his art, the work that he turns out will be worse, and he will also make inferior workmen of his sons or any others whom he teaches. Of course. From both causes, then, poverty and wealth, the products of the arts deteriorate, and so do the artisans? So it appears. Here, then, is a second group of things it seems that our guardians must guard against and do all in their power to keep from slipping into the city without their knowledge. What are they?