 Book 7, Part 3 of Plato's Republic This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linny The Republic by Plato, translated by Benjamin Joed, Book 7, Part 3. And next, shall we inquire whether the kindred science also concerns us? You mean geometry. Exactly so. Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war. For in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military maneuver, whether in actual battle or in a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician. Yes, I said, but for that purpose, a very little of either geometry or calculation will be enough. The question relates rather to the greater and more advanced part of geometry, whether that tends, in any degree, to make more easy the vision of the idea of good. And there, as I was saying, all things tend which compel the soul to turn her gaze towards that place, where is the full perfection of being, which she ought, by all means, to behold. True, he said, then, if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us. If becoming only, it does not concern us, yes, that is what be assert. Yet, anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians. How so? They have, in view, practice only, and are always speaking in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like. They confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life, whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science. Certainly, he said, then, must not a further admission be made? What admission? That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of odd perishing and transient. That, he replied, may be readily allowed, and it's true. Then my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth, and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now unhappily allowed to fall down. Nothing will be more likely to have such an effect. Then nothing should be more sternly laid down than that the inhabitants of your fair city should, by all means, learn geometry. Moreover, the science has indirect effects which are not small. Of what kind, he said? There are the military advantages of which you spoke, I said, and in all departments of knowledge, as experience proves, any one who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker of apprehension than one who has not. Yes, indeed, he said, there is an infinite difference between them. Then shall we propose this as a second branch of knowledge which our youth will study? Let us do so, he replied. And suppose we make astronomy the third, what do you say? I am strongly inclined to it, he said, the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies, and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined, and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons, one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation, another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement. At the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrongly the order of the sciences. What was the mistake, he said? After plain geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to solids in revolution, instead of taking solids in themselves, whereas after the second dimension the third which is concerned with cubes and dimensions of depth ought to have followed. It is true Socrates, but so little seems to be known as yet about these subjects. Why, yes, I said, and for two reasons. In the first place no government patronizes them. This leads to a want of energy in the pursuit of them, and they are difficult. In the second place students cannot learn them unless they have a director, but then a director can hardly be found. And even if he could, as matters now stand, the students who are very conceited would not attend to him. That, however, would be otherwise if the whole state became the director of these studies and gave honor to them. Then disciples would want to come, and there would be continuous and earnest search, and discoveries would be made, since even now, disregarded as they are by the world, and maimed of their fair proportions, and although none of their voteries can tell the use of them, still these studies force their way by their natural charm, and very likely if they had the help of the state they would some day emerge into light. Yes, he said, there is a remarkable charm in them, but I do not clearly understand the change in the order. First you began with a geometry of plain surfaces. Yes, I said. And you placed astronomy next, and then you made a step backward. Yes, and I have delayed you by my hurry. The liticrous state of solid geometry, which, in natural order, should have followed, made me pass over this branch and go on to astronomy or motion of solids. True, he said. Then, assuming that the science now omitted would come into existence, if encouraged by the state, let us go on to astronomy, which will be forth. The right order, he replied, and now socrates, as you rebuke the vulgar manner in which I praised astronomy before, my praise shall be given in your own spirit. For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Everyone but myself, I said, to everyone else this may be clear, but not to me. And what then would you say? I should rather say that those who elevate astronomy into philosophy appear to me to make us look downwards and not upwards. What do you mean? He asked. You, I replied, have in your mind a truly sublime conception of our knowledge of the things above, and I dare say that if a person were to throw his head back and study the fretted ceiling, you would still think that his mind was the recipient and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton. But in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards. And whether a man gape at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science. His soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking. I will tell you, I said, the starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied, the spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge. Their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently brought by the hand of Daedalus or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold. Any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double or the truth of any other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous, and will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day or of both to the month or of the month to the year or of the stars to these and to one another and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation. That would be absurd, and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said, and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms and not one only. Two of them are obvious enough even to width snow better than ours, and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be? The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes, for I can see that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions. And these are sister sciences, as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glockon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them, and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that? There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy, for in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. And the teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labor, like that of the astronomers, is in vain. Yes, by heaven, he said, and is as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them. They put their ears close alongside of the strings, like persons catching a sound from their neighbor's wall, one side of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note, and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement. The others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same, either parties setting their ears before their understanding. You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument. I might carry on the metaphor, and speak after their manner of the blows which the plethora gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound. But this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans of whom I was just now proposing to inquire about harmony. For they, too, are in error, like the astronomers. They investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems. That is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge. A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful, that is, if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good, but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommunion in connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects, otherwise there is no profit in them. I suspect so, but you are speaking socrates of a vast work. What do you mean? I said. The prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician. I surely not, he said. I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, with which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate. For sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and lest of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic, when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic. True. But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive, even with their weak eyes, the images in the water, and are the shadows of true existence. This power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplation of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty, which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world. This power is given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. I agree in what you are saying, he replied, which may be hard to believe, yet, from another point of view, is harder still to deny. This, however, is not a theme to be treated of in passing only, but will have to be discussed again and again. And so, whether our conclusion be true or false, let us assume all this and proceed at once from the prelude or preamble to the chief strain, and describe that in like manner. Say, then, what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither, for these paths will also lead to our final rest. Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should, behold, not an image only, but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality, I cannot venture to say, but you would have seen something like reality. Of that, I am confident. Beltless, he replied, but I must also remind you that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion, you may be as confident as of the last. And assuredly, no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process, all true existence, or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature. For the arts, in general, are concerned with the desires or opinions of man, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions. And as to the mathematical sciences, which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being, geometry and the like, they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle, and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure. The eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slew, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards, and she uses, as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion, and less clearness than science. And this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider? Why indeed, he said, when any name will do which expresses the thought of the mind with clearness. At any rate, we are satisfied, as before, to have four divisions, two for intellect and two for opinion, and to call the first division science, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth perception of shadows, opinion being concerned with becoming, and intellect with being, and so to make a proportion. As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion, and as intellect is to opinion, so is science to believe and understanding to the perception of shadows. End of Book 7, Part 3. Book 7, Part 4 of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lidny. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joëd, Book 7, Part 4. But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long inquiry, many times longer than this has been. As far as I understand, he said, I agree. And do you also agree, I said, in describing the dialectician as one who attains a conception of the essence of each thing, and he who does not possess and is therefore unable to impart this conception in whatever degree he fails, may in that degree also be said to fail in intelligence? Will you admit so much? Yes, he said. How can I deny it? And you would say the same of the conception of the good, until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument, unless he can do all this. He would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good. He apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science, dreaming and slumbering in this life, before he is well awake here, he arrives at the world below, and has his final quietes. In all that, I should most certainly agree with you. And surely you would not have the children of your ideal state, whom you are nurturing and educating, if the ideal ever becomes a reality, you would not allow the future rulers to be like posts, having no reasoning them, and yet to be set in authority over the highest matters. Certainly not. Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions. Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping stone of the sciences, and is set over them. No other science can be placed higher. The nature of knowledge can no further go. I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered? Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest. And having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition, for the mind more often feigns from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics. The toil is more entirely the mind's own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied. Further, he of whom we are in search should have a good memory, and be an unwearied solid man who is a lover of labour in any line, or he will never be able to endure the great amount of bodily exercise, and to go through all the intellectual discipline and study which will require of him. Certainly, he said, he must have natural gifts. The mistake at present is that those who study philosophy have no vocation, and this, as I was before saying, is the reason why she has fallen into disrepute. Her true son should take her by the hand, and not bastards. What do you mean? In the first place, her votary should not have a lame or halting industry, I mean, that he should not be half-industries and half-idle. As for example, when a man is a lover of gymnastic and hunting, and all other bodily exercises, but a hater rather than a lover of the labour of learning or listening or inquiring, or the occupation to which he devotes himself may be of an opposite kind, and he may have the other sort of lameness. Certainly, he said. And that's the truth, I said. It's not a soul equally to be deemed halt and lame which hates voluntary falsehood, and is extremely indignant at herself and others when they tell lies, but is patient of involuntary falsehood, and does not mind wallowing like a swinnish beast in the mire of ignorance, and has no shame at being detected. To be sure. And again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard? For where there is no discernment of such qualities, states and individuals unconsciously err, and the state makes a ruler, and the individual, a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure, lame, or a bastard. That is very true, he said. All these things, then, will have to be carefully considered by us, and if only those whom we introduce to this vast system of education and training are sound in body and mind, justice herself will have nothing to say against us, and we shall be the saviors of the constitution and of the state. But if our pupils are men of another stamp, the reverse will happen, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule on philosophy than she has to endure at present. That would not be creditable. Certainly not, I said, and yet perhaps, in thus turning jest into earnest, I am equally ridiculous. In what respect? I had forgotten, I said, that we were not serious, and spoke with too much excitement. For when I saw philosophy so undeservedly trampled underfoot of men, I could not help feeling a sort of indignation at the authors of her disgrace, and my anger made me too vehement. Indeed, I was listening, and did not think so. But I, who am the speaker, felt that I was, and now let me remind you that, although in our former selection we chose old men, we must not do so in this. Solon was under a delusion, when he sat at a man when he grows old may learn many things, for he can no more learn much than he can run much. Youth is the time for any extraordinary toil. Of course. And therefore, calculation and geometry, and all the other elements of instruction, which are a preparation for dialectic, should be presented to the mind in childhood. Not however, under any notion of forcing our system of education. Why not? Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind, bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body, but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Very true. Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to find out the natural bend. That is a very rational notion, he said. Do you remember that the children, too, were to be taken to see the battle on horseback, and that if there were no danger they were to be brought close up and, like young hounds, have a taste of blood given them? Yes, I remember. The same practice may be followed, I said, in all these things, labors, lessons, dangers, and he who is most at home in all of them ought to be enrolled in a select number. At what age? At the age when the necessary gymnastics are over. The period, whether of two or three years which passes in this sort of training, is useless for any other purpose, for sleep and exercise are unperpicious to learning. And the trial of who is first in gymnastic exercises is one of the most important tests to which our youth are subjected. Certainly, he replied, after that time those who are selected from the class of 20 years old will be promoted to higher honor, and the sciences which they learned without any order in their early education will now be brought together, and they will be able to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to true being. Yes, he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which takes lasting root. Yes, I said, and the capacity for such knowledge is the great criterion of dialectical talent. The comprehensive mind is always a dialectical. I agree with you, he said. These, I said, are the points which you must consider. And those who have most of this comprehension and who are most steadfast in their learning and in their military and other appointed duties, when they have arrived at the age of 30, have to be chosen by you out of the select class, and elevated to higher honor. And you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic in order to learn which of them is able to give up the use of sight and the other senses, and in company with truth to attain absolute being. And here, my friend, great caution is required. Why great caution? Do you not remark, I said, how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced? What evil, he said. The students of the art are filled with lawlessness. Quite true, he said. Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? Or will you make allowance for them? In what way make allowance? I want you, I said, by way of parallel, to imagine a supposititious son who is brought up in great wealth. He is one of a great and numerous family, and has many flatters. When he grows up to manhood, he learns that his alleged are not his real parents. But who the real are, he's unable to discover. Can you guess how he will be likely to behave towards his flatters and his supposed parents, first of all during the period when he is ignorant of the false relation, and then again when he knows? Or shall I guess for you? If you please. Then I should say that while he is ignorant of the truth, he will be likely to honor his father and his mother and his supposed relations more than the flatters. He will be less inclined to neglect them when in need, or to do or say anything against them, and he will be less willing to disobey them in any important matter. He will. But when he has made the discovery, I should imagine that he would diminish his honor and regard for them, and would become more devoted to the flatters. Their influence over him would greatly increase. He would now live after their ways, and openly associate with them, and unless he were of an unusually good disposition, he would trouble himself no more about his supposed parents or other relations. Well, all that is very probable, but how is the image applicable to the disciples of philosophy? In this way, you know that there are certain principles about justice and honor which were taught us in childhood, and under their parental authority we have been brought up, obeying and honoring them. That is true. There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honor the maxims of their fathers. True. Now, when a man is in this state, and the question in spirit asks what is fair or honorable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and the verse refute his words, until he is driven into believing that nothing is honorable any more than dishonorable or just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honor and obey them as before? Impossible. And when he seizes to think them honorable and natural as here before, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? He cannot. And from being a keeper of the law, he's converted into a breaker of it? Unquestionably. Now, all this is very natural in students of philosophy, such as I have described, and also, as I was just now saying, most excusable. Yes, he said, and I may add pitable. Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now 30 years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic. Certainly, there is a danger, lest they should taste the dear delight too early, for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others, an imitation of those who refute them, like puppy dogs, they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them. Yes, he said, there's nothing which they like better. And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence not only they, but philosophy, and all that relates to it, is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. Too true, he said. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity. He will imitate a dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the heuristic who is contradicting for the sake of amusement, and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminishing the honor of the pursuit. Very true, he said. And did we not make special provision for this, when we said that the disciples of philosophy were to be orderly and steadfast, not, as now, any chance aspirant or intruder? Very true. Suppose, I said, the study of philosophy to take the place of gymnastics, and to be continued diligently, and earnestly, and exclusively, for twice the number of years which were passed in bodily exercise. Will that be enough? Would you say six or four years, he asked. Say five years, I replied. At the end of the time, they must be sent down again into the den, and compelled to hold any military or other office which young men are qualified to hold. In this way, they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity of trying whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or flinch. And how long is the stage of their lives to last? Fifteen years, I answered. And when they have reached fifty years of age, then let those who still survive, and have distinguished themselves in every action of their lives, and in every branch of knowledge, come at last to their consummation. The time has now arrived, at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light, which lightens all things, and behold, the absolute good. For that is the pattern, according to which they are to order the state, and the lives of individuals, and the remainder of their own lives also, making philosophy their chief pursuit. But when their turn comes, toiling also at politics and ruling for the public good. Not as though they were performing some heroic action, but simply as a matter of duty. And when they have brought up, in each generation, others like themselves, and led them in their place to be governors of the state, then they will depart to the islands of the blessed, and dwell there. And the city will give them public memorials, and sacrifices, and honor them, if the pithy and oracle consent, as demigods, but if not, as in any case, blessed and divine. You are a sculptor, Socrates, and have made statues of our governors faultless in beauty. Yes, I said, Glaucon, and of our governesses, too, for you must not suppose that what I have been saying applies to men only, and not to women, as far as their natures can go. There you are right, he said, since we have made them to share in all things like the man. Well, I said, and you would agree, would you not? That what has been said about the state and the government is not a mere dream, and although difficult, not impossible, but only possible in the way which has been supposed. That is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a state, one or more of them, despising the honors of this present world, which they deem mean and worthless, esteeming above all things right and the honor that springs from right, and regarding justice as the greatest and most necessary of all things, whose ministers they are, and whose principles will be exalted by them when they set in order their own city. How will they proceed? They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than 10 years old, and will take possession of their children who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents. These they will train in their own habits and laws. I mean in the laws which we have given them. And in this way, the state and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes, that will be the best way. And I think, Socrates, that you have very well described how, if ever, such a constitution might come into being. Enough then of the perfect state, and of the man who bears its image. There is no difficulty in seeing how we shall describe him. There is no difficulty, he replied. And I agree with you in thinking that nothing more need be said. End of book seven. Book eight, part one of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Simon. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joett. Book eight, part one. And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect state, wives and children are to be in common, and that all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common. And the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings. That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged. Yes, I said, and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain nothing private or individual. And about their property you remember what we agreed? Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind. They were to be warrior athletes and guardians receiving from the other citizens in the view of annual payment only their maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and the whole state. True, I said, and now that this division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the old path. There is no difficulty in returning. You implied, then as now, that you had finished the description of the state. You said that such a state was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of state and man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the others were false. And of the false forms you said, as I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their defects and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them were worth examining. Then we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them. We were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest and the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke, and then Polomarkis and Adamantas put in their word, and you began again, and I found your way to the point at which we have now arrived. Your recollection, I said, is most exact. Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the same position, and let me ask the same question, and do you give me the same answer which you were about to give me then? Yes, if I can, I will, I said. I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of which you were speaking. That question, I said, is easily answered. The four governments of which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are first, those of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded. What is termed oligarchy comes next. This is not equally approved, and is a form of government which teams with evils. Thirdly, democracy, which naturally follows oligarchy, although very different, and lastly comes tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and worst disorder of a state. I do not know, do you, of any other constitution, which can be said to have a distinct character? There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts, and may be found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians. Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government which exist among them. Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the other? For we cannot suppose that states are made of oak and rock, and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them. Yes, he said, the states are as the men are. They grow out of human characters. Then if the constitutions of states are five, the dispositions of individual minds will also be five? Certainly. Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good, we have already described. We have. Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity. Also the olacarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The inquiry will then be completed, and we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thressamacus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument, to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say. Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to clearness, of taking the state first and then proceeding to the individual, and begin with a government of honour? I know of no name for such a government other than timeocracy, or perhaps timearchy. We will compare with this the like character in the individual, and after that consider olacarchy and the olacarchical man, and then again we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man, and lastly we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory decision. That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable. First then, I said, let us inquire how timeocracy, the government of honour, arises out of aristocracy, the government of the best. Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power, a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved. Very true, he said. In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the muses to tell us how discord first arose? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein making belief to be in earnest? How would they address us? After this manner. A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken, but seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last forever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is a disillusion. Implants that grow in the earth as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body, occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility, all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain. The laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they are not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution, obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The base of these, with a third edit, when combined with five and raised to the third power, furnishes two harmonies, the first a square which is a hundred times as great, and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square, the side of which is five, each of them being less by one, or less by two perfect squares of a rational diameter, and a hundred cubes of three. Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of birth. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate, and though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their father's places, and when they come into power as guardians they will soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the muses, first by undervaluing music, which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic, and hence the young man of your state will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiats, are of gold and silver and bras and iron, and so iron will be mingled with silver and bras with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the muses affirm to be the stock from which this court has sprung, wherever arising, and this is their answer to us. Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly. Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly. How can the muses speak falsely? And what do the muses say next? When this court arose, then the two races were drawn in different ways. The iron and bras fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and silver. But the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual owners, and they enslaved their friends and maintainers whom they had formally protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them subjects and servants, and they themselves are engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them. I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change, and the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate between olacarchy and aristocracy. Very true. Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will they proceed? Clearly, the new state, being in a meme between olacarchy and the perfect state, will partly follow one and partly the other, and will also have some peculiarities. True, he said. In the honor given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military training, in all these respects this state will resemble the former. True. But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements, and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace, and in the value set by them upon military stratigems and contrivances, and in the waging of everlasting wars this state will be for the most part peculiar. Yes. Yes, I said, and men at this temp will be covetous of money, like those who live in olacarchies, they will have a fierce secret longing after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and concealment of them, also castles which are just nests for their eggs, and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any others whom they please. That is most true, he said, and they are miserly, because they have no means of openly acquiring the money which they prize, they will spend that which is another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their pleasures, and running away like children from the law, their father. They have been schooled not by gentle influences, but by force, for they have neglected her who is the true muse, the companion of reason and philosophy, and have honored gymnastic more than music. Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a mixture of good and evil. Why, there is a mixture, I said, but one thing and one thing only is predominantly seen, the spirit of contention and ambition, and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or spirited element. Assuredly, he said, such is the origin and such the character of this state which has been described in outline only. The more perfect execution was not required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most perfectly just and most perfectly unjust, and to go through all the states and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would be an interminable labour. Very true, he replied. Now, what man answers to this form of government? How did he come into being, and what is he like? I think, said Adamanthus, that in the spirit of contention which characterizes him, he is not unlike our friend Glaucon. Perhaps, I said, he may be like him in that one point, but there are other respects in which he is very different. In what respects? He should have more of self-assertion and be less cultivated, and yet a friend of culture, and he should be a good listener, but no speaker. Such a person is apt to be rough with slaves, unlike the educated man who is too proud for that, and he will also be courteous to free men, and remarkably obedient to authority. He is a lover of power, and a lover of honour, claiming to be a ruler, not because he is eloquent or on any ground of that sort, but because he is a soldier and has performed feats of arms. He is also a lover of gymnastic exercises and of the chase. Yes, that is the type of character which answers to democracy. Such a one will despise riches only when he is young, but as he gets older he will be more and more attracted to them, because he has a piece of the avaricious nature in him, and is not single-minded to its virtue having lost his best guardian. Who was that? said Adamantas. Philosophy, I said, tempered with music, who comes and takes up her abode in a man, and is the only saviour of his virtue throughout life. Good, he said. Such, I said, is a timeocratical youth, and he is like the timeocratical state. Exactly. His origin is as follows. He is often the young son of a brave father who dwells in an ill-governed city of which he declines the honours and officers and will not go to law or exert himself in any way, but is ready to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble. And how does the son come into being? The character of the son begins to develop when he hears his mother complaining that her husband has no place in the government of which the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women. Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking whatever happens to him quietly, and when she observes that his thoughts always center in himself, while he treats her with very considerable indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is only half a man, and far too easygoing, adding all the other complaints about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing. Yes, said Iramantas, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints are so like themselves. And you know, I said, that the old servants also who are supposed to be attached to the family from time to time talk privately in the same strain to the son, and if they see anyone who owes money to his father or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this sort, and be more of a man than his father. He is only to walk abroad, and he hears and sees the same sort of thing. Those who do their own business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while the busybodies are honored and applauded. The result is that the young man, hearing and seeing all these things, hearing too the words of his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making comparisons of him and others, is drawn opposite ways. While his father is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive, and he being not originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious. You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly. Then we have now, I said, the second form of government, and the second type of character. We have. End of book eight, part one. Book eight, part two of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anosimum. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joet. Book eight, part two. Next let us look at another man who, as Escalus says, is set over against another state, or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the state. By all means, I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on evaluation of property in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied. All time not to begin by describing how the change from democracy to oligarchy arises. Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How? The accumulation of gold and the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of democracy. They invent illegal modes of expenditure, for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune, the less they think of virtue, for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. And in proportion as riches and rich man are honoured in the state, virtue and the virtues are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money. They honour and look up to the rich man and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man. They do so. They next proceed to make a law which fixes a sum of money as the qualification of citizenship. The sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the olacarchy is more or less exclusive. And they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government. These changes in the constitution they affect by falls of arms if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which olacarchy is established. Yes, he said. But what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the defects of which we are speaking? First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man were refused permission to steer even though he were a better pilot. You mean that they would ship wreck? Yes. And is not this true of the government of anything? I should imagine so. Except a city, or would you include a city? Nay, he said. The case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. This, then, will be the first great defect of olacarchy. Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad. What defect? The inevitable division. Such a state is not one, but two states, the one of poor, the other of rich man, and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad. Another discreditable feature is that, for a like reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they arm the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy. Or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are olacarcs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And, at the same time, their fumpness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes. How discreditable! And, as we said before, under such a constitution the same persons have too many callings, their husband men, tradesmen, warriors, all in one. Does that look well? Anything but well. There is another evil which is, perhaps, the greatest of all, and to which this state first begins to be liable. What evil? A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property, yet, after the sale, he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being neither trader, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor helpless creature. Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this state. The evil is certainly not prevented there, for olacarcs have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True. But think again, in his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a bit more good to the state for the purposes of citizenship, or did he only seem to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift. As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city, as the other is of the hive? Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones, Arrimantas, all without stings, whereas of the walking drones he has made some without stings, but others have dreadful stings. Of the stingless clas are those who in their old age end as paupers. Of the stingers come all the criminal clas as they are turned. Most true, he said. Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a state, somewhere in that neighborhood, there are hidden away thieves, and cut purses, and robbers of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in olacarchical states, do you not find paupers? Yes, he said. Nearly everybody is a pauper who is not a ruler. And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force. Certainly we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to want of education, ill training, and an evil constitution of the state. True. Such then is the form and such are the evils of olacarchy, and there may be many other evils. Very likely. Then olacarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed. Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this state. By all means. Does not the democratical man change into the olacarchical on this wise? How? A time arrives when the representative of democracy has a son. At first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps, but presently he sees him of a sudden foundering against the state as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost. He may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death or exiled or deprived of the privileges of a citizen and all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. And the son has seen and known all this. He is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion had foremost from his bosom's throne. Humboldt by poverty he takes the money-making and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets a fortune together. Is not such a one likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous element on the vacant throne and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and skimitar? Most true, he replied. And when he is made reason and spirit sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sums may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich man, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it. Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the ever-ishest one. And the ever-ishest, I said, is the oligarchical youth. Yes, he said, at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the state out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth. Certainly. Also, in their penurious, laborious character, the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites and confines his expenditure to them. His other desires he subdues under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself, and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not a true image of the state which he represents? He appears to me to be so. At any rate, money is highly valued by him as well as by the state. You see that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said. Had he been educated, he would never have made a blind guard director of his course or given him chief honor. Excellent, I said. Yet consider, must we not further admit that owing to this want of cultivation, there will be found in him drone-like desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life. True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogue race? Where must I look? You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan. I. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation of forehonesty, he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue, not making them see that they are wrong or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. He has indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own. Yes, and they will be strong in him too. The man then will be at war with himself. He will be two men and not one, but in general his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True. For these reasons such a one will be more respectable than most people, yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. And surely the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a state for any prize of victory or other object of honourable ambition. He will not spend his money in the contest for glory, so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle. In true olacarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt then that the miser and money maker answers to the olacarchical state? There can be no doubt. Next comes democracy. Of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us, and then we will inquire into the ways of the democratic man and bring him up for judgment. That, he said, is our method. Well, I said, and how does the change from olacarchy into democracy rise? Is it not on this wise? The good at which such a state aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable. What then? The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they gain by their ruin. They take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance. To be sure. There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent. One or the other will be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in olacarchical states, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary. Yes, often. And still they remain in the city. There they are, ready to sting and fully armed, and some of them owe money. Some have forfeited their citizenship. A third class are in both predicaments. And they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk and pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert their sting, that is, their money, into someone else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parents some many times over, multiplied into a family of children, and so they make drone and pauper to abound in the state. Yes, he said, there are plenty of them, that is certain. The evil blazes up like a fire, and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property or by another remedy. What other? One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters, that there be a general rule that everyone shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of this scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the state. Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly, while they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind. They do nothing, and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true. They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the poor bird to the cultivation of virtue. Yes, quite as indifferent. Such as the state of affairs which prevails among them, and often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march, as fellow soldiers or fellow sailors. Aye, and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger. For where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich, and very likely the wiry, sunburned poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoiled his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh. When he sees such a one puffing at his wit's end, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to despoil them, and when they meet him private will not people be saying to one another, our warriors are not good for much. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that this is their way of talking. And as in a body which is diseased the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation a commotion may arise within. In the same way, wherever there is weakness in the state, there is also a likely to be illness, of which the occasion may be very slight. The one party introducing from without their olicarcicle, the other the democratical allies, and then the state falls sick and is at war with herself, and may be at times distracted even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. And then democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents, slaughtering some men, banishing some, while to their remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power, and this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said, that is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been affected by arms or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. And of Book 8, Part 2. Book 8, Part 3 of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Simon. The Republic by Plato, translated by Benjamin Joed. Book 8, Part 3. And now, what is their manner of life, and what sort of a government have they? For, as the government is, such will be the man. Clearly, he said, in the first place, are they not free, and is not the city full of freedom and frankness, a man may say and do what he likes. Desat so, he replied. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases. Clearly. Then, in this kind of state, there will be the greatest variety of human natures. There will. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of states, being like an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colors to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this state, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of states. Yes. Yes, my good sir, and there will be no better in which to look for a government. Why? Because of the liberty which reigns there, they have a complete assortment of constitutions, and he who has a mind to establish a state, as we have been doing, must go to a democracy, as he would to a bazaar at which they sell them, and pick out the one that suits him. Then, when he has made his choice, he may found his state. He will be sure to have patterns enough. And there being no necessity, I said, for you to govern in this state, even if you have the capacity, or to be governed, unless you like, or go to war when the rest go to war, or to be at peace when others are at peace, unless you are so disposed. There being no necessity also, because some law forbids you to hold office or be a diecast, that you should not hold office or be a diecast if you have a fancy. It's not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful. For the moment, yes. And it's not their humanity to the condemned, in some cases, quite charming. Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are, and walk about the world? The gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares. Yes, he replied, many and many a one. See, too, I said, the forgiving spirit of democracy, and that don't care about trifles, and the disregard which she shows of all the fine principles which we solemnly laid down at the foundation of the city. As when we said that, except in the case of some rarely gifted nature, there never will be a good man who has not from his childhood been used to play amid things of beauty, and make of them a joy and a study. How grandly does she trample all these fine notions of ours under her feet, never giving a thought to the pursuits which make a statement, and promoting to honour any one who professes to be the people's friend. Yes, she is of a noble spirit. These and other kinder characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. We know her well. Consider now, I said, what manner of man the individual is, or rather consider, as in the case of the state, how he comes into being. Very good, he said. It's not this the way. He is the son of the miserly and olacarchical father who has trained him in his own habits. Exactly. And, like his father, he keeps under, by false, the pleasures which are of the spending and not of the getting-sword, being those which are called unnecessary. Obviously. Would you like, for the sake of clearness, to distinguish which are the necessary and which are the unnecessary pleasures? I should. Are not necessary pleasures those of which we cannot get rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong, therefore, in calling them necessary. We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards, of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good. Shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind in order that we may have a general notion of them. Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, insofar as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways. It does us good, and it is essential to the continuance of life. Yes. But the condiments are only necessary insofar as they are good for health. Suddenly. And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food or other luxuries which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be rightly called unnecessary. Very true. May we not say that these desires spend, and that the others make money because they conduce to production? Suddenly. And of the pleasures of love and all other pleasures, the same holds good. True. And the drone of whom we spoke was he who was served the pleasures and desires of this sort, and was the slave of the unnecessary desires, whereas he who was subjected to the necessary only was miserly and olacarchical. Very true. Again, let us see how the democratical man grows out of the olacarchical. The following, as I suspect, is commonly the process. What is the process? When a young man who has been brought up, as we were just now describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drone's honey, and has come to associate with fears and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasures, then, as you may imagine, the change will begin of the olacarchical principle within him into the democratical. Inevitably. And as in the city, like was helping like, and the change was affected by an alliance from without assisting one division of the citizens, so too the young man is changed by a class of desires coming from without to assist the desires within him, that which is akin and alike, again helping that which is akin and alike. Certainly. And if there be any ally which aids the olacarchical principle within him, whether the influence of a father or of kindred, advising or rebuking him, then there arises in his soul a faction and an opposite faction, and he goes to war with himself. It must be so. And there are times when the democratical principle gives way to the olacarchical, and some of his desires die, and others are banished. A spirit of reverence enters into the young man's soul, and order is restored. Yes, he said, that sometimes happens. And then, again, after the all desires have been driven out, fresh ones spring up, which are akin to them, and because he, their father, does not know how to educate them, wax fears and numerous. Yes, he said, that is apt to be the way. They draw him to his old associates, and holding secret intercourse with them, breed and multiply in him. Very true. At length they seize upon the citadel of the young man's soul, which they perceive to be void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words, which make their abode in the minds of men who adhere to the gods and are their best guardians and sentinels. None better. Fools and boastful conceits and phrases mount upwards and take their place. They are certain to do so. And so the young man returns into the country of the lotus-eaters and takes up his dwelling there in the face of all men, and if any help be sent by his friends to the olacarchical part of him, the aforesaid vain conceits shut the gate of the king's fastness, and they will neither allow the embassy itself to enter, nor if private advisors offer the fatherly counsel of the aged will they listen to them or receive them. There is a battle, and they gain the day, and then modesty, which they call silliness, is ignominiously thrust into exile by them, and temperance, which they nickname unmanliness, it trampled in the mire and cast forth. They persuade man that moderation and orderly expenditure are vulgarity and meanness, and so by the help of a rebel of evil appetites they drive them beyond the border. Yes, with a will. And when they have emptied and swept clean the soul of him who is now in their power and who is being initiated by them in great mysteries, the next thing is to bring back to their house insolence and anarchy and waste and impudence in bright array, having garlands on their heads, and a great company with them, hymning their praises and calling them by sweet names, insolence they term breeding, and anarchy liberty, and waste magnificence, and impudence courage. And so the young man passes out of his original nature, which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures. Yes, he said, the change in him is visible enough. After this he lives on, spending his money and labour and time on unnecessary pleasures quite as much as unnecessary ones, but if he be fortunate and is not too much disordered in his wits, when years have elapsed and the heyday of passion is over, supposing that he then re-admits into the city some part of the exiled virtues and does not wholly give himself up to their successors, in that case he balances his pleasures and lives in a sort of equilibrium, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one which comes first and wins the turn, and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another. He despises none of them, but encourages them all equally. Very true, he said. Neither does he receive or let pass into the fortress any true word of advice, if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and chastise and master the others. Whenever this is repeated to him, he shakes his head and says that they are all alike and that one is as good as another. Yes, he said. That is the way with him. Yes, I said. He lives from day to day, indulging the appetite of the hour, and sometimes he is leapt in drink and strains of the flute. Then he becomes a water drinker and tries to get thin. Then he takes a turn at gymnastics, sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher. Often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head, and if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more than that. His life has neither law nor order, and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom, and so he goes on. Yes, he replied, he is all liberty and equality. Yes, I said, his life is motley and manifold and an epitome of the lives of many. He answers to the state which we described as fair and spangled, and many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and many a constitution, and many an example of manners is contained in him. Just so. Let him then be set over against democracy. He may truly be called the democratic man. Let that be his place, he said. Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and state alike, tyranny and the tyrant, these we have now to consider. Quite true, he said. Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise, that it has a democratic origin, is evident. Clearly. And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from olikarchy, I mean after assault. How? The good which olikarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth, am I not right? Yes. And the insatiable desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of money-getting was also the ruin of olikarchy. True. And democracy has her own good of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution. What good? Freedom, I replied, which as they tell you in a democracy is the glory of the state, and that therefore in a democracy alone will the free man of nature dain to dwell. Yes, the saying is in everybody's mouth. I was going to observe that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things introduces the change in democracy which occasions a demand for tyranny. How so? When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil cup-bearers presiding over the feast and has drunk too deeply of the strong whine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are cursed olikarchs. Yes, he replied, a very common occurrence. Yes, I said, and loyal citizens are insultingly turned by her slaves who hug their chains and men of nought. She would have subjects who are like rulers and rulers who are like subjects. These are men after her own heart whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a state, can liberty have any limit? Certainly not. By degrees, the anarchy finds a way into private houses and ends by getting among the animals and infecting them. How do you mean? I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents, and this is his freedom, and the medic is equal with the citizen, and the citizen with the medic, and the stranger is quite as good as either. Yes, he said, that is the way. And these are not the only evils, I said. There are several lesser ones. In such a state of society, the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters and tutors. Young and old are all alike, and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed, and old men condescend to the young, and are full of pleasantry and gaiety. They are loathe to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. Quite true, he said. The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave, bored with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser. Nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. Why not, as Ascola says, utter the word which rises to our lips? That is what I am doing, I replied, and I must add that no one who does not know would believe how much greater is the liberty with the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other state. For truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rites and dignities of freemen, and they will run at anybody who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them, and all things are just ready to burst with liberty. When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamt the same thing. And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become. They chave impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws written or unwritten. They will have no one over them. Yes, he said, I know it too well. Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny. Glorious indeed, he said. End of Book 8, Part 3 Book 8, Part 4 of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Simon. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joet. Book 8, Part 4. But what is the next step? The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy. The same disease, magnified and intensified by liberty, overmasters democracy. The truth being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction, and this is the case not only in the seasons and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government. True. The excess of liberty, whether in states or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery. Yes, the natural order. And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty, as we might expect. That, however, was not as I believe your question. You rather desire to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both? Just so, he replied. Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the leaders and the more timid the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless and others having stings. A very just comparison. These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body, and the good physician and lawgifter of the state ought, like the wise bee master, to keep them at a distance and prevent if possible, their ever coming in. And if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as speedily as possible. Yes, by all means, he said. Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes. For in the first place, freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic than there were in the oligarchical state. That is true. And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified. How so? Because in the oligarchical state they are disqualified and driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength, whereas in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keeners sort, speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the beamer and do not suffer a word to be said on the other side, hence in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones. Very true, he said. Then there is another class, which is always being severed from the mass. What is that? They are the orderly class, which in a nation of traders is sure to be the richest. Naturally so. There are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honing to the drones. Why, he said, there is little to be squeezed out of people who have little. And this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them. That is pretty much the case, he said. The people are a third class, consisting of those who work with their own hands. They are not politicians and have not much to live upon. This, when assembled, is the largest and most powerful class in a democracy. True, he said. But then the multitude is seldom willing to congregate unless they get a little honey. And do they not share, I said? Do not their leaders deprive the rich of their estates and distribute them among the people, at the same time taking care to reserve the larger part for themselves? Why, yes, he said. To that extent the people do share. And the persons whose property is taken from them are compelled to defend themselves before the people as best they can. What else can they do? And then, although they may have no desire of change, the others charge them with plotting against the people and being friends of oligarchy. True. And the end is that when they see the people not of their own accord, but through ignorance and because they are deceived by informers, seeking to do them wrong, then at last they are forced to become oligarchs in reality. They do not wish to be, but the sting of their drones torments them and breeds revolution in them. That is exactly the truth. Then come impeachments and judgments and trials of one another. True. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nourish into greatness. Yes, that is their way. This and no other is the route from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears above ground he is a protector. Yes, that is quite clear. How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? Clearly when he does what the man is said to do, in the tale of the Arcadian temple of Lyke and Zeus. What tale? The tale is that he who has tasted the entrails of a single human victim, minced up with the entrails of other victims, is destined to become a wolf. Did you never hear it? Oh yes. And the protector of the people is like him. Having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen. By the favourite method of false accusation, he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizens, some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of deaths and partition of lands, and after this what will be his destiny, must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf, that is, a tyrant. Inevitably. This, I said, is he who begins to make a party against the rich? The same. After a while he is driven out, but comes back in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown. That is clear. And if they are unable to expel him, or to get him condemned to death by a public accusation, they conspire to assassinate him. Yes, he said, that is their usual way. Then comes the famous request for a bodyguard, which is the devise of all those who have got thus far in their tyrannical career. Let not the people's friend, as they say, be lost to them. Exactly. The people readily assent all their fears are for him, they have none for themselves. Very true. And when a man who is wealthy and is also accused of being an enemy of the people sees this, then, my friend, as the oracle said to Crises, by pebbly Hermas sure he flees and rests not, and is not ashamed to be a coward, and quite right too, said he, for if he were, he would never be ashamed again. But if he is caught, he dies. Of course. And he, the protector of whom we spoke, is to be seen not larding the plain with its bulk, but himself the overthrow of many, standing up in a chariot of state with a reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute. No doubt, he said. And now let us consider the happiness of the man, and also of the state in which a creature like him is generated. Yes, he said, let us consider that. At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets. He, to be called a tyrant, who is making promises in public and also in private, liberating debtors, and distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind and good to everyone. Of course, he said. But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some more or other in order that the people may require a leader. To be sure. Has he not also another object, which is that they may be impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants, and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly. And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy, and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. He must. Now he begins to grow unpopular. Unnecessary result. Then some of those who joined in setting him up and who are in power speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous of them cast in his teeth what is being done. Yes, that may be expected. And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them. He cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything. He cannot. And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant, who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy. Happy man, he is the enemy of them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he has made a purgation of the state. Yes, he said, and a rare purgation. Yes, I said, not the sort of purgation which the physicians make of the body, for they take away the worse and leave the better part, but he does the reverse. If he is to rule, I suppose that he cannot help himself. What a blessed alternative, I said, to be compelled to dwell only with the many bad and to be by them hated or not to live at all. Yes, that is the alternative. And the more detestable his actions are to the citizens, the more satellites and the greater devotion in them will he require. Suddenly. And who are the devoted band, and where will he procure them? They will flock to him, you said, of their own accord, if he pays them. By the dog, I said, here are more drones of every sort of from every land. Yes, he said, there are. But will he not desire to get them on the spot? How do you mean? He will rob the citizens of their slaves, he will then set them free and enroll them in his bodyguard. To be sure, he said, and he will be able to trust them best of all. What a blessed creature, I said, must this tyrant be. He has put to death the others, and has these for his trusted friends. Yes, he said, they are quite of his sort. Yes, I said, and these are the new citizens whom he has called into existence, who admire him and are his companions, while the good hate and avoid him. Of course. Verily, then, tragedy is a wise thing, and euripides a great tragedian. Why so? Why, because he is the author of the pretense saying, tyrants are wise by living with the wise, and he clearly meant to say that they are the wise whom the tyrant makes his companions. Yes, he said, and he also praises tyranny as God-like, and many other things of the same kind are said by him and by the other poets. And therefore, I said, the tragic poems being wise man will forgive us and any others who live after our menna if we do not receive them into our state, because they are the eulogists of tyranny. Yes, he said, those who have the wit will doubtless forgive us. But they will continue to go to other cities and attract mobs, and hire voices fair and loud and persuasive, and draw the cities over to tyrannies and democracies. Very true. Moreover, they are paid for this and receive honour, the greatest honour as might be expected, from tyrants, and the next greatest from democracies. But the higher they ascend our constitution hill, the more their reputation fails, and seems unable from shortness of breath to proceed further. True. But we are wondering from the subject. Let us therefore return and inquire how the tyrant will maintain that fair and numerous and various and ever-changing army of his. If, he said, there are sacred treasures in the city, he will confiscate and spend them, and in so far as the fortunes of attainted persons may suffice, he will be able to diminish the taxes which he would otherwise have to impose upon the people. And when these fail? Why clearly, he said, then he and his boon companions, whether male or female, will be maintained out of his father's estate. You mean to say that the people from whom he has derived his being will maintain him and his companions? Yes, he said, they cannot help themselves. But what if the people fly into a passion, and ever that a grown-up son ought not to be supported by his father, but that the father should be supported by the son? The father did not bring him into being, or settle him in life, in order that when his son became a man, he should himself be the servant of his own servants, and should support him and his rabble of slaves and companions. But that his son should protect him, and that by his help he might be emancipated from the government of the rich and aristocratic as they are termed. And so he bids him and his companions depart, just as any other father might drive out of the house a riotous son and his undesirable associates. By heaven, he said, then the parent will discover what her monstery has been fostering in his bosom, and when he wants to drive him out, he will find that he is weak and his son strong. Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use violence? What, beat his father if he opposes him? Yes, he will, having first disarmed him. Then he is a parasite and a cruel guardian of an aged parent, and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake, as the saying is, the people who would escape this smoke, which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which the tyranny of slaves, thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery. True, he said, very well, and may we not rightly say that we have sufficiently discussed the nature of tyranny, and the manner of transition from democracy to tyranny. Yes, quite enough, he said. End of book 8