Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
And Adeimantus broke in. "Socrates, how will you defend yourself if someone says you're not making these men very happy—and that through their own doing? The city genuinely belongs to them, and yet they get no good of it: they don't own land, as others do, or build fine big houses and furnish them accordingly,
or offer private sacrifices to the gods, or entertain guests, or possess gold and silver and all the things that are supposed to make people blessed—the very things you were just talking about. No, they simply sit in the city, so it seems, like hired mercenaries, doing nothing but stand guard." "Yes," I said, "and on top of that they work for their keep and don't even get pay
beyond their food, the way other people do—so that if they should ever want to travel privately, they won't be allowed to, or give presents to mistresses, or spend money in whatever other direction people who are thought happy spend it. You leave out these and plenty of other charges of the same kind." "Well," he said, "let those be included in the indictment too." "So what will our defense be, you're asking?" "Yes." "We'll find,
I think, that the same path leads us to what needs to be said. We'll say that it would be nothing surprising if these men, just as they are, were the happiest of all—but that isn't the point we had in view when we founded the city, that some one group in it should be outstandingly happy, but that the city as a whole should be, as much as possible. We thought that in a city of that kind we'd be most likely to find
justice, and in the worst-governed city, injustice, and that by observing both we could judge the question we've been pursuing all along. So right now, we think, we're molding the happy city—not by picking out a few people in it and setting them up as happy, but the city as a whole. In a moment we'll look at the opposite kind of city. Suppose someone came up to us while we were painting a statue and criticized us
for not putting the finest colors on the finest parts of the figure—since the eyes, the finest part, hadn't been painted purple but black—we'd think it a fair enough answer to say to him: 'My friend, don't suppose we ought to paint the eyes so beautiful that they no longer look like eyes at all, nor the other parts either—look instead at whether, by rendering each part appropriately, we make the whole beautiful. And in particular, right now, don't force
us to attach to the guardians a happiness of the kind that will turn them into anything but guardians. We know how to dress farmers in fine robes, deck them out in gold, and tell them to work the land for pleasure whenever they like; we know how to have the potters recline on their left side by the fire, drinking and feasting, with the wheel set beside them to throw pots whenever the fancy takes them; and we could make all the others happy in the same way,
so that the whole city is happy. But don't advise us like that—because if we listen to you, the farmer will no longer be a farmer, nor the potter a potter, nor will anyone else keep any of the roles that make up a city. Now for most of the others it matters less: cobblers who go bad and rot and pretend to be what they're not do no great harm to a city. But guardians
who aren't really guardians of the laws and the city, but only seem to be—you can see that they utterly destroy the whole city, root and branch, while they alone have the opportunity to govern it well and make it happy. Now if we're really making true guardians, men least likely to do harm to the city, while the man who raises this objection is thinking of something like farmers at a festival, feasting happily as if at a fair rather than
in a city, he'd be talking about something other than a city. So we must consider whether we're establishing the guardians with a view to their having the greatest possible happiness, or whether we should look instead to the whole city and see whether that happiness comes to be in it, while compelling and persuading these auxiliaries and guardians to do the thing that will make them
the best possible craftsmen of their own work, and likewise all the others—and so, as the whole city grows and is well ordered, we should allow each group to share in happiness to whatever extent its own nature allows." "Well," he said, "I think you put that well." "Then will you think I'm being reasonable," I said, "about the point related to this one?" "What point exactly?" "Consider whether it's these other craftsmen too
who are corrupted by certain things, so much so that they turn bad." "What things do you mean?" "Wealth," I said, "and poverty." "How so?" "Like this. Do you think a potter who's grown rich will still want to attend to his craft?" "Not at all," he said. "Won't he become lazier and more careless than he used to be?" "Much more." "So he becomes a worse potter?" "Yes," he said, "much worse." "And what's more, if from poverty he can't afford tools
or anything else his craft needs, he'll produce shoddier work, and he'll train his own sons, or anyone else he teaches, as worse craftsmen too." "Of course." "So under the influence of both, poverty and wealth, the products of the crafts get worse, and so do the craftsmen themselves." "So it appears." "Then it looks as though we've found some other things the guardians must guard against in every way, so that they never slip into the city unnoticed."
"What things are these?" "Wealth," I said, "and poverty—since the one breeds luxury, idleness, and a taste for novelty, and the other, besides a taste for novelty, breeds meanness and bad workmanship." "Quite so," he said. "But consider this too, Socrates: how will our city be able to wage war, once it has no money of its own—especially if it's forced to fight
a large and wealthy city?" "Clearly," I said, "it will be harder against one such city, but easier against two." "What do you mean?" he said. "Well, first of all," I said, "if they have to fight, won't they be fighting rich men, while they themselves are athletes of war?" "Yes, that's true," he said. "Well then,"
I said, "Adeimantus, don't you think a single boxer, trained as perfectly as possible for the job, could easily beat two men who aren't boxers, but are rich and fat?" "Perhaps not both at once," he said. "Not even," I said, "if he could keep retreating, then wheel round and hit whichever of the two kept pressing him first, and did this repeatedly, in the sun and the heat?"
"Wouldn't a man like that get the better of even more opponents of that kind?" "No doubt," he said, "there'd be nothing surprising in that." "And don't you think the rich have more expertise and experience in boxing than in warfare?" "I do," he said. "So it's likely our athletes will easily fight men twice or three times their own number." "I'll grant you that," he said, "you seem to be right." "And what
if they sent an embassy to the other city and told them the truth: 'We have no use for gold or silver, nor is it lawful for us to have it, though it is for you. So fight on our side, and you may keep what belongs to the other city.' Do you think anyone hearing that would choose to fight against tough, lean dogs rather than, with those dogs on their side, against fat, tender sheep?" "I don't think so." "But
suppose," he said, "the wealth of all the other cities gets gathered into one city—watch that this doesn't pose a danger to our city that has no wealth." "You're fortunate," I said, "if you think any city besides the kind we've been constructing deserves to be called a city at all." "Why, what else would you call them?" he said. "The others need a grander title," I said, "for each of them is a great many cities, not
a single city, as the saying goes in the game. Any one of them, whatever it is, is really two cities at war with each other: one of the poor, one of the rich, and within each of these there are a great many more, so that if you approach them as if they were one, you'll be quite wrong, but if you approach them as many, offering the wealth and power—or even the persons—of one group to the other,
you'll always have many allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is governed moderately, in the way we've just laid down, it will be the greatest city—not in reputation, I mean, but truly the greatest—even if it has only a thousand men to defend it. For you won't easily find a single city that great, either among Greeks or among barbarians, though you'll find many that are reputed to be, many times over, of that supposed size. Or do you think otherwise?"
"No, by Zeus," he said. "Then wouldn't this be the finest boundary for our rulers—how large the city must be made, and how much territory it should mark off to match that size, letting the rest go?" "What boundary is that?" he said. "I think it's this," I said: "let it grow only so long as it's willing to remain a unity while growing—only up to that point, and no
further." "That's a fine rule," he said. "Then this too is another instruction we'll give our guardians: to guard in every way against the city becoming either small or falsely great, but staying some adequate size and a single one." "And no doubt," he said, "we'll be giving them a trivial instruction." "Even more trivial than that," I said, "is the one we mentioned earlier, when we said
that if a child of the guardians turns out inferior, he must be sent down among the others, and if a child of the others turns out capable, he must be brought up among the guardians. This was meant to show that the other citizens too must each be directed to the one task for which their nature fits them, so that each, practicing his own single occupation, becomes one man and not many,
and so the whole city develops as a single unity rather than as many cities." "True," he said, "though that instruction is even slighter than the other." "It's not really, my good Adeimantus, that we're imposing many great burdens on them, as one might suppose, but all trivial ones—so long as they keep watch over the one great thing, as the saying goes—or rather, not great, but sufficient." "What's that?" he said. "Their education," I
said, "and their upbringing. For if by being well educated they become moderate men, they'll easily see through all these matters for themselves, and others too that we're now passing over—the possession of women, marriage, and the having of children—all of which, we know, must, in keeping with the proverb, be made as much as possible common among friends." "That would indeed be most correct," he said. "And besides," I said, "once a constitution
gets a good start, it proceeds like a circle, growing all the while—for sound rearing and education, when preserved, produce good natures, and good natures in turn, taking hold of that same kind of education, grow up even better than those before them, both in other respects and in their capacity to breed, as with the other animals too." "Likely enough," he said. "So, to put it briefly, this is the thing the overseers of the city must hold fast to, so that
it doesn't slip past them unnoticed and become corrupted, but so that they guard it above everything else: not introducing innovations in gymnastic and music contrary to the established order, but guarding them as strictly as possible, fearing it whenever someone says that people care most for 'that song which is newest on singers' lips'—lest someone often suppose the poet means not new songs, but a new manner of song,
—and praise it for that. But such a thing should be neither praised nor tolerated. We must be wary of changing to a new style of music, on the ground that this risks everything, since the modes of music never change without change in the greatest laws of the city—so Damon says, and I believe him.—Well then, said Adeimantus, put me down too among the believers.—So it seems, I said, that this is the place where the guard-post for our guardians must be built—in music.
—A lawless spirit, he said, easily creeps in unnoticed there.—Yes, I said, as if it were only a kind of play, and did no harm.—It does no other harm, he said, than this: settling in bit by bit, it quietly flows into manners and pursuits; and from there, grown larger, it emerges into people's dealings with one another;
and from those dealings, Socrates, it goes on to attack the laws and constitutions, with a great deal of insolence, until at last it overturns everything, private and public alike.—Well then, I said, is that how it is?—So it seems to me, he said.—Then isn't it true, as we said from the start, that our children must at once take part in a play that is more lawful, since if the play itself becomes lawless, and the children along with it, it is impossible for lawful
and serious men to grow up out of them?—How could it be otherwise? he said.—So then, whenever children who have begun well by playing within a lawful order absorb good order through music, the opposite of what happened before follows them into everything and makes it grow, correcting anything in the city that had gone wrong before.—True indeed, he said.—And so, I said, these people discover even the small things that seem to be mere customary rules—
the very things the earlier ones let slip entirely.—What sort of things?—Things like these: the silence that is proper for the young in the presence of their elders, and giving up seats to them, and rising for them, and care for parents, and again their haircuts, and clothing, and footwear, and the whole bearing of the body, and everything else of that kind. Don't you think so?—I do.—But to legislate about these things, I think, would be foolish; for they neither come about
nor would they last if legislated by word and written statute.—How could they?—At any rate, I said, Adeimantus, it seems that wherever a person sets out from in his upbringing, what follows tends to match it. Or doesn't like always call to like?—Of course.—And in the end, I suppose, we would say that it comes out at some one complete and vigorous result, whether good
or the opposite.—Of course, he said.—For my part then, I said, for these reasons I would no longer attempt to legislate about such matters.—Reasonably so, he said.—But what, in heaven's name, I said, about matters of the marketplace—the contracts people make with one another in trading, and, if you like, contracts among craftsmen too, and slander, and assault,
and the filing of lawsuits, and the appointment of jurors, and whatever dues or transactions or assessments are required in the markets or harbors, or in general anything to do with market regulation or city regulation or harbor regulation, or anything else of that kind—shall we venture to legislate about any of this?—It isn't worth it, he said, to give orders to fine and good men about such things; most of what needs to be legislated in these matters
they will easily find out for themselves.—Yes, my friend, I said, provided a god grants them the preservation of the laws we went through earlier.—And if not, he said, they will go on all their lives making one such law after another and correcting them, thinking they will hit upon what is best.—You mean, I said, that people like that will live like invalids who, out of self-indulgence, are unwilling to give up
their unhealthy way of life.—Exactly.—And indeed these people carry on quite charmingly: for all their treatment they accomplish nothing, except to make their ailments more varied and severe, always hoping that if someone recommends a remedy, that will make them well.—Yes indeed, he said, that is just what happens to people who are sick in that way.—And here is a further charming trait of theirs, I said: they consider the man who tells them the truth
their worst enemy—the one who tells them that until they stop their drinking and stuffing themselves and chasing pleasure and idleness, no medicine, no cautery, no surgery, no charm, no amulet, nothing of that sort will do them any good.—Not charming at all, he said; there's no charm in being angry at someone who's telling you the truth.—You're not, it seems, an admirer, I said, of men like that.
—No, by Zeus, I am not.—So then, if the whole city does the same thing—as we were just saying—you won't approve of that either. Or don't you think that the cities that are badly governed do the very same thing as these men, when they warn their citizens not to disturb the constitution of the city as a whole, on pain of death for anyone who does so, while whoever pleases them most, governed as they are, by fawning on them
and flattering them, anticipating their wishes and skillfully satisfying them—that man will be considered a good man, wise in great matters, and will be honored by them?—Yes, that is exactly what they seem to me to do, he said, and I don't approve of it in the least.—And what about those who are willing to serve such cities, and eager to do so—don't you admire their courage and readiness?
—I do, he said, except for those who have been deceived by them and think they really are statesmen, because they are praised by the many.—What do you mean?—Don't you sympathize, I said, with the men themselves? Or do you think it possible for a man who does not know how to measure, when many others just as ignorant tell him he is four cubits tall, not to believe this about himself?—No, he said, that at least is not possible.
—Then don't be harsh with them; for surely people of this sort are, in a way, the most charming of all—making laws such as we just described, and correcting them, always thinking they will find some limit to the wrongdoing in contracts and in the matters I was just speaking of, not realizing that they are, in truth, cutting off a Hydra's heads.—Yes indeed, he said, that's exactly what they're doing.—For my part, then,
I said, I would not think the true lawgiver ought to concern himself with this kind of law and constitution, whether in a badly governed city or a well-governed one—in the latter case because it is useless and accomplishes nothing further, and in the former because some of these things anyone at all could discover, while others follow automatically from the practices already established.—What then, he said, would still
remain for us to legislate about?—And I said that nothing remained for us, but for Apollo at Delphi remained the greatest, finest, and first of the enactments.—What sort of things? he said.—The founding of temples, and sacrifices, and other forms of worship for gods and daimons and heroes; and again the burial of the dead, and whatever rites must be performed for those
in the world below to keep them gracious to us. For such matters we ourselves have no knowledge, and in founding our city we will trust no other guide, if we have any sense, nor make use of any interpreter but the ancestral one; for this god, surely, is for all mankind the ancestral interpreter in such things, seated at the navel in the middle of the earth, and interprets from there.—And you're quite right, he said, to say so; and this is what must be done.
—Well then, I said, your city, son of Ariston, would now be founded. As for what comes next, look into it within the city itself—getting hold of a sufficient light from somewhere—and call on your brother, and Polemarchus, and the others, to see if we can somehow discover where justice might be in it, and where injustice, and how the two
differ from each other, and which of the two the man who is to be happy must possess, whether or not it is hidden from all gods and men.—You're not making sense, said Glaucon; you promised you would search for it yourself, since you said it would not be right for you not to come to the defense of justice with all your power, in every way.—You're right, I said, to remind me of that, and it must indeed be done that way, but you too must lend a hand.—Well then,
he said, we shall do so.—I hope, then, I said, to find it this way. I think our city, if it has indeed been founded correctly, is completely good.—It must be, he said.—Clearly, then, it is wise, and courageous, and moderate, and just.—Clearly.—So whichever of these qualities we find in it, what remains will be the one not yet found?—Of course.—Just as, then,
with any other set of four things, if we were looking for one particular one of them in something, and we recognized that one first, that would be enough for us; but if we recognized the other three first, that very fact would identify the one we were looking for—for clearly it could be nothing else than what was left over.—You're right, he said.—So then, since these too happen to be four, shouldn't we search for them in the same way?—Clearly so.
—Well now, it seems to me that the first thing plainly visible in it is wisdom; and there is something odd about it. What is it? he said.—The city we have described really does seem to me to be wise; for it is well-counseled, isn't it?—Yes.—And this very quality, sound deliberation, is obviously some sort of knowledge; surely it is not by ignorance
but by knowledge that people counsel well.—Clearly.—But there are many and various kinds of knowledge in the city.—Of course.—Is it, then, on account of the knowledge of the carpenters that the city should be called wise and well-counseled?—Not at all, he said, not on account of that, but rather it would be called skilled in carpentry.—So it is not on account of the knowledge concerning wooden furniture, deliberating about how best to have it, that a city should be called wise.
—No indeed.—What then? On account of the knowledge concerning bronze goods, or any other such knowledge?—Not on account of any of them, he said.—Nor on account of the knowledge concerning the production of crops from the earth, but rather it would be called skilled in farming.—So it seems to me.—What then, I said—is there some knowledge, among certain of the citizens in the city we have just founded, by which one deliberates not about
some particular thing in the city, but about the city as a whole, in what way it may best deal with itself and with other cities?—There is indeed.—What is it, I said, and among whom is it found?—This, he said, is the guardian knowledge, and it is found among these rulers whom we just now called the complete guardians.—On account of this knowledge, then, what do you call the city?
—Well-counseled, he said, and truly wise.—Which then, I said, do you suppose there will be more of in our city—bronzesmiths, or these true guardians?—Bronzesmiths, he said, far more.—And of all the others too, I said, who are called experts in some knowledge, wouldn't these be the fewest of all?—Far the fewest.—So it is by virtue of the smallest class and part of itself, and the knowledge within
this class—that of the one who presides and rules—that a whole city, founded according to nature, would be wise; and this, it seems, is by nature the fewest in number of all the classes, the one to which alone it belongs to have a share in that knowledge which alone, of all the kinds of knowledge, ought to be called wisdom.—Most true, he said.—This, then, is one of the four that we have found, I don't quite know how, itself and where in the city
— is established in the city. At any rate it seems to me that we've found it adequately. — But surely courage itself, and the part of the city in which it resides, on account of which the city is to be called courageous, isn't at all hard to see. — How so? — Who, I said, looking to anything else, would call a city cowardly or courageous, except to that part of it which fights and campaigns on its behalf?
— No one would look to anything else, he said. — For I don't think, I said, that the others in it, whether cowardly or courageous, would have the authority to make the city one way or the other. — No, they wouldn't. — So a city is courageous by virtue of some part of itself, on account of that part's having a power of the kind that will preserve, throughout,
the judgment about what things are to be feared — that these things are the same and of the same kind as those the lawgiver proclaimed in their education. Or is this not what you call courage? — I didn't quite follow what you said, he said; say it again. — I mean, I said, that courage is a kind of preservation. — What sort of preservation? —
The preservation of the judgment, produced by law through education, about what things are to be feared and what sort they are. And by 'throughout' I meant its preservation amid pains and pleasures and desires and fears alike, without being cast out. If you like, I'll compare it to something I think it resembles. — I do like it. — Well then, you know that dyers,
when they want to dye wool so that it's a genuine purple, first select from all the many colors a single kind, the white, and then prepare it beforehand with no small preparation, so that it will take the hue as fully as possible, and only then do they dye it. And whatever is dyed in this way becomes fast in its color, and no washing, whether with soap or without soap,
can strip away its bloom. But whatever is dyed otherwise — you know what happens, whether one dyes other colors, or even this same one without the preliminary treatment. — I know, he said, that they come out washed-out and ridiculous. — Well, I said, suppose that we too, to the best of our power, were doing something of this kind when we selected the soldiers and educated them in music and gymnastic. Think that we contrived nothing else than
that, persuaded as beautifully as possible, they should take in the laws like a dye, so that their judgment about what is to be feared, and about everything else, might become fast in them, owing to their having the right nature and the right nurture, and so that these solvents shouldn't wash the dye out of them — solvents that are terribly good at scouring it out: pleasure, which is more potent for this than any lye or
soda, and pain, and fear, and desire, more potent than any other solvent. This power then, and this preservation, throughout, of right and lawful judgment about what is to be feared and what is not, is what I for my part call and posit as courage — unless you mean something else by it. — No, nothing else, he said; for I think you regard the right judgment about these same matters,
when it arises without education — the sort found in beasts and slaves — as not at all lawful, and you'd call it something other than courage. — What you say is very true, I said. — Well then, I accept that this is courage. — Yes, accept it, I said, as civic courage, and you'll be accepting it correctly. We'll go through it again more thoroughly later, if you like; for now it isn't this we were seeking, but justice,
and for the purpose of that inquiry, I think, what we have is sufficient. — Well said, he replied. — Two things still remain, I said, that we need to make out in the city: moderation, and that for whose sake we're inquiring into all of this, justice. — Quite so. — How then might we find justice, so that we no longer need to trouble ourselves about moderation? — For my part, he said, I neither
know, nor would I wish it to come to light first, if it means we won't go on to examine moderation; but if you want to do me a favor, look into this before that. — Well, I said, I do want to, if I'm not doing anything wrong by it. — Then look, he said. — I must look, I said; and, as far as one can see from here, it resembles a kind of concord and harmony more than the previous ones did. — How so? — Moderation, I said, is a sort of order,
a mastery of certain pleasures and desires, as people say — using the phrase 'being stronger than oneself,' I don't know quite how — and other such expressions are used, as it were traces of it. Isn't that so? — Very much so, he said. — Now isn't 'being stronger than oneself' a ridiculous phrase? For surely the one who is stronger than himself would also be weaker than himself, and the weaker, stronger; for it's the same person
who's being addressed in all these expressions. — Of course. — But, I said, this way of speaking seems to me to want to say that within the man himself, in respect to his soul, there's a better part and a worse part, and whenever the part that's better by nature is in control of the worse, this is called 'being stronger than oneself' — it's a term of praise — but whenever, from bad upbringing
or bad company, the better part, being smaller, is overpowered by the multitude of the worse, then this condition is denounced, as a reproach, and the person so disposed is called 'weaker than himself' and licentious. — Yes, that does seem right, he said. — Look then, I said, at our new city, and you'll find one of these two conditions present in it; for you'll rightly say it is stronger than itself,
if indeed that in which the better rules over the worse is to be called moderate and stronger than itself. — Well, I am looking, he said, and what you say is true. — And moreover, one would find the many and varied desires and pleasures and pains chiefly among children and women and household slaves, and among that portion of those called free who are of the inferior, common sort.
— Quite so. — Whereas the simple and measured desires, those that are guided by intellect together with right judgment, using reasoning, you'll find in only a few, and those the best by nature and the best educated. — True, he said. — And don't you see this present too in your city — the desires of the common, inferior many being mastered
there by the desires and the good sense present in the fewer and more refined? — I do, he said. — If then any city is to be called stronger than pleasures and desires, and stronger than itself, this one must be so called. — Absolutely, he said. — And isn't it, then, moderate as well, on all these accounts? — Very much so, he said. — And moreover, if indeed, in any other city
the same judgment is present among both rulers and ruled about who ought to rule, this too would be present in this city. Or don't you think so? — Yes, very much so, he said. — In which of the citizens, then, will you say moderation resides, when they're disposed this way — in the rulers or in the ruled? — In both, I suppose, he said. — Do you see, then,
I said, that we were divining rather well just now, when we said that moderation resembles a kind of harmony? — How so? — Because, unlike courage and wisdom, each of which, residing in some one part, made the city wise or courageous respectively, moderation doesn't work that way; instead it literally stretches through the whole, across every string, producing a concord between the weakest and the strongest
and the middle ones — whether in point of good sense, if you like, or of strength, or, if you prefer, of numbers or wealth or anything else of that sort — so that we could most correctly say that this unanimity is moderation: an accord, in accordance with nature, between the worse and the better as to which of the two should rule, both in the city and in each individual. — I quite agree, he said. — Well then,
I said, three things have now been sighted by us in the city, as far as it appears at least this way; but as for the remaining form on account of which a city might still have a share in virtue, what could that be? For clearly it is justice. — Clearly. — So now, Glaucon, we must, like hunters, stand round the thicket in a circle and pay close attention, in case
justice slips away somewhere and disappears from sight, becoming invisible. For it's plain that it's somewhere in this area; so look, and be eager to make it out, in case you should happen to see it before I do, and tell me. — I wish I could, he said. — But you'd be doing me a fair enough service if you'd just follow me and be able to see what's pointed out. — Follow I will, I said, once you've prayed along with me.
I'll do that, he said, but only lead the way. — Well, I said, the place certainly looks hard to travel and shadowy; at any rate it's dark and hard to search through. But all the same we must go on. — Yes, we must go on, he said. And catching sight of something, I said, — There! There, Glaucon! We seem to have gotten hold of some track, and I don't think it will escape us entirely. — Good news, he said.
Indeed, I said, our situation has been rather sluggish. — How so? — For a long time now, my good man, it appears to have been rolling about at our feet from the very beginning, and we simply didn't see it — we were being utterly ridiculous, like people who sometimes go looking for the very thing they're holding in their hands. We weren't looking at it itself, but off somewhere in the distance, which is no doubt why it escaped
our notice. — How so? he asked. — Like this, I said: it seems to me that in speaking of it and hearing about it for a long time now, we haven't been understanding ourselves — that in a way we've been talking about it all along. — That's a long preamble, he said, for someone eager to hear the point. — Well, I said, listen and see if I'm making sense. What we laid down at the outset as something that had to be done throughout, when we were founding the city — this,
as it seems to me, is justice, or some form of it. And what we laid down, and often said, if you remember, was that each single person ought to practice the one occupation in the city for which his nature was best suited. — Yes, we said that. — And moreover, that doing one's own work and not meddling in many things is justice — this too we've heard from many others
and have often said ourselves. — Yes, we've said it. — This, then, my friend, I said, when it happens in a certain way, turns out to be justice — doing one's own. Do you know what I infer this from? — No, tell me, he said. — It seems to me, I said, that what's left over in the city, of the things we've examined — moderation, courage, and wisdom — is this thing, which gave to all of those
the power to come into being, and, once they had come into being, provided for their preservation, for as long as it remains present. And yet we said that justice would be what was left over of those, once we'd found the three. — Yes, that follows necessarily, he said. — But surely, I said, if we had to judge which of these, coming to be present in it, will make our city good above all, it would be hard to judge whether it's the unanimity of the rulers
—and among the rulers, or whether it's the preservation, among the soldiers, of the lawful belief about what things are to be feared and what are not, or the wisdom and vigilance present in the rulers—or whether it's this above all that makes the city good: the fact that it is present in child and woman, slave and free, craftsman and ruler and ruled alike, that each one, being one person, did his own work and didn't meddle in many things.
—That's hard to judge, he said. —Of course it is. So it seems that this power—each person in the city doing his own work—rivals its wisdom, its moderation, and its courage as a contribution to the virtue of the city. —Very much so, he said. —Then wouldn't you rank justice as a rival to these in contributing to the city's virtue? —Absolutely. —Consider it this way too, and see whether it will appear so.
Will you assign to the rulers in the city the job of judging lawsuits? —Of course. —And in judging, will they aim at anything more than this: that no one should hold onto another's property, and no one should lose his own? —No, just that. —On the ground that this is just? —Yes. —So in this way too, having and doing one's own—what belongs to oneself—would be agreed to be justice.
—That's so. —Now see whether you agree with what I think. If a carpenter undertakes to do the work of a shoemaker, or a shoemaker that of a carpenter, or they exchange one another's tools or honors, or even the same person tries to do both, and all the other trades get exchanged—does that seem to you to do the city any great harm? —Not really, he said. —But whenever, I think, a craftsman
or some other person naturally suited for moneymaking, then puffed up by wealth or numbers or strength or something of that sort, tries to move into the class of the warrior, or one of the warriors tries to move into the class of the counselors and guardians though unworthy of it, and these people exchange one another's tools and honors, or when the same person tries to do all these things at once—
then, I think, you too would agree that this change and meddling among them is ruin for the city. —Absolutely. —Then meddling among the three classes, and exchange with one another, is the greatest harm to the city, and could most rightly be called, above all, wrongdoing. —Quite so. —And won't you say that the greatest wrongdoing against one's own city is injustice? —Of course.
—So that is injustice. Now let's put it this way again: the moneymaking class, the auxiliary class, the guardian class, each doing its own work in the city—wouldn't that be the opposite of the former, and be justice, and make the city just? —It seems to me it can be no other way than this, he said. —Let's not yet, I said, state this too rigidly, but if
this pattern, once applied to each single human being, is agreed to be justice there too, we'll grant it then—for what else could we say?—but if not, we'll examine something else. For now, let's finish the inquiry we set out on: we thought that if we first tried to observe justice in something larger, where it exists, we would more easily discern what it is like in one man. And
it seemed to us that this larger thing was the city, and so we founded it as best we could, knowing well that justice would be present in a good city. Let's now apply what appeared to us there to the individual, and if it's agreed to fit, all will be well; but if something different appears in the individual, we'll go back again to the city and test it, and perhaps by examining the two side by side
and rubbing them together, we might make justice flash out as if from fire-sticks; and once it has come to light, we'll confirm it firmly for ourselves. —Well, he said, you're pointing the right way, and that's what we must do. —Then, I said, when one thing is called by the same name whether it's larger or smaller, is it unlike in the respect in which it's called the same, or is it like? —Like, he said. —So a just man,
then, will not differ at all, so far as the very form of justice goes, from a just city, but will be like it. —Like, he said. —But surely the city seemed to be just when the three classes of natures within it each did its own work, and moderate and courageous and wise through certain other affections and states belonging to these same classes. —True, he said.
—Then, my friend, we shall likewise hold that the individual, having these same forms in his own soul, is rightly credited with the same names as the city, on account of the same affections in each. —That follows of necessity, he said. —Well, I said, we've fallen into a trifling little inquiry, my astonishing friend—whether or not the soul has these three forms in it.
—It doesn't seem trifling to me at all, he said; perhaps, Socrates, the saying is true, that fine things are hard. —So it appears, I said. And you can be sure of this, Glaucon: in my opinion, we will never grasp this precisely by the methods we're now using in our discussion—there's another road, longer and further about,
that leads to it—though perhaps we can reach something worthy of what's been said and examined so far. —Isn't that enough? he said. For my part, that would be quite sufficient for now. —Well, I said, it will be quite enough for me too. —Then don't grow weary, he said, but keep looking. —Then, I said, isn't it a great necessity for us to agree that the same things are present in each of us—
the same forms and dispositions as are in the city? For surely they haven't gotten there from anywhere else. It would be absurd if someone thought that spiritedness didn't arise in cities from the private individuals who are in fact charged with having it—for example, the people of Thrace and Scythia, and pretty much the whole region to the north—or
the love of learning, which one would attribute above all to the region around us, or the love of money, which one would say belongs especially to the Phoenicians and the people of Egypt. —Very much so, he said. —Well, that's how things stand, I said, and it's not hard to know. —No, indeed. —But here's the hard part already: whether we do each of these things
with the same part of ourselves, or whether, since there are three parts, we do one thing with one and another with another—learning with one part, feeling anger with another of the things in us, and desiring with yet a third the pleasures of nourishment and procreation and all their kin—or whether it's with the whole soul that we act in each case, once we've set out to do it. That will be hard to determine properly. —I think so too, he said. —Well then, let's
try to define them this way, whether they are the same as one another or different. —How? —Clearly, the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposite things at the same time, in the same respect and in relation to the same object, so that if we ever find this happening in them, we'll know it wasn't one thing but several. —All right. —Consider then what I mean. —Say it, he said. —Can the same thing, I said, be standing still and moving
at the same time, in the same respect? —In no way. —Let's agree even more precisely, then, so we don't run into disputes as we proceed. If someone said that a man standing still, but moving his hands and his head, is the same man standing still and moving at the same time, we wouldn't think, I imagine, that we ought to speak that way, but rather that part of him is standing still and part is moving. Isn't that
so? —So. —And if the man making these claims got even cleverer still, and cleverly pointed out that tops as a whole both stand still and move at the same time, when they spin around fixed on the same point, or that anything else going around in a circle on the same spot does this too, we wouldn't accept it, on the ground that such things are not, in that respect, both at rest and
in motion relative to themselves; rather we would say that they have both a straight axis and a circular path within them, and with respect to the straight axis they stand still—for they don't tilt in any direction at all—while with respect to the circular path they move in a circle; and when, while spinning, they lean their axis to the right or the left or forward or backward, then they are in no way standing still at all. —And rightly so,
he said. —So none of these claims will disconcert us, nor persuade us any further that one and the same thing could ever, simultaneously, in the same respect and toward the same object, undergo, or be, or do opposites. —Not me, anyway, he said. —Still, I said, so that we won't be forced to go through all such disputes one by one and confirm at length that they aren't
true, let's assume this holds and move forward, agreeing that if it should ever appear otherwise than this, everything we've concluded from it will be undone. —Yes, we must do that, he said. —Then, I said, would you count nodding assent as opposite to shaking one's head in refusal, and reaching to grasp something as opposite to declining it, and drawing something toward oneself as opposite to pushing it away—
would you class all things of this sort as opposites of one another, whether as things done or things undergone? It won't matter which. —Yes, he said, as opposites. —Well then, I said—being thirsty and hungry, and desires generally, and again willing and wishing—wouldn't you put all these somewhere among those forms just mentioned? For instance,
wouldn't you say that the soul of someone desiring always either reaches out for that which it desires, or draws toward itself the thing it wishes to come to be its own, or, insofar as it wills something to be provided for it, nods assent to this within itself, as if someone were asking it, reaching out in longing for its coming to be? —I would, he said. —And what about not-willing, and being unwilling, and not desiring—shouldn't we class these among pushing away and driving something
off from itself, and among all the things opposite to those others? —Of course. —This being so, shall we say that desires form a class, and that the clearest of these are the ones we call thirst and hunger? —We shall say so, he said. —Isn't one the desire for drink, the other for food? —Yes. —Then insofar as it is thirst, would it be a desire in the soul for anything more than what we're speaking of—
that is, is thirst, as thirst, a desire for warm drink or cold, for much or little, or in a word for drink of some particular quality? Or rather, if some heat is present along with the thirst, would that additionally produce a desire for something cold, and if coldness is present, a desire for something hot? And if, because of the presence of a great quantity, the thirst is great,
will it produce a desire for a great quantity, and if it's slight, for a small quantity? But thirst itself will never be a desire for anything other than what it is by nature a desire for—drink itself; and likewise hunger for food. —So it is, he said; each desire itself is only for the thing itself that it is by nature a desire for, while the desire for this or that particular kind is something added on. —Let no one, I said, catch us unprepared
—that anyone might raise against us and confuse us, saying that no one desires drink as such, but good drink, nor food as such, but good food; since everyone, after all, desires good things—so if thirst is a desire, it would be desire for something good, whether that be drink or whatever else it is desire of, and the same for all the other desires. Perhaps, he said, whoever says this might seem to have a point. But all the same, I said—
—all things, I said, that are of such a kind as to be of something, some of them are of a particular something qualified, as it seems to me, while others are simply themselves, each in relation only to itself, unqualified. I didn't understand, he said. You didn't understand, I said, that the greater is such as to be greater than something? Certainly. Than the lesser, isn't that so? Yes. And the much greater than the much lesser. Isn't that so?
Yes. Well then, is what is at some time greater also at some time lesser, and what will be greater related to what will be lesser? Of course, he said. And so too the more in relation to the less, and the double in relation to the half, and all such things, and again the heavier in relation to the lighter, and the faster in relation to the slower, and further, the hot in relation to
the cold, and everything of that kind—isn't it so in every case? Certainly. And what about the sciences? Isn't it the same pattern? Science itself is the science of learning itself, or of whatever we ought to set science in relation to, while a particular science, qualified in some way, is the science of some particular qualified thing. I mean something like this: once there came to be a science of house-building,
didn't it differ from the other sciences, so as to be called the science of building? Of course. Wasn't that because it is qualified in a particular way, unlike any of the others? Yes. And wasn't it because it was of a particular qualified object that it itself became qualified in a particular way? And likewise all the other arts and sciences? That's how it is. This, then, I said, is what I meant to say before, if in fact
you now understand—that whatever things are such as to be of something, taken just by themselves, are related only to themselves, but the things that are qualified in some particular way are related to something qualified in some particular way. And I don't mean that the sciences are such as the things they are of—as though the science of healthy and diseased things were itself healthy and diseased, or the science of bad and good things were itself bad and good—but rather, since it did not become the science
of that very thing of which science as such is the science, but of some particular qualified thing—and this was the healthy and the diseased—it thereby turned out to be itself qualified in a particular way, and this is what made it no longer be called simply science, but, once the particular qualification was added, medicine. I understand, he said, and it seems to me to be so. As for thirst, then, I said, won't you set it down as one of those things that are of some particular
something—being what it is? Thirst is, after all, surely thirst of—Yes, he said—of drink. So then thirst for a particular kind of drink is a particular kind of thirst, but thirst itself is neither for much nor for little, neither for good nor for bad, nor in a word for any particular qualified thing, but is by its nature thirst simply for drink itself? Absolutely so. So the soul of the thirsty person,
insofar as it thirsts, wants nothing else than to drink, and toward this it strains and toward this it is impelled. Clearly so. So then, if ever something pulls it back when it is thirsty, that would have to be something different in it from the very thing that thirsts and drives it, beast-like, toward drinking? For surely, we say, the same thing does not act in opposite ways toward the same object simultaneously and with one and the same part of itself.
That's right, he said. Just as, I think, with an archer, it isn't right to say that his hands at once push the bow away and draw it toward him, but rather that one hand is the one pushing it away, and a different one the one drawing it in. Absolutely, he said. Now shall we say that there are people who, though thirsty, are at times unwilling to drink? Yes indeed, he said,
many people, many times. What then, I said, should one say about them? Isn't it that there is present in their soul something that bids them drink, and also something that forbids it, something different that overpowers the thing that bids? It seems so to me, he said. And doesn't the forbidding element, whenever it arises in such cases, arise from reasoning, while the elements that drive and drag come about through feelings
and diseased states? So it appears. So it isn't unreasonable, I said, to hold that these are two distinct things, different from one another—calling the part with which the soul reasons the rational part, and the part with which it feels desire and hunger and thirst and is agitated over the other appetites the irrational, appetitive part, companion of certain satisfactions and pleasures. No, he said, it is quite reasonable
to think of them in this way. Let these, then, I said, be marked off as two distinct kinds present in the soul. But as for spirit, and the part with which we feel anger—is it a third thing, or would it be of the same nature as one of these two? Perhaps, he said, of the same nature as the other one, the appetitive part. But, I said, I once heard something I trust—that Leontius, son of Aglaion, coming up from the Piraeus,
outside, under the north wall, noticed some corpses lying by the public executioner, and he wanted to look, yet at the same time felt disgust and turned himself away, and for a while he struggled and covered his face, but then, overpowered by the desire, he tore his eyes wide open and ran up to the corpses, saying, 'There you are, damn you—have your fill of the beautiful sight!' I too have heard that, he said.
This account, I said, shows that anger sometimes wars against the appetites, as one thing against another. Yes, it does, he said. And don't we often notice elsewhere too, whenever desires force someone against his reasoning, that he reviles himself and grows angry at the part within him that is doing the forcing, and that, as in a battle between two factions, spirit becomes the ally of reason in such a person? And when
it makes common cause with the appetites, when reason decides it ought not act against it—I don't think you would say you've ever noticed such a thing happening in yourself, nor, I think, in anyone else. No, by Zeus, he said. And what, I said, when someone believes he's doing wrong? Isn't it true that the nobler he is, the less able he is to feel anger, even when suffering hunger, cold, or anything of the sort
at the hands of one whom he believes is justly inflicting these things on him, and, as I say, his spirit refuses to be roused against that person? True, he said. But what about when a person believes he is being wronged? Doesn't his spirit boil and grow fierce in that case, and side with what seems just, and, through enduring hunger and cold and all such sufferings,
does it not hold out and win through, and not let up from its noble efforts, until it either succeeds, or dies, or, like a dog called back by its shepherd, is soothed by the reasoning within the man himself? Very much so, he said, it does resemble what you say—and indeed, in our city, we set the auxiliaries like dogs, obedient to the rulers who are like shepherds of the city. You understand well, I said,
what I mean to say. But do you also notice this further point? What is that? That the case regarding the spirited part now appears just the opposite of what we thought a moment ago. Then we supposed it was a kind of appetitive thing, but now we say it is far from that—rather, in the civil strife of the soul, it takes up arms much more on the side of the rational part. Absolutely, he said.
Is it, then, distinct from this rational part too, or is it some form of the rational, so that there would not be three but two kinds in the soul, the rational and the appetitive? Or, just as in the city there were three classes holding it together—the money-making, the auxiliary, and the deliberative—so also in the soul is this spirited element a third thing, a natural ally of the rational part, provided it is not corrupted by bad upbringing? It must be
a third, he said. Yes, I said, provided it appears as something other than the rational, just as it appeared to be other than the appetitive. But that's not hard to show, he said; one can see it even in small children, that they are full of spirit right from birth, whereas some, it seems to me, never come to share in reasoning at all, and most only quite late. Yes,
by Zeus, I said, well put. And further, one could see in animals too that what you say is so. And besides these, there's what we quoted before, the line of Homer that will bear witness: 'He struck his breast and rebuked his heart with a word.' For there Homer has clearly represented one part as rebuking another, the part that has reasoned about
the better and the worse rebuking the part that feels anger irrationally. Quite right, he said. So then, I said, we have with difficulty swum across this argument, and we have reached fair agreement that the same kinds, equal in number, exist both in the city and in the soul of each individual. That is so. Then it's already necessary that, just as the city was wise, and by virtue of what,
so too the individual is wise, and by the same thing? Of course. And by whatever the individual is brave, and in whatever way, by that same thing and in that same way the city is brave too, and that in everything else pertaining to virtue both are alike? Necessarily. And we shall say, Glaucon, I think, that a man is just in the very same manner in which the city was just. And this is altogether necessary. But surely
we haven't forgotten this—that the city was just by each of its three classes doing its own proper task within it. We don't seem to have forgotten it, he said. We must remember, then, that each of us too, in whom each of the parts within him does its own proper task, will be a just person, and one who does what is his own. Yes indeed, he said, we must remember that.
So then it belongs to the rational part to rule, since it is wise and has forethought on behalf of the whole soul, and it belongs to the spirited part to be obedient to it and its ally? Certainly. And won't a blending of music and gymnastic, as we said, render these two parts harmonious, tuning the one and nourishing it with fine words and studies, and relaxing the other, soothing it, taming it through harmony
and rhythm? Quite so, he said. And these two, thus raised, and having truly learned and been trained in their own proper functions, will take charge of the appetitive part—which is the greatest part of the soul in each of us, and by nature the most insatiable of wealth—and will watch over it, so that it does not, by being filled with the so-called pleasures of the body, become great and strong and no longer do its own work, but rather attempt to enslave
and rule over the parts it has no business ruling by its very nature, and so overturn the whole life of everyone. Yes indeed, he said. So then, I said, would these two also best guard against enemies from outside, on behalf of soul and body alike in their entirety—the one taking counsel, the other fighting in front, following the ruler and carrying out by its courage what has been decided?
That's so. And courageous, I think, is what we call each person in virtue of this part, whenever his spirited element preserves through pains and pleasures what has been declared by reason to be fearsome and what is not. Rightly so, he said. And wise in virtue of that small part which ruled within him and issued those declarations, since it in turn possesses knowledge in
itself of what is advantageous for each part and for the whole made up of all three together. Quite so. And what about temperate—isn't he so in virtue of the friendship and concord of these same elements, when the ruling element and the two that are ruled share the conviction that the reasoning part should govern, and raise no faction against it? Temperance, at any rate, he said, is nothing other than this,
whether in a city or in a private individual. And surely a man will be just, on the very grounds we have repeatedly stated, in this same way. That's absolutely necessary. Well then, I said, isn't there some way in which justice might seem to us blunted, as if it were something other than what it appeared to be in the city? It doesn't seem so to me, he said. For in this way, I said, we could confirm it altogether, if anything in our
soul still disputes it, by bringing forward the crude, everyday tests. What sort? For instance, if we had to come to agreement about that city, and about the man whose nature and upbringing correspond to it, as to whether such a man, having accepted a deposit of gold or silver, would embezzle it—do you think anyone would suppose him more likely to do this than those who are not of that sort? No one would, he said. And wouldn't he be
free of temple robberies and thefts and betrayals, whether of comrades in private or of cities in public affairs? Free of them. And moreover he would not be in any way untrustworthy, either regarding oaths or other agreements. How could he be? Adulteries, too, and neglect of parents, and failure to worship the gods, belong to anyone else rather than to such a man. To anyone else, certainly, he said. And isn't the cause of all
this that each of the elements within him does its own work with respect to ruling and being ruled? This, and nothing else. Do you still look for justice to be anything other than this power, which produces men and cities of this sort? No, by Zeus, he said, I do not. Then our dream has come to complete fulfillment,
the one we said we suspected—that right from the start of founding the city, by some god's guidance, we had probably hit upon a starting-point and a kind of pattern of justice. Absolutely so. And that thing, Glaucon, on account of which it was also useful, turns out to have been a mere image of justice—the notion that it's naturally right for the shoemaker to make shoes and do nothing else, and for the carpenter to do carpentry, and
so on with the rest. So it appears. But the truth, it seems, was something of this sort: justice, it turns out, has nothing to do with a man's outward conduct of his own affairs, but with what is within, with what truly concerns himself and what belongs to him—not letting the elements within him each do the work of another, nor letting the classes within his soul meddle with one another, but truly disposing well of what is properly his own,
ruling and ordering himself, becoming a friend to himself, and harmonizing the three parts together, exactly like the three defining notes of a musical scale—the lowest, the highest, and the middle—and whatever others happen to lie between them—binding all of these together and becoming entirely one out of many, temperate and harmonized, and only then acting, whether he acts concerning
the acquisition of money, or the care of the body, or some political matter, or private contracts—in all these considering and calling just and noble the action that preserves and helps produce this condition, and calling the knowledge that oversees such action wisdom, while calling unjust the action that always undoes this condition, and calling the opinion that
oversees that ignorance. What you say, Socrates, he said, is altogether true. Well then, I said—if we were to claim to have found the just man and the just city, and justice itself, whatever it actually is within them, I don't think we would seem to be saying anything very false. No, by Zeus, certainly not, he said. Shall we say it, then? Let's say it. So be it, I said—for after this
I think injustice must be examined. Clearly. Mustn't it in turn be a kind of civil strife among these same three elements, a meddling and doing of another's work, and a rebellion of some part against the whole of the soul, so that it might rule within it though it has no right to—being of a nature such that it is fitting for it to be enslaved, while the part that by nature belongs to the ruling class is not enslaved? Something of this sort, I think, we shall say the confusion
and wandering of these elements is—injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and ignorance, and, in sum, vice entire. These very things, he said. So then, I said, both the doing of unjust acts and the being unjust, and in turn the doing of just acts, all of these turn out already to be perfectly clear, if indeed injustice and justice themselves are clear? How so? Because, I said,
they turn out to be no different from what is healthy and diseased, except that the latter are in the body, these in the soul. In what way? he said. What is healthy, I suppose, produces health, and what is diseased produces disease. Yes. And doesn't doing just things produce justice, and doing unjust things injustice? Necessarily. And to produce health is to establish the elements in the body
in their natural relation of ruling and being ruled by one another, while to produce disease is for one element to rule and be ruled by another contrary to nature. Yes, that's so. And in turn, I said, isn't producing justice a matter of establishing the elements in the soul in their natural relation of ruling and being ruled by one another, while producing injustice is having one element rule and be ruled by another contrary to nature? Exactly so, he said. Virtue,
then, it seems, would be a kind of health and beauty and good condition of the soul, while vice would be disease and ugliness and weakness. That's so. And don't fine pursuits also tend toward the acquisition of virtue, and shameful ones toward vice? Necessarily. What remains for us now, it seems, is to examine whether it is profitable to do just
things and practice fine pursuits and be just—whether or not one is recognized as being such a person—or to do unjust things and be unjust, provided one doesn't pay the penalty or become better through punishment. But, Socrates, he said, this inquiry now seems to me to have become ridiculous—if, when the body's nature is being destroyed, life is held not worth living even with every kind of food
and drink and all wealth and all power, yet when the very nature of that by which we live is disturbed and destroyed, life will nonetheless be worth living, so long as a person does whatever he wishes except that which will rid him of vice and injustice and gain him justice and virtue—given that these two have turned out to be what we have described. It is ridiculous, I said. But
nevertheless, since we have come this far, we must not grow weary of seeing as clearly as possible that this is indeed so. By no means, by Zeus, he said, must we grow weary of anything. Come here, then, I said, so that you may also see how many forms vice has—at least those that seem to me worthy of being viewed. I'm following, he said—just tell me. And indeed, I said,
as if from a watchtower, now that we have climbed this high in our argument, it appears to me that there is one form of virtue, but unlimited forms of vice, of which four in particular are worth mentioning. What do you mean? he said. As many kinds of constitutions as there are that have distinct forms, I said, that many kinds of soul there probably are too. How many, then? Five kinds of constitutions, I said,
and five of soul. Tell me, he said, what they are. I say, I answered, that this one form of constitution which we have gone through would be one kind, though it might also be called by two names: if one man of outstanding excellence arises among the rulers, it would be called kingship; if several, aristocracy. True, he said. This, then, I say, is one form; for whether several
or one arose, they would not disturb any of the laws of the city worth mentioning, having been raised with the upbringing and education we described. No, that's not likely, he said.