Republic

Let us, then say to the speaker who avers that it pays this man to be unjust, and that to do justice is not for his advantage, that he is affirming nothing else than that it profits him to feast and make strong the multifarious beast and the lion and all that pertains to the lion, but to starve the man[*](The whole passage illustrates the psychology of 440 B ff.) and so enfeeble him that he can be pulled about[*](Cf. Protag. 352 C περιελκομένης, with Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1145 b 24.) whithersoever either of the others drag him, and not to familiarize or reconcile with one another the two creatures but suffer them to bite and fight and devour one another.[*](Perhaps a latent allusion to Hesiod, Works and Days 278.)Yes, he said, that is precisely what the panegyrist of injustice will be found to say. And on the other hand he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us[*](Cf. the inward man, Romans vii. 22, 2 Cor. iv. 16, Ephes. iii. 16.) complete domination[*](Cf. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, p. 10 Religion says: The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality.) over the entire man and make him take charge[*](Cf. Gorg. 516 A-B.) of the many-headed beast—like a farmer[*](Cf. Theaet. 167 B-C, and What Plato Said, p. 456, on Euthyphro 2 D.) who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild—and he will make an ally[*](Cf. 441 A.) of the lion’s nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will first make them friendly to one another and to himself, and so foster their growth. Yes, that in turn is precisely the meaning of the man who commends justice. From every point of view, then, the panegyrist of justice speaks truly and the panegyrist of injustice falsely. For whether we consider pleasure, reputation, or profit, he who commends justice speaks the truth, while there is no soundness or real knowledge of what he censures in him who disparages it. None whatever, I think, said he. Shall we, then, try to persuade him gently,[*](πράως: cf. the use of ἠρέμα476 E, 494 D.) for he does not willingly err,[*](Plato always maintains that wrong-doing is involuntary and due to ignorance. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 640 on Laws 860 D.) by questioning him thus: Dear friend, should we not also say that the things which law and custom deem fair or foul have been accounted so for a like reason— the fair and honorable things being those that subject the brutish part of our nature to that which is human in us, or rather, it may be, to that which is divine,[*](Cf. 501 B, Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years after, in fine, The highest Human Nature is divine.) while the foul and base are the things that enslave the gentle nature to the wild? Will he assent or not? He will if he is counselled by me. Can it profit any man in the light of this thought to accept gold unjustly if the result is to be that by the acceptance he enslaves the best part of himself to the worst? Or is it conceivable that, while, if the taking of the gold enslaved his son or daughter and that too to fierce and evil men, it would not profit him,[*](Cf. Matt. xvi.26, Mark viii. 36, What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? A typical argumentum ex contrario. Cf. 445 A-B and Vol. I. p. 40, note c. On the supreme value of the soul Cf. Laws 726-728, 743 E, 697 B, 913 B, 959 A-B. Cf. 585 D.) no matter how large the sum, yet that, if the result is to be the ruthless enslavement of the divinest part of himself to the most despicable and godless part, he is not to be deemed wretched and is not taking the golden bribe much more disastrously than Eriphyle[*](Cf. Od. xi. 326, Frazer on Apollodorus iii. 6. 2 (Loeb). Stallbaum refers also to Pindar, Nem. ix. 37 ff, and Pausan. x. 29. 7.) did when she received the necklace as the price[*](For ἐπί in this sense cf. Thompson on Meno 90 D. Cf. Apol. 41 A ἐπὶ πόσῳ, Demosth. xlv. 66.) of her husband’s life?

Far more, said Glaucon, for I will answer you in his behalf. And do you not think that the reason for the old objection to licentiousness is similarly because that sort of thing emancipates that dread,[*](See Adam ad loc. on the asyndeton.) that huge and manifold beast overmuch? Obviously, he said. And do we not censure self-will[*](αὐθάδεια: Cf. 548 E.) and irascibility when they foster and intensify disproportionately the element of the lion and the snake[*](Not mentioned before, but, as Schleiermacher says, might be included in τὰ περὶ τὸν λέοντα. Cf. Adam ad loc. Or Plato may be thinking of the chimaera (Il. vi. 181 ).) in us? By all means. And do we not reprobate luxury and effeminacy for their loosening and relaxation of this same element when they engender cowardice in it? Surely. And flattery and illiberality when they reduce this same high-spirited element under the rule of the mob-like beast and habituate it for the sake of wealth and the unbridled lusts of the beast to endure all manner of contumely from youth up and become an ape[*](Cf. 620 C.) instead of a lion? Yes, indeed, he said. And why do you suppose that base mechanic[*](Cf. p. 49, note e.) handicraft is a term of reproach? Shall we not say that it is solely when the best part is naturally weak in a man so that it cannot govern and control the brood of beasts within him but can only serve them and can learn nothing but the ways of flattering them? So it seems, he said. Then is it not in order that such an one may have a like government with the best man that we say he ought to be the slave of that best man[*](For the idea that it is better to be ruled by a better man Cf. Alc. I. 135 B-C, Polit. 296 B-C, Democr. fr. 75 (Diels ii.3 p. 77), Xen. Mem. i. 5. 5 δουλεύοντα δὲ ταῖς τοιαύταις ἡδοναῖς ἱκετευτέον τοὺς θεοὺς δεσποτῶν ἀγαθῶν τυχεῖν, Xen. Cyr. viii. 1. 40 βελτίονας εἶναι. Cf. also Laws 713 D-714 A, 627 E, Phaedo 62 D-E, and Laws 684 C. Cf. Ruskin, Queen of the Air, p. 210 (Brantwood ed., 1891): The first duty of every man in the world is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him; and to find his true inferior, and, for that inferior’s good, conquer him. Inge, Christian Ethics, p. 252: It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Carlyle (apud M. Barton and O. Sitwell, Victoriana): Surely of all the rights of man the right of the ignorant man to be guided by the wiser, to be gently or forcibly held in the true course by him, is the indisputablest. Plato’s idea is perhaps a source of Aristotle’s theory of slavery, though differently expressed. Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1254 b 16 f., Newman i. pp. 109-110, 144 f., 378-379, ii. p. 107. Cf. also Polit. 309 A f., Epist. vii. 335 D, and Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, iii. p. 106.) who has within himself the divine governing principle, not because we suppose, as Thrasymachus[*](Cf. 343 B-C.) did in the case of subjects, that the slave should be governed for his own harm, but on the ground that it is better for everyone to be governed by the divine and the intelligent, preferably indwelling and his own, but in default of that imposed from without, in order that we all so far as possible may be akin and friendly because our governance and guidance are the same? Yes, and rightly so, he said. And it is plain, I said, that this is the purpose of the law, which is the ally of all classes in the state,