Republic

To return to thirst, then, said I, will you not class it with the things[*](τῶν τινὸς εἶναι: if the text is sound, εἶναι seems to be taken twice, (1) with τοῦτο etc., (2)τῶν τινός as predicates. This is perhaps no harsher than τὸ δοκεῖν εἶναι in Aeschylus Agamemnon 788. Cf. Tennyson’s How sweet are the looks that ladies bendOn whom their favors fall, and Pope’s And virgins smiled at what they blushed before. Possibly θήσεις τῶν τινός is incomplete in itself (cf. 437 B) and εἶναι τοῦτο etc. is a loose epexegesis. The only emendation worth notice is Adam’s insertion of καὶ τινὸς between τινὸς and εἶναι, which yields a smooth, but painfully explicit, construction.) that are of something and say that it is what it is[*](Cf. further Sophist 255 D, Aristotle Met. 1021 a 27. Aristotle Cat. v., Top. vi. 4. So Plotinus vi. 1. 7 says that relative terms are those whose very being is the relation καὶ τὸ εἶναι οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ ἀλλήλοις εἶναι.) in relation to something—and it is, I presume, thirst? I will, said he, —namely of drink. Then if the drink is of a certain kind, so is the thirst, but thirst that is just thirst is neither of much nor little nor good nor bad, nor in a word of any kind, but just thirst is naturally of just drink only. By all means. The soul of the thirsty then, in so far as it thirsts, wishes nothing else than to drink, and yearns for this and its impulse is towards this. Obviously. Then if anything draws it back[*](Cf. on 437 C, Aristotle, De anima 433 b 8, Laws 644 E, 604 B, Phaedrus 238 C. The practical moral truth of this is independent of our metaphysical psychology. Plato means that the something which made King David refuse the draught purchased by the blood of his soldiers and Sir Philip Sidney pass the cup to a wounded comrade is somehow different than the animal instinct which it overpowers. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1102 b 24, Laws 863 E.) when thirsty it must be something different in it from that which thirsts and drives it like a beast[*](Cf. 589, Epistle 335 B. Cf. Descartes, Les Passions de l’âme, article xlvii: En quoi consistent les combats qu’on a coutume d’imaginer entre la partie inférieure et la supérieure de l’âme. He says in effect that the soul is a unit and the lower soul is the body. Cf. ibid. lxviii, where he rejects the concupiscible and the irascible.) to drink. For it cannot be, we say, that the same thing with the same part of itself at the same time acts in opposite ways about the same thing. We must admit that it does not. So I fancy it is not well said of the archer[*](Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 68: Plato . . . delights to prick the bubbles of imagery, rhetoric, and antithesis blown by his predecessors. Heraclitus means well when he says that the one is united by disunion (Symposium 187 A) or that the hands at once draw and repel the bow. But the epigram vanishes under logical analysis. For the conceit cf. Samuel Butler’s lines: He that will win his dame must doAs love does when he bends his bow,With one hand thrust his lady fromAnd with the other pull her home.) that his hands at the same time thrust away the bow and draw it nigh, but we should rather say that there is one hand that puts it away and another that draws it to. By all means, he said. Are we to say, then, that some men sometimes though thirsty refuse to drink? We are indeed, he said, many and often. What then, said I, should one affirm about them? Is it not that there is[*](ἐνεῖναι μὲν . . . ἐνεῖναι δέ: the slight artificiality of the anaphora matches well with the Gorgian jingle κελεῦον . . . κωλῦον. Cf. Iambl. Protrept. p. 41 Postelli ἔστι γὰρ τοιοῦτον ὃ κελεύει καὶ κωλύει.) something in the soul that bids them drink and a something that forbids, a different something that masters that which bids? I think so. And is it not the fact that that which inhibits such actions arises when it arises from the calculations of reason, but the impulses which draw and drag come through affections[*](The pulls are distinguished verbally from the passions that are their instruments. νοσημάτων suggests the Stoic doctrine that passions are diseases. Cf. Cicero Tusc. iii. 4 perturbationes, and passim, and Philebus 45 C.) and diseases? Apparently. Not unreasonably, said I, shall we claim that they are two and different from one another, naming that in the soul whereby it reckons and reasons the rational[*](λογιστικόν is one of Plato’s many synonyms for the intellectual principle. Cf. 441 C, 571 C, 587 D, 605 B. It emphasizes the moral calculation of consequences, as opposed to blind passion. Cf. Crito 46 B (one of the passages which the Christian apologists used to prove that Socrates knew the λόγος), Theaetetus 186 C ἀναλογίσματα πρός τε οὐσίαν καὶ ὠφέλειαν, and Laws 644 D. Aristotle Eth. 1139 a 12 somewhat differently.) and that with which it loves, hungers, thirsts, and feels the flutter[*](ἐπτόηται: almost technical, as in Sappho’s ode, for the flutter of desire. ἀλόγιστον, though applied here to the ἐπιθυμητικόν only, suggests the bipartite division of Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1102 a 28.) and titillation of other desires, the irrational and appetitive—companion[*](So the bad steed which symbolizes the ἐπιθυμητικόν in Phaedrus 253 E is ἀλαζονείας ἑταῖρος.) of various repletions and pleasures. It would not be unreasonable but quite natural, he said, for us to think this. These two forms, then, let us assume to have been marked off as actually existing in the soul. But now the Thumos[*](We now approach the distinctively Platonic sense of θυμός as the power of noble wrath, which, unless perverted by a bad education, is naturally the ally of the reason, though as mere angry passion it might seem to belong to the irrational part of the soul, and so, as Glaucon suggets, be akin to appetite, with which it is associated in the mortal soul of the Timaeus 69 D. In Laws 731 B-C Plato tells us again that the soul cannot combat injustice without the capacity for righteous indignation. The Stoics affected to deprecate anger always, and the difference remained a theme of controversy between them and the Platonists. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. pp. 321 ff., Seneca, De ira, i. 9, and passim. Moralists are still divided on the point. Cf. Bagehot, Lord Brougham: Another faculty of Brougham . . . is the faculty of easy anger. The supine placidity of civilization is not favorable to animosity [Bacon’s word for θυμός]. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 60 ff. and p. 62, seems to contradict Plato: The supposed conflict between reason and passion is, as I hold, meaningless if it is taken to imply that the reason is a faculty separate from the emotions, etc. But this is only his metaphysics. On the practical ethical issue he is with Plato.) or principle of high spirit, that with which we feel anger, is it a third, or would it be identical in nature with one of these? Perhaps, he said, with one of these, the appetitive.

But, I said, I once heard a story[*](Socrates has heard and trusts a, to us, obscure anecdote which shows how emotion may act as a distinct principle rebuking the lower appetites or curiosities. Leontius is unknown, except for Bergk’s guess identifying him with the Leotrophides of a corrupt fragment of Theopompus Comicus, fr. 1 Kock, p. 739.) which I believe, that Leontius the son of Aglaion, on his way up from the Peiraeus under the outer side of the northern wall,[*](He was following the outer side of the north wall up the city. Cf. Lysis 203 A, Frazer, Paus. ii. 40, Wachsmuth, Stadt Athen, i. p. 190.) becoming aware of dead bodies[*](The corpses were by, near, or with the executioner (ὁ ἐπὶ τῷ ὀρύγματι) whether he had thrown them into the pit (βάραθρον) or not.) that lay at the place of public execution at the same time felt a desire to see them and a repugnance and aversion, and that for a time he resisted[*](Cf. Antiphon fr. 18 Kock πληγείς, τέως μὲν ἐπεκράτει τῆς συμφορᾶς, etc., and Maids who shrieked to see the headsYet shrieking pressed more nigh.) and veiled his head, but overpowered in despite of all by his desire, with wide staring eyes he rushed up to the corpses and cried, There, ye wretches,[*](He apostrophizes his eyes, in a different style from Romeo’s, Eyes, look your last.) take your fill of the fine spectacle! I too, he said, have heard the story. Yet, surely, this anecdote, I said, signifies that the principle of anger sometimes fights against desires as an alien thing against an alien. Yes, it does, he said. And do we not, said I, on many other occasions observe when his desires constrain a man contrary to his reason that he reviles himself and is angry with that within which masters him and that as it were in a faction of two parties the high spirit of such a man becomes the ally of his reason? But its[*](αὐτόν: we shift from the θυμός to the man and back again.) making common cause[*](ἀντιπράττειν: that is, opposite the reason. It may be construed with δεῖν or as the verb of αὐτόν. There are no real difficulties in the passage, though many have been found. The order of the words and the anacoluthon are intentional and effective. Cf. on 434 C. οὐκ ἂν . . . ποτέ is to literal understanding an exaggeration. But Plato is speaking of the normal action of uncorrupted θυμός. Plato would not accept the psychology of Euripides’ Medea (1079-1080): καὶ μανθάνω μὲν οἷα δρᾶν μέλλω κακά, θυμὸς δὲ κρείσσω τῶν ἐμῶν βουλευμάτων. Cf. Dr. Loeb’s translation of Décharme, p. 340.) with the desires against the reason when reason whispers low[*](αἱροῦντος: cf. 604 C, and L. and S. s. v. A. II. 5.) Thou must not—that, I think, is a kind of thing you would not affirm ever to have perceived in yourself, nor, I fancy, in anybody else either. No, by heaven, he said. Again, when a man thinks himself to be in the wrong,[*](So Aristotle Rhet. 1380 b 17 οὐ γίγνεται γὰρ ἡ ὀργὴ πρὸς τὸ δίκαιον, and Eth. Nic. 1135 b 28 ἐπὶ φαινομένῃ γὰρ ἀδικίᾳ ἡ ὀργή ἐστιν. This is true only with Plato’s reservation γενναιότερος. The baser type is angry when in the wrong.) is it not true that the nobler he is the less is he capable of anger though suffering hunger and cold[*](Cf. Demosthenes xv. 10 for the same general idea.) and whatsoever else at the hands of him whom he believes to be acting justly therein, and as I say[*](ὃ λέγω: idiomatic, as I was saying.) his spirit refuses to be aroused against such a one? True, he said. But what when a man believes himself to be wronged, does not his spirit in that case[*](ἐν τούτῳ: possibly in such an one, preferably in such a case.θυμός is plainly the subject of ζεῖ. (Cf. the physiological definition in Aristotle De anima 403 a 31 ζέσιν τοῦ περὶ τὴν καρδίαν αἵματος), and so, strictly speaking, of all the other verbs down to λήγει. καὶ διὰ τὸ πεινῆν . . . πάσχειν is best taken as a parenthesis giving an additional reason for the anger, besides the sense of injustice.) seethe and grow fierce (and also because of his suffering hunger, cold and the like) and make itself the ally of what he judges just, and in noble souls[*](τῶν γενναίων: i.e. the θυμός of the noble, repeating ὅσῳ ἂν γενναιότερος ᾖ above. The interpretation does not desist from his noble (acts) destroys this symmetry and has no warrant in Plato’s use of γενναῖος. Cf. 375 E, 459 A. The only argument against the view here taken is that θυμός is not the subject of λήγει, which it plainly is. The shift from θυμός to the man in what follows is no difficulty and is required only by τελευτήσῃ, which may well be a gloss. Cf. A.J.P. xvi. p. 237.) it endures and wins the victory and will not let go until either it achieves its purpose, or death ends all, or, as a dog is called back by a shepherd, it is called back by the reason within and calmed. Your similitude is perfect, he said, and it confirms[*](καίτοι γε calls attention to the confirmation supplied by the image. Cf on 376 B, and my article in Class. Journ. vol. iii. p. 29.) our former statements that the helpers are as it were dogs subject to the rulers who are as it were the shepherds of the city. You apprehend my meaning excellently, said I. But do you also take note of this? Of what? That what we now think about the spirited element is just the opposite of our recent surmise. For then we supposed it to be a part of the appetitive, but now, far from that, we say that, in the factions[*](Cf. 440 B and Phaedrus 237 E.) of the soul, it much rather marshals itself on the side of the reason. By all means, he said.

Is it then distinct from this too, or is it a form of the rational, so that there are not three but two kinds in the soul, the rational and the appetitive, or just as in the city there were three existing kinds that composed its structure, the moneymakers, the helpers, the counsellors, so also in the soul there exists a third kind, this principle of high spirit, which is the helper of reason by nature unless it is corrupted by evil nurture?We have to assume it as a third, he said. Yes, said I, provided[*](It still remains to distinguish the λογιστικόν from θυμός, which is done first by pointing out that young children and animals possess θυμός (Cf. Laws 963 E, Aristotle Politics 1334 b 22 ff.), and by quoting a line of Homer already cited in 390 D, and used in Phaedo 94 E, to prove that the soul, regarded there as a unit, is distinct from the passions, there treated as belonging to the body, like the mortal soul of the Timaeus. See Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 42-43.) it shall have been shown to be something different from the rational, as it has been shown to be other than the appetitive. That is not hard to be shown, he said; for that much one can see in children, that they are from their very birth chock-full of rage and high spirit, but as for reason, some of them, to my thinking, never participate in it, and the majority quite late. Yes, by heaven, excellently said, I replied; and further, one could see in animals that what you say is true. And to these instances we may add the testimony of Homer quoted above:

1. He smote his breast and chided thus his heart.

Then is it not, as we said,[*](Cf. 411 E, 412 A.) the blending of music and gymnastics that will render them concordant, intensifying and fostering the one with fair words and teachings and relaxing and soothing and making gentle the other by harmony and rhythm?Quite so, said he. And these two thus reared and having learned and been educated to do their own work in the true sense of the phrase,[*](Cf. on 433 B-E, 443 D, and Charmides 161 B.) will preside over the appetitive part which is the mass[*](Cf. on 431 A-B, Laws 689 A-B.) of the soul in each of us and the most insatiate by nature of wealth. They will keep watch upon it, lest, by being filled and infected with the so-called pleasures associated with the body[*](Strictly speaking, pleasure is in the mind, not in the body. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 330. καλουμένων implies the doctrine of the Gorgias 493 E, 494 C, Philebus 42 C, Phaedrus 258 E, and 583 B-584 A, that the pleasures of appetite are not pure or real. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 152. Cf. on λεγομένων431 C.) and so waxing big and strong, it may not keep to[*](Cf. on 426 E, 606 B.) its own work but may undertake to enslave and rule over the classes which it is not fitting[*](προσῆκον: sc. ἐστὶν ἄρχειν. γένει, by affinity, birth or nature. Cf. 444 B. q reads γενῶν.) that it should, and so overturn[*](Cf. 389 D.) the entire life of all. By all means, he said. Would not these two, then, best keep guard against enemies from without[*](Cf. 415 E.) also in behalf of the entire soul and body, the one taking counsel,[*](Cf. Isocrates xii. 138 αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ βουλευομένη περὶ ἁπάντων.) the other giving battle, attending upon the ruler, and by its courage executing the ruler’s designs? That is so. Brave, too, then, I take it, we call each individual by virtue of this part in him, when, namely, his high spirit preserves in the midst of pains and pleasures[*](Cf. 429 C-D) the rule handed down by the reason as to what is or is not to be feared. Right, he said. But wise by that small part that[*](Cf. Goodwin’s Greek Grammar, 1027.) ruled in him and handed down these commands, by its possession[*](ἔχον: anacoluthic epexegesis, corresponding to ὅταν . . . διασώζῃ. αὖ probably marks the correspondence.) in turn within it of the knowledge of what is beneficial for each and for the whole, the community composed of the three. By all means. And again, was he not sober by reason of the friendship and concord of these same parts, when, namely, the ruling principle and its two subjects are at one in the belief that the reason ought to rule, and do not raise faction against it? The virtue of soberness certainly, said he, is nothing else than this, whether in a city or an individual. But surely, now, a man is just by that which and in the way we have so often[*](ᾧ πολλάκις: that is, by the principle of τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν.) described. That is altogether necessary. Well then, said I, has our idea of justice in any way lost the edge[*](ἀπαμβλύνεται: is the edge or outline of the definition blunted or dimmed when we transfer it to the individual?) of its contour so as to look like anything else than precisely what it showed itself to be in the state? I think not, he said. We might, I said, completely confirm your reply and our own conviction thus, if anything in our minds still disputes our definition—by applying commonplace and vulgar[*](The transcendental or philosophical definition is confirmed by vulgar tests. The man who is just in Plato’s sense will not steal or betray or fail in ordinary duties. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1178 b 16 ἢ φορτικὸς ὁ ἔπαινος. . . to say that the gods are σώφρονες. Similarly Plato feels that there is a certain vulgarity in applying the cheap tests of prudential morality (Cf. Phaedo 68 C-D) to intrinsic virtue. Be this, is the highest expression of the moral law. Do this, eventually follows. Cf. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 376 and 385, and Emerson, Self-Reliance: But I may also neglect the reflex standard, and absolve me to myself . . . If anyone imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day. The Xenophontic Socrates (Xenophon Memorabilia iv. 4. 10-11 and iv. 4. 17) relies on these vulgar tests.) tests to it. What are these?

For example, if an answer were demanded to the question concerning that city and the man whose birth and breeding was in harmony with it, whether we believe that such a man, entrusted with a deposit[*](Cf. on 332 A and Aristotle Rhet. 1383 b 21.) of gold or silver, would withhold it and embezzle it, who do you suppose would think that he would be more likely so to act than men of a different kind?No one would, he said. And would not he be far removed from sacrilege and theft and betrayal of comrades in private life or of the state in public? He would. And, moreover, he would not be in any way faithless either in the keeping of his oaths or in other agreements. How could he? Adultery, surely, and neglect of parents and of the due service of the gods would pertain to anyone rather than to such a man. To anyone indeed, he said. And is not the cause of this to be found in the fact that each of the principles within him does its own work in the matter of ruling and being ruled? Yes, that and nothing else. Do you still, then, look for justice to be anything else than this potency which provides men and cities of this sort? No, by heaven, he said, I do not. Finished, then, is our dream and perfected —the surmise we spoke of,[*](ὅ: Cf. on 434 D.) that, by some Providence, at the very beginning of our foundation of the state, we chanced to hit upon the original principle and a sort of type of justice. Most assuredly. It really was, it seems, Glaucon, which is why it helps,[*](The contemplation of the εἴδωλον, image or symbol, leads us to the reality. The reality is always the Platonic Idea. The εἴδωλον, in the case of ordinary things, is the material copy which men mistake for the reality (516 A). In the case of spiritual things and moral ideas, there is no visible image or symbol (Politicus 286 A), but imperfect analogies, popular definitions, suggestive phrases, as τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, well-meant laws and institutions serve as the εἴδωλα in which the philosophic dialectician may find a reflection of the true idea. Cf. on 520 C, Sophist 234 C, Theaetetus 150 B.) a sort of adumbration of justice, this principle that it is right for the cobbler by nature to cobble and occupy himself with nothing else, and the carpenter to practice carpentry, and similarly all others. But the truth of the matter[*](Cf. Timaeus 86 D, Laws 731 E, Apology 23 A. The reality of justice as distinguished from the εἴδωλον, which in this case is merely the economic division of labor. Adam errs in thinking that the real justice is justice in the soul, and the εἴδωλον is justice in the state. In the state too the division of labor may be taken in the lower or in the higher sense. Cf. on 370 A, Introduction p. xv.) was, as it seems, that justice is indeed something of this kind, yet not in regard to the doing of one’s own business externally, but with regard to that which is within and in the true sense concerns one’s self, and the things of one’s self—it means that[*](μὴ ἐάσαντα . . . δόχαν 444 A: Cf. Gorgias 459 C, 462 C. A series of participles in implied indirect discourse expand the meaning of τὴν ἐντός (πρᾶξιν), and enumerate the conditions precedent (resumed in οὕτω δή443 E; Cf. Protagoras 325 A) of all action which is to be called just if it tends to preserve this inner harmony of the soul, and the reverse if it tends to dissolve it. The subject of πράττειν is anybody or Everyman. For the general type of sentence and the Stoic principle that nothing imports but virtue cf. 591 E and 618 C.) a man must not suffer the principles in his soul to do each the work of some other and interfere and meddle with one another, but that he should dispose well of what in the true sense of the word is properly his own,[*](Cf. on 433 E.) and having first attained to self-mastery[*](Cf. Gorgias 491 D where Callicles does not understand.) and beautiful order[*](Cf. Gorgias 504.) within himself,[*](Cf. 621 C and on 352 A.) and having harmonized[*](The harmony of the three parts of the soul is compared to that of the three fundamental notes or strings in the octave, including any intervening tones, and so by implication any faculties of the soul overlooked in the preceding classification. Cf. Plutarch, Plat. Quest. 9. Proclus, p. 230 Kroll. ὥσπερ introduces the images, the exact application of which is pointed by ἀτεχνῶς. Cf. on 343 C. The scholiast tries to make two octaves (δὶς διὰ πασῶν) of it. The technical musical details have at the most an antiquarian interest, and in no way affect the thought, which is that of Shakespeare’s For government, though high and low and lower,Put into parts, doth keep one in concent,Congreeing in a full and natural closeLike music. (Henry V. I. ii. 179) Cf. Cicero, De rep. ii. 42, and Milton (Reason of Church Government), Discipline . . . which with her musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together.) these three principles, the notes or intervals of three terms quite literally the lowest, the highest, and the mean, and all others there may be between them, and having linked and bound all three together and made of himself a unit,[*](Cf. Epin. 992 B. The idea was claimed for the Pythagoreans; cf. Zeller I. i. p. 463, Guyau, Esquisse d’une Morale, p. 109 La moralité n’est autre chose que l’unité de l’être. The key to effective life is unity of life, says another modern rationalist.) one man instead of many, self-controlled and in unison, he should then and then only turn to practice if he find aught to do either in the getting of wealth or the tendance of the body or it may be in political action or private business, in all such doings believing and naming[*](ὀνομάζοντα betrays a consciousness that the ordinary meaning of words is somewhat forced for edification. Cf. Laws 864 A-B and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 9, n. 21. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. 1138 b 6) would regard all this as mere metaphor.) the just and honorable action to be that which preserves and helps to produce this condition of soul, and wisdom the science that presides over such conduct; and believing and naming the unjust action to be that which ever tends to overthrow this spiritual constitution, and brutish ignorance, to be the opinion[*](ἐπιστήμην . . . δόχαν: a hint of a fundamental distinction, not explicitly mentioned before in the Republic. Cf. Meno 97 B ff. and Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 47-49. It is used here rhetorically to exalt justice and disparage injustice. ἀμαθία is a very strong word, possibly used here already in the special Platonic sense: the ignorance that mistakes itself for knowledge. Cf. Sophist.) that in turn presides[*](ἐπιστατοῦσαν: Isocrates would have used a synonym instead of repeating the word.) over this.

What you say is entirely true, Socrates.Well, said I, if we should affirm that we had found the just man and state and what justice really is[*](Cf. 337 B.) in them, I think we should not be much mistaken. No indeed, we should not, he said. Shall we affirm it, then? Let us so affirm. So be it, then, said I; next after this, I take it, we must consider injustice. Obviously. Must not this be a kind of civil war[*](στάσιν: cf. 440 E. It is defined in Sophist 228 B. Aristotle would again regard this as mere metaphor.) of these three principles, their meddlesomeness[*](πολυπραγμοσύνην:434 B and Isocrates viii. 59.) and interference with one another’s functions, and the revolt of one part against the whole of the soul that it may hold therein a rule which does not belong to it, since its nature is such that it befits it to serve as a slave to the ruling principle? Something of this sort, I fancy, is what we shall say, and that the confusion of these principles and their straying from their proper course is injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and brutish ignorance and, in general,[*](συλλήβδην: summing up, as in Phaedo 69 B.) all turpitude. Precisely this, he replied. Then, said I, to act unjustly and be unjust and in turn to act justly the meaning of all these terms becomes at once plain and clear, since injustice and justice are so. How so? Because, said I, these are in the soul what[*](ὡς ἐκεῖνα: a proportion is thus usually stated in an ancoluthic apposition.) the healthful and the diseaseful are in the body; there is no difference. In what respect? he said. Healthful things surely engender health[*](The common-sense point of view, fit fabricando faber. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1103 a 32. In Gorgias 460 B, Socrates argues the paradox that he who knows justice does it. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 11, n. 42.) and diseaseful disease. Yes. Then does not doing just acts engender justice and unjust injustice? Of necessity. But to produce health is to establish the elements in a body in the natural relation of dominating and being dominated[*](Cf. the generalization of ἔρως to include medicine and music in Symposium 186-187, and Timaeus 82 A, Laws 906 C, Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 500.) by one another, while to cause disease is to bring it about that one rules or is ruled by the other contrary to nature. Yes, that is so. And is it not likewise the production of justice in the soul to establish its principles in the natural relation of controlling and being controlled by one another, while injustice is to cause the one to rule or be ruled by the other contrary to nature? Exactly so, he said. Virtue, then, as it seems, would be a kind of health[*](The identification of virtue with spiritual health really, as Plato says (445 A), answers the main question of the Republic. It is not explicitly used as one of the three final arguments in the ninth book, but is implied in 591 B. It is found already in Crito 47 D-E. Cf. Gorgias 479 B) and beauty and good condition of the soul, and vice would be disease,[*](κακία . . . αἶσχος: Sophist 228 E distinguishes two forms of κακία· νόσος or moral evil, and ignorance or αἰσχος. Cf. Gorgias 477 B.) ugliness, and weakness. It is so. Then is it not also true that beautiful and honorable pursuits tend to the winning of virtue and the ugly to vice? Of necessity.

And now at last, it seems, it remains for us to consider whether it is profitable to do justice and practice honorable pursuits and be just, whether[*](ἐάν τε . . . ἐάν τε: Cf. 337 C, 367 E, 427 D, 429 E.) one is known to be such or not, or whether injustice profits, and to be unjust, if only a man escape punishment and is not bettered by chastisement.[*](Cf. Gorgias 512 A-B, and on 380 B.)Nay, Socrates, he said, I think that from this point on our inquiry becomes an absurdity[*](Cf. on 456 D. On the following argumentum ex contrario Cf. on 336 E.)—if, while life is admittedly intolerable with a ruined constitution of body even though accompanied by all the food and drink and wealth and power in the world, we are yet to be asked to suppose that, when the very nature and constitution of that whereby we live[*](Cf. on 353 D and Aristotle De anima 414 a 12 ff. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 41.) is disordered and corrupted, life is going to be worth living, if a man can only do as he pleases,[*](Cf. 577 D, Gorgias 466 E. If all men desire the good, he who does evil does not do what he really wishes.) and pleases to do anything save that which will rid him of evil and injustice and make him possessed of justice and virtue—now that the two have been shown to be as we have described them. Yes, it is absurd, said I; but nevertheless, now that we have won to this height, we must not grow weary in endeavoring to discover[*](ὅσον . . . κατιδεῖν is generally taken as epexegetic of ἐνταῦθα. It is rather well felt with οὐ χρὴ ἀποκάμνειν.) with the utmost possible clearness that these things are so. That is the last thing in the world we must do, he said. Come up here[*](Cf. Apology 25 C.) then, said I, that you may see how many are the kinds of evil, I mean those that it is worth while to observe and distinguish.[*](ἅ γε δὴ καὶ ἄξια θέας: for καί Cf. Sophist 223 A, 229 D, Timaeus 83 C, Politicus 285 B, and 544 A, C-D. By the strict theory of ideas any distinction may mark a class, and so constitute an idea. (Cf. De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 22-25.) But Plato’s logical practice recognizes that only typical or relevant Ideas are worth naming or considering. The Republic does not raise the metaphysical question how a true idea is to be distinguished from a part or from a partial or casual concept. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 52-53, n. 381, Politicus 263 A-B.) I am with you, he said; only do you say on. And truly, said I, now that we have come to this height[*](Cf. 588 B, Emerson, Nominalist and Realist, ii. p. 256: We like to come to a height of land and see the landscape, just as we value a general remark in a conversation. Cf. Lowell, Democracy, Prose Works, vi. 8: He who has mounted the tower of Plato to look abroad from it will never hope to climb another with so lofty a vantage of speculation. From this and 517 A-B, the ἀνάβασις became a technical or cant term in Neoplatonism.) of argument I seem to see as from a point of outlook that there is one form[*](ἓν μέν, etc.: perhaps a faint remembrance of the line ἐσθλοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῶς, παντοδαπῶς δὲ κακοί, quoted by Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1106 b 35. It suggests Plato’s principle of the unity of virtue, as ἄπειρα below suggests the logical doctrine of the Philebus 16 and Parmenides 145 A, 158 B-C that the other of the definite idea is the indefinite and infinite.) of excellence, and that the forms of evil are infinite, yet that there are some four among them that it is worth while to take note of. What do you mean? he said. As many as are the varieties of political constitutions that constitute specific types, so many, it seems likely, are the characters of soul. How many, pray? There are five kinds of constitutions, said I, and five kinds of soul. Tell me what they are, he said. I tell you, said I, that one way of government would be the constitution that we have just expounded, but the names that might be applied to it are two.[*](The true state is that in which knowledge governs. It may be named indifferently monarchy, or aristocracy, according as such knowledge happens to be found in one or more than one. It can never be the possession of many. Cf. 494 A. The inconsistencies which some critics have found between this statement and other parts of the Republic, are imaginary. Hitherto the Republic has contemplated a plurality of rulers, and such is its scheme to the end. But we are explicitly warned in 540 D and 587 D that this is a matter of indefference. It is idle then to argue with Immisch, Krohn, and others that the passage marks a sudden, violent alteration of the original design.) If one man of surpassing merit rose among the rulers, it would be denominated royalty; if more than one, aristocracy. True, he said. Well, then, I said, this is one of the forms I have in mind. For neither would a number of such men, nor one if he arose among them, alter to any extent worth mentioning the laws of our city—if he preserved the breeding and the education that we have described. It is not likely, he said.