Republic

Then, as we were saying[*](The reference is to the general tenor of what precedes.) in the beginning, our youth must join in a more law-abiding play, since, if play grows lawless and the children likewise, it is impossible that they should grow up to be men of serious temper and lawful spirit.Of course, he said. And so we may reason that when children in their earliest play are imbued with the spirit of law and order through their music, the opposite of the former supposition happens—this spirit waits upon them in all things and fosters their growth, and restores and sets up again whatever was overthrown in the other[*](πρότερον is an unconscious lapse from the construction of an ideal state to the reformation of a degenerate Athens. Cf. Isocrates Areopagiticus 41 ff., and Laws 876 B-C, 948 C-D.) type of state. True, indeed, he said. Then such men rediscover for themselves those seemingly trifling conventions which their predecessors abolished altogether. Of what sort? Such things as the becoming silence[*](For these traits of old-fashioned decorum and modesty cf. Aristophanes Clouds 961-1023, Blaydes on 991, Herodotus ii. 80, Isocrates Areopagiticus 48-49.) of the young in the presence of their elders; the giving place to them and rising up before them, and dutiful service of parents, and the cut of the hair[*](Cf. Starkie on Aristophanes Wasps 1069.) and the garments and the fashion of the foot-gear, and in general the deportment of the body and everything of the kind. Don’t you think so? I do. Yet to enact them into laws would, I think, be silly.[*](Cf. on 412 B, Isocrates Areopagiticus 41, and Laws 788 B, where the further, still pertinent consideration is added that the multiplication of minor enactments tends to bring fundamental laws into contempt. Cf. Plato’s Laws and the Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 353, n. 2.) For such laws are not obeyed nor would they last, being enacted only in words and on paper. How could they? At any rate, Adeimantus, I said, the direction of the education from whence one starts is likely to determine the quality of what follows. Does not like ever summon like? Surely. And the final[*](Cf. 401 C, Demosthenes Olynth. iii. 33 τέλειόν τι καὶ μέγα.) outcome, I presume, we would say is one complete and vigorous product of good or the reverse. Of course, said he. For my part, then, I said, for these reasons I would not go on to try to legislate on such matters.[*](τὰ τοιαῦτα is slightly contemptuous. Specific commercial, industrial and criminal legislation was not compatible with the plan of the Republic, and so Plato omits it here. Much of it is given in the Laws, but even there details are left to the citizens and their rulers. Cf. on 412 B.) With good reason, said he. But what, in heaven’s name, said I, about business matters, the deals[*](Cf. Laws 922 A, Aristotle Politics 1263 b 21. All legal relations of contract, impied contract and tort.) that men make with one another in the agora— and, if you please, contracts with workmen[*](In Laws 920 D Plato allows a δίκη ἀτελοῦς ὁμολογίας against workmen or contractors who break or fail to complete contracts.) and actions for foul language[*](Cf. Laws 935 C.There was no λοιδορίας δίκη under that name at Athens, but certain words were actionable, ἀπόρρητα and there was a δίκη κακηγορίας.) and assault, the filing of declarations,[*](Plato shows his contempt for the subject by this confused enumeration, passing without warning from contracts and torts to procedure and then to taxes, market, harbor and police regulations.) the impanelling of juries, the payment and exaction of any dues that may be needful in markets or harbors and in general market, police or harbor regulations and the like, can we bring[*](τολμήσομεν is both venture and deign.) ourselves to legislate about these? Nay, ʼtwould not be fitting, he said, to dictate to good and honorable men.[*](Cf. Isocrates Panegyr. 78 ὅτι τοῖς καλοῖς κἀγαθοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲν δεήσει πολλῶν γραμμάτων.) For most of the enactments that are needed about these things they will easily, I presume, discover. Yes, my friend, provided God grants them the preservation of the principles of law that we have already discussed. Failing that, said he, they will pass their lives multiplying such petty laws and amending them in the expectation of attaining what is best. You mean, said I, that the life of such citizens will resemble that of men who are sick, yet from intemperance are unwilling to abandon[*](Cf. Emerson, Experience: They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices but not from their vices. Charity would be wasted on this poor waiting on the symptoms. A wise and hardy physician will say, Come out of that as the first condition of advice.) their unwholesome regimen.

By all means.And truly, said I, these latter go on in a most charming[*](Ironical. Quite fanciful is Dümmler’s supposition (Kleine Schriften, i, p. 99) that this passage was meant as destructive criticism of Isocrates Panegyricus and that Antidosis 62 is a reply. Plato is obviously thinking of practical politicians rather than of Isocrates.) fashion. For with all their doctoring they accomplish nothing except to complicate and augment their maladies. And[*](πλήν γε etc., is loosely elliptical, but emendations are superfluous.) they are always hoping that some one will recommend a panacea that will restore their health. A perfect description, he said, of the state of such invalids. And isn’t this a charming trait in them, that they hate most in all the world him who tells them the truth that until a man stops drinking and gorging and wenching and idling, neither drugs[*](For the list cf. Pindar, Pyth. iii. 50-54. οὐδ’ αὖ emphasizes the transition to superstitious remedies in which Plato doesn’t really believe. Cf. his rationalizing interpretations of ἐπῳδαί, Charmides 157 A, Theaetetus 149 C. Laws 933 A-B is to be interpreted in the spirit of the observation in Selden’s Table Talk: The law against witches does not prove that there be any but it punishes the malice, etc. [Demosthenes] xxv. 80 is sceptical.) nor cautery nor the knife, no, nor spells nor periapts[*](Cf. any lexicon, Shakespeare 1 Henry VI. v. iii. 2 Now help, ye charming spells and periapts, and Plutarch’s story of the women who hung them on Pericles’ neck on his death-bed.) will be of any avail? Not altogether charming, he said, for there is no grace or charm in being angry[*](Cf. 480 A, 354 A.) with him who speaks well. You do not seem to be an admirer[*](The noun is more forcible than the verb would be. Cf. Protagoras 309 A ἐπαινέτης.) of such people, said I. No, by heaven, I am not. Neither then, if an entire city,[*](We return from the illustration to its application to the state.) as we were just now saying, acts in this way, will it have your approval, or don’t you think that the way of such invalids is precisely that of those cities which being badly governed forewarn their citizens not to meddle[*](Cf. 497 B, Aristotle Politics 1301 b 11. Cf. the obvious imitation in the (probably spurious) Epistle vii. 330 E. For the thought, from the point of view of an enemy of democracy, cf. the statement in [Xenophon] Rep. Ath. 3. 9, that the faults of Athens cannot be corrected while she remains a democracy. The Athenians naturally guarded their constitution and viewed with equal suspicion the idealistic reformer and the oligarchical reactionary.) with the general constitution of the state, denouncing death to whosoever attempts that—while whoever most agreeably serves[*](Cf. , p. 65 note d, and Laws 923 B. The phraseology here recalls Gorgias 517 B, Aristophanes Knights 46-63. Cf. Plato’s Laws and the Unity of Plato’s Thought, Class Phil. vol. ix. (Oct. 1914) p. 363, n. 3.) them governed as they are and who curries favor with them by fawning upon them and anticipating their desires and by his cleverness in gratifying them, him they will account the good man, the man wise in worthwhile things,[*](Almost technical. Cf. 538 B.) the man they will delight to honor? Yes, he said, I think their conduct is identical, and I don’t approve it in the very least. And what again of those who are willing and eager to serve[*](Here serve, not flatter.) such states? Don’t you admire their valiance and light-hearted irresponsibility[*](This word εὐχέρεια is often misunderstood by lexicons and commentators. It is of course not dexterity (L. and S.) nor yet probably complaisance, nor yet humanitas or Gutmütigkeit as Adam and Schneider think. It expresses rather the light-heartedness with which such politicians rush in where wiser men fear to tread, which is akin to the lightness with which men plunge into crime. Cf. Laws 690 D τῶν ἐπὶ νόμων θέσιν ἰόντων ῥᾳδίως and 969 ἀνδρειότατος. Plato’s political physician makes come out of that a precondition of his treatment. Cf. Laws 736-737, Politicus 299 A-B, 501 A, 540 E, Epistle vii. 330 C-D, and the story in Aelian. V.H. ii. 42. of Plato’s refusal to legislate for the Arcadians because they would not accept an equalization of property.)? I do, he said, except those who are actually deluded and suppose themselves to be in truth statesmen[*](Cf. Euthyphro 2 C-D, Gorgias 513 B, Politicus 275 C and 292 D.) because they are praised by the many. What do you mean? Can’t you make allowances[*](Plato often condescendingly and half ironically pardons psychologically inevitable errors. Cf. 366 C, Phaedrus 269 B, Euthydemus 306 C.) for the men? Do you think it possible for a man who does not know how to measure when a multitude of others equally ignorant assure him that he is four cubits tall not to suppose this to be the fact about himself? Why no,[*](For οὐκ αὖ cf. 393 D, 442 A, Theaetetus 161 A, Class. Phil. vol. xxiii. pp. 285-287. ἔγωγε above concurs with ἄγασαι, ignoring the irony. πλήν γε etc. marks dissent on one point. This dissent is challenged, and is withdrawn by οὐκ αὖ . . . τοῦτο γε (οἶμαι).) he said, I don’t think that. Then don’t be harsh with them. For surely such fellows are the most charming spectacle in the world when they enact and amend such laws as we just now described and are perpetually expecting to find a way of putting an end to frauds in business and in the other matters of which I was speaking because they can’t see that they are in very truth[*](τῷ ὄντι points the application of the proverbial ὕδραν τέμνειν, which appears in this now trite metaphorical use for the first time here and in Euthydemus 297 C. Cf. my note on Horace iv. 4. 61. For the thought cf. Isocrates vii. 40, Macrob. Sat. ii. 13 leges bonae ex malis moribus procreantur, Arcesilaus apud Stobaeus Flor. xliii. 981 οὕτω δὴ καὶ ὅπου νόμοι πλεῖστοι ἐκεῖ καὶ ἀδικίαν εἶναι μεγίστην, Theophrastus apud Stobaeus Flor. xxxvii. 21 ὀλίγων οἱ ἀγαθοὶ νόμων δέονται.) trying to cut off a Hydra’s head.

Indeed, he said, that is exactly what they are doing. I, then, said I, should not have supposed[*](Ironically, I should not have supposed, but for the practice of our politicians.) that the true lawgiver ought to work out matters of that kind[*](εἶδος νόμων πέρι is here a mere periphrasis, though the true classification of laws was a topic of the day. Cf. Laws 630 E, Aristotle Politics 1267 b 37. Plato is not always careful to mark the distinction between the legislation which he rejects altogether and that which he leaves to the discretion of the citizens.) in the laws and the constitution either of an ill-governed or a well-governed state—in the one because they are useless and accomplish nothing, in the other because some of them anybody could discover and others will result spontaneously from the pursuits already described. What part of legislation, then, he said, is still left for us? And I replied, For us nothing, but for the Apollo of Delphi, the chief, the fairest and the first of enactments. What are they? he said. The founding of temples, and sacrifices, and other forms of worship of gods, daemons, and heroes; and likewise the burial of the dead and the services we must render to the dwellers in the world beyond[*](ἐκεῖ=in the other world. So often.) to keep them gracious. For of such matters we neither know anything nor in the founding of our city if we are wise shall we entrust them to any other or make use of any other interpreter[*](For the exegete as a special religious functionary at Athens. cf. L. and S. s. v. and Laws 759 C-D. Apollo in a higher sense is the interpreter of religion for all mankind. He is technically πατρῷος at Athens (Euthydemus 302 D) but he is πάτριος for all Greeks and all men. Plato does not, as Thümser says (p. 301), confuse the Dorian and the Ionian Apollo, but rises above the distinction.) than the God of our fathers.[*](Plato prudently or piously leaves the deatils of ceremonial and institutional religion to Delphi. Cf. 540 B-C, Laws 759 C, 738 B-C, 828 A, 856 E, 865 B, 914 A, 947 D.) For this God surely is in such matters for all mankind the interpreter of the religion of their fathers who from his seat in the middle and at the very navel[*](This navel stone, supposed to mark the center of the earth, has now been found. Cf. Poulsen’s Delphi, pp. 19, 29, 157, and Frazer on Pausanias x. 16.) of the earth delivers his interpretation. Excellently said, he replied; and that is what we must do. At last, then, son of Ariston, said I, your city[*](Not the ἀναγκαιοτάτη πόλις of 369 E, nor the φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις of 372 E, but the purified city of 399 E has now been established and described. The search for justice that follows formulates for the first time the doctrine of the four cardinal virtues and defines each provisionally and sufficiently for the present purpose, and solves the problems dramatically presented in the minor dialogues, Charmides, Laches, etc. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 15-18, nn. 81-102, and the introduction to the second volume of this translation.) may be considered as established. The next thing is to procure a sufficient light somewhere and to look yourself,[*](αὐτός τε καί: cf. 398 A.) and call in the aid of your brother and of Polemarchus and the rest, if we may in any wise discover where justice and injustice[*](See on 369 A. Matter-of-fact critics may object that there is no injustice in the perfectly good state. But we know the bad best by the canon of the good. Cf. on 409 A-B. The knowledge of opposites is the same. Injustice can be defined only in relation to its opposite (444 A-B), and in the final argument the most unjust man and state are set up as the extreme antitypes of the ideal (571-580). By the perfect state Plato does not mean a state in which no individual retains any human imperfections. It is idle then to speak of difficulties or contradictions or changes of plan in the composition of the Republic.) should be in it, wherein they differ from one another and which of the two he must have who is to be happy, alike[*](For ἐάν τε . . . ἐάν τε cf. 367 E.) whether his condition is known or not known to all gods and men. Nonsense, said Glaucon, you[*](Cf. 331 E. Emphatic as in 449 D-450 A, Phaedo 95 A, and Alc. I. 135 D.) promised that you would carry on the search yourself, admitting that it would be impious[*](Cf. 368 B-C.) for you not to come to the aid of justice by every means in your power. A true reminder, I said, and I must do so, but you also must lend a hand. Well, he said, we will. I expect then, said I, that we shall find it in this way. I think our city, if it has been rightly founded is good in the full sense of the word.[*](Cf. 434 E, 449 A. This in a sense begs the original question in controversy with Thrasymachus, by the assumption that justice and the other moral virtues are goods. Cf. Gorgias 507 C. See The Idea of Good in Plato’s Republic, p. 205. For the cardinal virtues cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. p. 304, Pearson, Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, pp. 173 f., and commentators on Pindar, Nem. iii. 74, which seems to refer to four periods of human life, and Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 1-5, and iv. 6. 1-12. Plato recognizes other virtues even in the Republic (402 C ἐλευθεριότης and μεγαλοπρέπεια. Cf. 536 A), and would have been as ready to admit that the number four was a part of his literary machinery as Ruskin was to confess the arbitrariness of his Seven Lamps of Architecture.) Necessarily, he said. Clearly, then, it will be wise, brave, sober, and just. Clearly. Then if we find any of these qualities in it, the remainder[*](It is pedantry to identify this with Mill’s method of residues and then comment on the primitive naïveté of such an application of logic to ethics. One might as well speak of Andocides’ employment of the method (De myst. 109) or of its use by Gorgias in the disjunctive dilemma of the Palamedes 11 and passim, or say that the dog of the anecdote employs it when he sniffs up one trail and immediately runs up the other. Plato obviously employs it merely as a literary device for the presentation of his material under the figure of a search. He, in the infancy of philosophy, is quite as well aware as his censors can be in the senility of criticism that he is not proving anything by this method, but merely setting forth what he has assumed for other reasons.) will be that which we have not found?