 Part 1 of the Introduction to Plato's Republic This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Part 1 of the Introduction to Plato's Republic translated by Benjamin Jowett The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the laws and is certainly the greatest of them There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the filibus and in the selfist The politicus or statesman is more ideal The form and institutions of the state are more clearly drawn out in the laws as works of art the symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence But no other dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of you and the same perfection of style No other shows an equal knowledge of the world or contains more of those thoughts Which are new as well as old and not of one age only but of all Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humor or imagery or more dramatic power Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation or to connect politics with philosophy The Republic is the center around which the other dialogues may be grouped Here philosophy reaches the highest point to which ancient thinkers ever attained Plato among the Greeks like bacon among the moderns was the first who conceived a method of knowledge Although neither of them distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has ever seen and in him more than in any other ancient thinker The germs of future knowledge are contained the sciences of logic and Psychology which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after ages are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato The principles of definition the law of contradiction the fallacy of arguing in a circle the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion between means and ends between causes and conditions Also the division of the mind into the rational concupation and irascible elements or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary These and other great forms of thought are all of them to be found in the Republic and were probably first invented by Plato The greatest of all logical truths and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt to lose sight The difference between words and things has been most strenuously insisted on by him Although he has not always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings But he does not bind up truth in logical formulae Logic is still veiled in metaphysics and the science which he imagines to contemplate all truth and all existence Is very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger design Which was to have included an ideal history of Athens as well as a political and physical philosophy The fragment of the Cretias has given birth to a world famous fiction Second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the legend of Arthur and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early Navigators of the 16th century This mythical tale of which the subject was a history of the wars of the Athenians against the island of Atlantis Is supposed to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon To which it would have stood in the same relation as the writings of the Logographers to the poems of Homer It would have told of a struggle for liberty Intended to represent the conflict of Persia and Hellas We may judge from the noble commencement of the Timaeus from the fragment of the Cretias itself And from the third book of the laws in which manner Plato would have treated this high argument We can only guess why the great design was abandoned Perhaps because Plato became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history Or because he had lost his interest in it or because advancing years forbade the completion of it We may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginative narrative ever been finished We would have found Plato himself sympathizing with the struggle for Hellenic independence Singing a hymn of triumph over Marathon and Salamis Perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where he contemplates the growth of the Athenian Empire How brave a thing is freedom of speech which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness Or more probably Attributing the victory to the ancient good order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athena Again Plato may be regarded as the captain or leader of a goodly band of followers For in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero's De Repubblica of St. Augustine city of God of the utopia of Sir Thomas Moore and of the numerous other Imaginary states which are framed upon the same model The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotle in school were indebted to him in the politics has been little recognized And the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself the two philosophers had more in common than they were conscious of and Probably some elements of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle in English philosophy too many affinities may be traced not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists But in the great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge to Plato and his ideas That there is a truth higher than experience of which the mind bears witness to herself is a conviction Which in our generation has been enthusiastically asserted and is perhaps gaining ground Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education Of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean-Paul and Gauta are the legitimate descendants Like Dante or Bunyan he has a revelation of another life Like Bacon he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge In the early church he exercised a real influence on theology And at the revival of literature on politics Even the fragments of his words when repeated at second hand Have in all ages ravished the hearts of men who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature He is the father of idealism in philosophy in politics and literature And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen Such as the unity of knowledge The reign of law and the equality of the sexes have been anticipated in a dream by him The argument of the republic is the search after justice The nature of which is first hinted at by Cephalus the just and blameless old man Then discussed on the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polymarcus Then caricatured by Thrasimachus and partially explained by Socrates Reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimontus And having become invisible in the individual Reappears at length in the ideal state which is constructed by Socrates The first care of the rulers is to be education Of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model Providing only for an improved religion and morality And more simplicity in music and gymnastic A manlier strain of poetry in greater harmony of the individual and the state We are thus led on to the conception of a higher state in which no man calls anything his own And in which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage And kings are philosophers and philosophers are kings And there is another and higher education intellectual as well as moral and religious Of science as well as of art and not only of youth but of the whole life Such a state is hardly to be realized in this world and quickly degenerates To the perfect ideal succeeds the government of the soldier and the lover of honor This again declining into democracy and democracy into tyranny Into an imaginary but regular order having not much resemblance to the actual facts When the wheel has come full circle We do not begin again with a new period of human life But we have passed from the best to the worst and there we end The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy Which has now been more lightly treated in the earlier books of the republic Is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion Poetry is discovered to be an invitation thrice removed from the truth And Homer as well as the dramatic poets having been condemned as an imitator Is sent into banishment along with them And the idea of the state is supplemented by the revelation of a future life The division into books, like all similar divisions, is probably later than the age of Plato The natural divisions are five and number Book one and the first half of book two down to the paragraph beginning I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus Which is introductory The first book Containing a refutation of the popular and sophisticated notions of justice And concluding, like some of the earlier dialogues, without arriving at any definite result To this has appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion And an answer is demanded to the question What is justice stripped of appearances? The second division, too, includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the third and fourth books Which are mainly occupied with the construction of the first state and the first education The third division, three, consists in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books In which philosophy, rather than justice, is the subject of inquiry And the second state is constructed on principles of communism and ruled by philosophers And the contemplation of the idea of good takes the place of the social and political virtues In the eighth and ninth books, four The perversions of states and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in secession And the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are further analyzed in the individual man The tenth book, five, is the conclusion of the whole In which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined And the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured, is crowned by the vision of another Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted The first, books one through four, containing the description of a state framed generally In accordance with Hellenic notions of religion and morality While in the second, the Hellenic state is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy Of which all other governments are the perversions These two points of view are really opposed and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato The republic, like the fidrus, is an imperfect whole The higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple Which at last fades away into the heavens Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan Or from the imperfect reconcilement in the writer's own mind of the struggling elements of thought Which are now first brought together by him Or perhaps from the composition of the work at different times are questions Like the similar question about the Iliad and the Odyssey Which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication And an author would have less scruple and altering or adding to a work Which was known only to a few of his friends There is no absurdity in supposing that he might have laid his labors aside for a time Or turned from one work to another And such interruptions would be more likely to occur In the case of a long then of a short writing In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the platonic writings on internal evidence This uncertainty about any single dialogue being composed at any one time is a disturbing element Which must be admitted to affect longer works such as the republic and the laws more than the shorter ones But on the other hand the seeming discrepancies of the republic may only arise Out of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a single whole Perhaps without being himself able to recognize the inconsistency which is obvious to us For there is a judgment of after ages which few great writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves They do not perceive the want of connection in their own writings Or the gaps in their own systems which are visible enough to those who come after them In the beginnings of literature and philosophy Amid the first efforts of thought and language More inconsistencies occur than now when the paths of speculation are well worn in the meaning of words precisely defined For consistency too is the growth of time and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting only in unity Tried by this test several of the platonic dialogues according to our modern ideas appear to be defective But the deficiency is no proof that they were composed at different times or by different hands In the supposition that the republic was written uninterruptedly and by continuous effort Is in some degrees confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work to another The second title concerning justice Is not the one by which the republic is quoted either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity And like the other second titles of the platonic dialogues may therefore be assumed to be of later date Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice which is the professed aim or the construction of the state Is the principal argument of the work The answer is that the two blend in one And are two faces of the same truth For justice is the order of the state and the state is the visible embodiment of justice under the conditions of human society The one is the soul and the other is the body And the greek ideal of the state as of the individual is a fair mind and a fair body In hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of which justice is the idea Or described in christian language the kingdom of god is within yet develops in a church or external kingdom The house not made with hands internal in the heavens is reduced to the proportions of an earthly building Or to use a platonic image justice and the state are the warp and the wolf Which run through the whole texture And when the constitution of the state is completed the conception of justice is not dismissed But reappears under the same or different names throughout the work Both as the inner law of the individual soul and finally is the principle of rewards and punishments in another life The virtues are based on justice of which common honesty in buying and selling Is the shadow and justice is based on the idea of good Which is the harmony of the world and is reflected both in the institutions of states and the in the motions of the heavenly bodies The timios, which takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the republic Is chiefly occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world Yet contains many indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the state Over nature and over man Too much however has been made of this question both in ancient and modern times There is a stage of criticism in which all works whether of nature or of art are referred to design Now in ancient writings and indeed in literature generally There remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the original design For the plan grows under the author's hand New thoughts occur to him in the act of writing He has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins The reader who seeks to find one idea under which the whole may be conceived Must necessarily seized on the vaguest and most general Thus Stalbaum who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the argument of the republic imagines himself to have found the true argument in the representation of human life In a state perfected by justice and governed according to the idea of good There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer The truth is that we may as well speak of many designs as of one Nor need anything be excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by the association of ideas And which does not interfere with the general purpose What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building In the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose Is a problem which has to be determined relatively to the subject matter To Plato himself the inquiry, what was the intention of the writer Or what was the principal argument of the republic would have been hardly intelligible And therefore had better be at once dismissed And of introduction, part one Part two of the introduction to 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 Part two of the introduction to Plato's republic translated by Benjamin Jowett Is not the republic the vehicle of three or four truths which to Plato's own mind Are most naturally represented in the form of the state Just as in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah or the day of the Lord Or the suffering servant or people of God or the son of righteousness with healing in his wings Only convey to us at least their great spiritual ideals So through the Greek state Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection Which is the idea of good like the sun in the visible world About human perfection, which is justice about education beginning in youth and continuing in later years About poets and sophists and tyrants who are the false teachers and evil rulers of mankind About the world, which is the embodiment of them About a kingdom which exists nowhere upon earth but is laid up in heaven to be the pattern and rule of human life No such inspired creation is at unity with itself any more than the clouds of heaven when the sun pierces Through them every shade of light and dark of truth and affiction which is the veil of truth Is allowable in a work of philosophical imagination It is not all on the same plane It easily passes from ideas through myths and fancies from facts to figures of speech It is not prose but poetry at least a great part of it and ought not to be judged by the rules of logic or the probabilities of history The writer is not fashioning his ideas into an artistic whole They take possession of him and are too much for him We have no need therefore to discuss whether a state such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not Or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer For the practicality of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth And the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest marks of design Justice more than the external framework of the state the idea of good more than justice The great science of dialectic or the organization of ideas has no real content It is only a type of the method or spirit in which the higher knowledge Is to be pursued by the spectator of all time and all existence It is in the fifth sixth and seventh books that Plato reaches the summit of speculation And these although they fail to satisfy the requirements of a modern thinker May therefore be regarded as the most important as they are also the most original portions of the work It is not necessary to discuss at length a minor question which has been raised by Boeck Respecting the imaginary date at which the conversation was held The year 411 BC which is proposed by him will do as well as any other For a work of fiction and especially a writer who like Plato is notoriously careless of chronology Only aims at general probability Whether all the persons mentioned in the republic could ever have met at any one time Is not a difficulty which would have occurred to an Athenian reading the work 40 years later Or to Plato himself at the time of his writing Any more than the Shakespeare respecting one of his dramas And need not greatly trouble us now Yet this may be a question having no answer, which is still worth asking Because the investigation shows that we cannot argue historically from the dates in Plato It would be useless therefore to waste time in inventing far-fetched Reconcilements of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties Such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Herman that Glaucon and Adae Montes Are not the brothers but the uncles of Plato Or the fancy of Stalbaum That Plato intentionally left anachronisms indicating the dates at which some of his dialogues were written The principal characters in the republic are Cephalus, Polymarcus, Thrasimachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adae Montes Cephalus appears in the introduction only Polymarcus drops at the end of the first argument And Thrasimachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adae Montes Among the company is Lyceus The orator and Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and the brothers of Polymarcus And unknown Charmontides These are mute auditors There is also a kleitophon who at once interrupts where, is in the dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasimachus Cephalus, the patriarch of the house Has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life and is at peace with himself and with all mankind He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below and seems to linger about the memory of the past He is eager that Socrates should come to visit him Fond of the poetry of the last generation Happy in the consciousness of a well spent life Glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts His love of conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his accruality Are interesting traits of character He is not one of those who have nothing to say because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood The respectful attention shown to him by Socrates whose love of conversation No less than the mission imposed upon him by the oracle Leads him to ask questions of all men young and old alike should also be noted Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus whose life might seem to be the expression of it The moderation with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence Is characteristic not only of him But of greek feeling generally and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero in desenic tute The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner Yet with the fewest possible touches As Cicero remarks the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows And which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic propriety His son and heir polo marcus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth He is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene And will not let him off on the subject of women and children Like Cephalus he is limited in his point of view and represents the proverbial stage of morality Which has rules of life rather than principles And he quotes Simonides as his father had quoted Pindar But after this he has no more to say the answers which he makes are only elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates He has not yet experienced the influence of the selfists like Glaucon and Adea Montus Nor is he sensible of the necessity of refuting them He belongs to the pre-socratic or pre-dialectical age He is incapable of arguing and is bewildered by Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying He is made to admit that justice is a thief and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts From his brother Lysius we learn that he fell a victim through the 30 tyrants But no illusion is made here to his fate Nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family Were a Syracusean origin and had migrated from Thurii to Athens The Calcedonian giant Thrasymachus of whom we had already heard in the fidress Is the personification of the Sophists according to Plato's conception of them In some of their worst characteristics He is vain in blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid Fond of making an oration and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates But a mere child in argument and unable to foresee that the next move to use a platonic expression will shut him up He has reached the stage of framing general notions and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and Polymarcus But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion and vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence Whether such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by him Or by any other Sophist is uncertain In the infancy of philosophy serious errors about morality might easily grow up They are certainly put into the mouths of speakers and through Thucydides But we are concerned at present with Plato's description of him and not with the historical reality The inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humor of the scene The pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great master of dialectic Who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and weakness in him He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates But his noisy and imbecile rage only lays him more and more open to the thrust of his assailant His determination to cram down their throats or put bodily into their souls his own words Elicits a cry of horror from Socrates The state of his temper is quite as worthy of remark as the process of the argument Nothing is more amusing than his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten At first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance But soon with apparent goodwill and he even testifies his interest at a later stage by one or two occasional remarks When attacked by Glaucon he is humorously protected by Socrates as one who has never been his enemy and is now his friend From Cicero and Quintilian and from Aristotle's rhetoric We learned that the Sophist whom Plato has made so ridiculous was a man of note whose writings were preserved in later ages The play on his name which has been made by his contemporary Herodicus was Wast ever bold in battle Seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisalimitude When Thrasimachus has been silenced the two principal respondents Glaucon and Adeimontus appear on the scene Here as in Greek tragedy three actors are introduced At first sight the two sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness Like the two friends Cymius and Cabeus in the phyto But on a near examination of them the similarity vanishes and they are seen to be distinct characters Glaucon is the impetuous youth who can just never have enough of fetching The man of pleasure who is acquainted with the mysteries of love the Juvenus qui gaudit cannibus Who improves the breed of animals? The lover of art and music who has all the experiences of youthful life He is full of quickness and penetration Piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasimachus to the real difficulty He turns out to the light the seamy side of human life and yet does not lose faith in the just and true It is Glaucon who seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the world To whom a state of simplicity is a city of pigs Who is always prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity And who is ever ready to second the humor of Socrates and to appreciate the ridiculous Whether in connoisseurs of music or in the lovers of theatricals Or in the fantastic behavior of the citizens of democracy His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates Who however will not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adae Montis He is a soldier and like Adae Montis has been distinguished at the Battle of Megara The character of Adae Montis is deeper in graver and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth Glaucon is more demonstrative and generally opens the game Adae Montis pursues the argument further Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth Adae Montis has the mature judgment of a grown-up man of the world In the second book when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice Shall be considered without regard to their consequences Adae Montis remarks that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their consequences And in a similar vein of reflection He urges at the beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy And is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing Not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a state In the discussion about religion and mythology Adae Montis is the respondent But Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone About music and gymnastic to the end of the book It is Adae Montis again who volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument And who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and children It is Adae Montis who is the respondent in the more argumentative as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions of the dialogue For example throughout the greater part of the sixth book the causes of the corruption of philosophy And the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adae Montis Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent But he has a difficulty in apprehending the higher education of Socrates and makes some false hits in the course of the discussion Once more Adae Montis returns with the illusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious state In the next book he is again superseded and Glaucon continues to the end Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages of morality Beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time who is followed by the practical man of that day Regulating his life by proverbs and saws To him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists And lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher who know the Sophistical arguments But will not be convinced by them and desire to go deeper into the nature of things These two like Cephalus polomarchus and Thrasimachus are clearly distinguished from one another Neither in the republic nor in any other dialogue of Plato is a single character repeated The delineation of Socrates in the republic is not wholly consistent In the first book we have more of the real Socrates such as he is depicted in the memorabilia of Xenophon in the earliest dialogues of Plato and in the Apology He is ironical provoking questioning the old enemy of the Sophists ready to put on the mask of Salanus as well as to argue seriously But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists debates He acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corruptors of the world He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time has now come for Socrates who had passed his whole life in philosophy to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic teaching though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes And a deep thinker like him in his 30 or 40 years of public teaching could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations for which there was also some positive evidence in the memorabilia The Socratic method is nominally retained and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him in Socrates But anyone can see that this is a mere form of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances The method of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of yield The nature of the process is truly characterized by Glaucon when he describes himself as a companion who is not good for much in an investigation but can see what he has shown and may perhaps give the answer to a question more fluently than another Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology His favorite oath is retained and a slight mention is made of the dimonium or internal sign which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomena peculiar to himself A real element of Socratic teaching which is more prominent in the Republic than in any other dialogues of Plato is the use of example and illustration Let us apply the test of common interests You, says Ademontus ironically in the sixth book, are so unaccustomed to speak and images and this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable which embodies the concrete which has been already described or is about to be described in the abstract Thus the figure of the cave in book 7 is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in book 6 The composite animal in book 9 is an allegory of the parts of the soul The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in book 6 are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the state which has been described Other figures such as the dog or the marriage of the portionless maiden or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth book also form links of connection in long passages or are used to recall previous discussions Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as not of this world and with this representation of him the ideal state and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance though they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates to him as to the other great teachers both philosophical and religious when they looked upward the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil the common sense of mankind has revolted against this view or has only partially admitted it and even in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love of men in general are incapable of philosophy and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth words which admit of many applications their leaders have nothing to measure with and are therefore ignorant of their own stature but they are to be pity or laughed at not to be quarreled with they mean well with their nostrums if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head this moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic in all the different representations of Socrates whether in Xenophon or Plato and admit the differences of the earlier or later dialogues he always retains the character of the unwirried and disinterested seeker after truth without which he would have ceased to be Socrates persons in the Republic dialogue Socrates who is the narrator Glaucon Adei Montes Polomarchus Cephalus Thrasimachus Clitophon and others who are mute auditors the scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus Hermocrates Cretius and a nameless person who are introduced in the Timaeus and of introduction book one 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 MB the Republic by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett book one part one I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess Bendis the Thracian Artemis and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival which was a new thing I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants but that of the Thracians was equally if not more beautiful when we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle we turned in the direction of the city and at that instance Polymarcus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him the servant took hold of me by the cloak behind and said Polymarcus desires you to wait I turned round and asked him where his master was there he is said the youth coming after you if you will only wait certainly we will said Glaucon and after a few minutes Polymarcus appeared and with him adamantus Glaucon's brother Nicaratus the son of Nikias and several others who had been at the procession Polymarcus said to me I perceive Socrates that you and your companion are already on your way to the city you are not far wrong I said but do you see he rejoined how many we are of course and are you stronger than all these for if not you will have to remain where you are may there not be the alternative I said that we may persuade you to let us go but can you persuade us if we refuse to listen to you he said certainly not replied Glaucon that we are not going to listen of that you may be assured adamantus added has no one told you of the torch race on horseback in honor of the goddess which will take place in the evening with horses I replied that is a novelty will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race yes said Polymarcus and not only so but a festival will be celebrated at night which you certainly ought to see let us rise soon after supper and see this festival there will be a gathering of young men and we will have a good talk stay then and do not be perverse Glaucon said I suppose since you insist that we must very good I replied accordingly we went with Polymarcus to his house and there we found his brothers Lysius and Euthidemus and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian Charmantides the Peneon and Cleitophon the son of Aristonimus there was two Cephalus the father of Polymarcus whom I had not seen for a long time and I thought him very much aged he was seated on a cushioned chair and had a garland on his head for he had been sacrificing in the court and there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle upon which we sat down by him he saluted me eagerly and then he said you don't come to see me Socrates as often as you ought if I were still able to go and see you I would not ask you to come to me but at my age I can hardly get to the city and therefore you should come oftener to the Piraeus for let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation do not then deny my request but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men we are old friends and you will be quite at home with us I replied there is nothing which for my part I like better Cephalus than conversing with aged men for I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult and this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the threshold of old age is life harder towards the end or what report do you give of it I will tell you Socrates he said what my own feeling is men of my age flock together we are birds of a feather as the old proverb says and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is I cannot eat I cannot drink the pleasures of youth and love are fled away there was a good time once but now that is gone and life is no longer life some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause but to me Socrates these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault for if old age were the cause I too being old and every other old man would have felt as they do but this is not my own experience nor that of others whom I have known how well I remember the aged poet Sophocles when an answer to the question how does love suit with age Sophocles are you still the man you were peace he replied most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master his words have occurred to my mind since and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them for certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold then as Sophocles says we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only but of many the truth is Socrates that these regrets and also the complaints about relations are to be attributed to the same cause which is not old age but men's characters and tempers for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden I listened in admiration and wanting to draw him out that he might go on yes Sophocles I said but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus they think that old age sits lightly upon you not because of your happy disposition but because you are rich and wealth is well known to be a great comforter you are right he replied they are not convinced and there is something in what they say not however so much as they imagine I might answer them as Themistocles answered the surfian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian if you had been a native of my country or eye of yours neither of us would have been famous and to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age the same reply may be made for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself may I ask cephalus whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you acquired socrates do you want to know how much I acquired in the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather for my grandfather whose name I bear doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony that which he inherited being much what I possess now but my father Lysanius reduced the property below what it is at present and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received that is why I asked you the question I replied because I see that you are indifferent about money which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own resembling the affection of authors for their own poems or of parents for their children besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men and hence they are very bad company for they can't talk about anything but the praises of wealth that is true he said yes that is very true but may I ask another question what do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth one he said of which I could not expect easily to convince others for let me tell you socrates that when a man thinks himself to be near death fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before the tales of a world below and punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true either from the weakness of age or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place he has a clearer view of these things suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others and when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear and he is filled with dark forebodings but to him who is conscious of no sin sweet hope as pindar charmingly says is the kind nurse of his age hope he says cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey hope which is the mightiest to sway the restless soul of man how admirable are his words and the great blessing of riches i do not say to every man but to a good man is that he has no occasion to deceive or to defraud others either intentionally or unintentionally and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes and therefore i say that setting one thing against another of the many advantages which wealth has to give to a man of sense this is in my opinion the greatest well said cephalus i replied but as concerning justice what is it to speak the truth and to pay your debts no more than this and even to this are there not exceptions suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them what he is not in his right mind ought i to give them back to him no one would say that i ought or that i should be right in doing so any more than he would say that i ought always to speak the truth and to one who is in his condition you are quite right he replied but then i said speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice quite correct socrates if simon ides is to be believed said polo marcus interposing i fear said cephalus that i must go now for i have to look after the sacrifices and i hand over the argument to polo marcus and the company is not polo marcus your air i said to be sure he answered and went away laughing to the sacrifices tell me then oh thou air of the argument what did simon ides say and according to you truly say about justice he said that the repayment of a debt is just and in saying so he appears to me to be right i should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man but his meaning though probably clear to you is the reverse of clear to me for he certainly does not mean as we were just now saying that i ought to return a deposit of arms or anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt true then when the person who asks me is not in his right mind i am by no means to make the return certainly not when simon ides said that the repayment of a debt was justice he did not mean to include that case certainly not for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil you mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver if the two parties are friends is not the repayment of a debt that is what you would imagine him to say yes and our enemies also to receive what we owe to them to be sure he said they are to receive what we owe them and an enemy as i take it owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him that is to say evil simon ides then after the manner of poets would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him and this he termed a debt that must have been his meaning he said by heaven i replied and if we asked him what do or proper thing is given by medicine and to whom what answer do you think that he would make to us he would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies and what do or proper thing is given by cookery and to what seasoning to food and what is that which justice gives and to whom if socrates were to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies that is his meaning that i think so and who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness the physician or when they are on a voyage amid the perils of the sea the pilot and in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend in going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other but when a man is well my dear polymarcus there is no need of a physician no and he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot no then in time of peace justice will be of no use and i am very far from thinking so you think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war yes well like husbandry for the acquisition of corn yes or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes that is what you mean yes and what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace in contracts socrates justice is of use and by contracts you mean partnerships exactly but is the just man or the skillful player a more useful and better partner at a game of drafts the skillful player and in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder quite the reverse then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp player as in playing the harp the harp player is certainly a better partner than the just man in a money partnership yes polymarkers but surely not in the use of money for you do not want a just man to be your counselor in the purchase or sale of a horse a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that would he not certainly and when you want to buy a ship the shipwright or the pilot would be better true then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred when you want to deposit to be kept safely you mean when money is not wanted but allowed to lie precisely that is to say justice is useful when money is useless that is the inference and when you want to keep a pruning hook safe then justice is useful to the individual and to the state but when you want to use it then the art of the vine dresser clearly and when you want to keep a shield or a liar but not to use them you would say that justice is useful but when you want to use them then the art of the soldier or the musician certainly and so of all other things justice is useful when they are useless and useless when they are useful that is the inference then justice is not good for much end of book one part one book one 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 MB the Republic by Plato translated by Benjamin Jowett book one part two but let us consider this further point is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow certainly and he who is most skillful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one true and he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy certainly then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief that I suppose is to be inferred then if the just man is good at keeping money he is good at stealing it that is implied in the argument then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief and this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learned out of Homer for he speaking of Etolicus the maternal grandfather of Odysseus who is a favorite of his affirms that he was excellent above all men in theft and perjury and so you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft to be practiced however for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies that was what you were saying no certainly not that though I do not know what I did say but I still stand by the latter words well there is another question by friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really or only in seeming surely he said a man who may be expected to love those whom he thinks good and to hate those whom he thinks evil yes but do not persons often err about good and evil many who are not good seem to be so and conversely that is true then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends true and in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good clearly but the good are just and would not do an injustice true then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong no socrates the doctrine is immoral then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust I like that better but see the consequence many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends and in that case he ought to do harm to them and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit but if so we shall be saying the very opposite of what we have affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides very true he said and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words friend and enemy what was the error polo Marcus I asked we assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good and how is the error to be corrected we should rather say that he is a friend who is as well as seems good and that he who seems only and is not good only seems to be and is not a friend and of an enemy the same maybe said you would argue that the good are friends and the bad our enemies yes and instead of saying simply as we did at first that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies we should further say it is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil yes that appears to me to be the truth but ought the just to injure anyone at all undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies when horses are injured are they improved or deteriorated the latter deteriorated that is to say in the good qualities of horses not of dogs yes of horses and dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs and not of horses of course and will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man certainly and that human virtue is justice to be sure then men who are injured are out of necessity made unjust that is the result but can the musician by his art make men on musical certainly not or the horsemen by his art make them bad horsemen impossible and can the just by justice make men unjust or speaking generally can the good by virtue make them bad assuredly not not any more than heat can produce cold it cannot or drought moisture clearly not nor can the good harm anyone impossible and the just is the good certainly then to injure a friend or anyone else is not the act of a just man but of the opposite who is the unjust i think what you say is quite true socrates then if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts and that good is the debt which a just man owes to his friends and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies to say this is not wise for it is not true if as has been clearly shown the injuring of another can be in no case just i agree with you said polo marcus then you and i are prepared to take up arms against anyone who attributes such as saying to simonides or bias or pitticus or any otherwise man or seer i am quite ready to do battle at your side he said shall i tell you who's i believe the saying to be who's i believe that periander or perdiccus or xerxes or ismenius the theban or some other rich and mighty man who had a great opinion of his own power was the first to say that justice is doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies most true he said yes i said but if this definition of justice also breaks down what other can be offered several times in the course of the discussion thrasomakis had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands and had been put down by the rest of the company who wanted to hear the end but when polo marcus and i had done speaking and there was a pause he could no longer hold his peace and gathering himself up he came at us like a wild beast seeking to devour us we were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him he roared out to the whole company what folly socrates has taken possession of you all and why silly billies do you knock under to one another i say that if you really want to know what justice is you should not only ask but answer and you should not seek honor to yourself from the refutation of an opponent but have your own answer for there is many a one who can ask and cannot answer and now i will not have you say that justice is a duty or advantage or profit or gain or interest for this sort of nonsense will not do for me i must have clearness and accuracy i was panic-stricken at his words and could not look at him without trembling indeed i believe that if i had not fixed my eye upon him i should have been struck dumb but when i saw his fury rising i looked at him first and was therefore able to reply to him thrasimachus i said with a quiver don't be hard upon us polo marcus and i may have been guilty of a little mistake in the argument but i can assure you that the error was not intentional if we were seeking for a piece of gold you would not imagine that we were knocking under to one another and so losing our chance of finding it and why when we are seeking for justice a thing more precious than many pieces of gold do you say that we are weakly yielding to one another and not doing our utmost to get at the truth nay my good friend we are most willing and anxious to do so but the fact is that we cannot and if so you people who know all things should pity us and not be angry with us how characteristic of socrates he replied with a bitter laugh that's your ironical style have i not already told you that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer and try irony or any other shuffle in order that he might avoid answering you are a philosopher thrasimachus i replied and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up 12 taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six or three times four or six times two or four times three for this sort of nonsense will not do for me then obviously if that is your way of putting the question no one can answer you but suppose that he were to retort the thrasimachus what do you mean if one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question am i falsely to say some other number which is not the right one is that your meaning how would you answer him just as if the two cases were at all alike he said why should they not be i replied and even if they are not but only appear to be so to the person who is asked ought not he to say what he thinks whether you and i forbid him or not i presume then that you are going to make one of the interdicted answers i dare say that i may not withstanding the danger if upon reflection i approve of any of them but what if i give you an answer about justice other and better he said than any of these what do you deserve to have done to you done to me as becomes the ignorant i must learn from the wise that is what i deserve to have done to me what and no payment a pleasant notion i will pay when i have the money i replied but you have socrates said glaucomne and you thrasymachus need be under no anxiety about money for we will all make a contribution for socrates yes he replied and then socrates will do as he always does refuse to answer himself but take and pull to pieces the answer of someone else why my good friend i said how can anyone answer who knows and says that he knows just nothing and who even if he has some faint notions of his own is told by a man of authority not to utter them the natural thing is that the speaker should be someone like yourself who professes to know and can tell what he knows will you then kindly answer for the edification of the company and of myself glaucomne and the rest of the company joined in my request and thrasymachus as anyone might see was in reality eager to speak for he thought that he had an excellent answer and would distinguish himself but at first he affected to insist on my answering at length he consented to begin behold he said the wisdom of socrates he refuses to teach himself and goes about learning of others to whom he never even says thank you that i learn of others i replied is quite true but that i am ungrateful i wholly deny money i have none and therefore i pay in praise which is all i have and how ready i am to praise anyone who appears to me to speak well you will very soon find out when you answer for i expect that you will answer well listen then he said i proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger and why now do you not praise me but of course you won't let me understand you i replied justice as you say is the interest of the stronger what thrasymachus is the meaning of this you cannot mean to say that because polydamus the pancreatiest is stronger than we are and finds the eating of beef conducive to his bodily strength that to eat beef is therefore equally for our good who are weaker than he is and right and just for us that's abominable of you socrates you take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument no not at all my good sir i said i am trying to understand them and i wish that you would be a little clearer well he said have you never heard that forms of government differ there are tyrannies and there are democracies and there are aristocracies yes i know and the government is the ruling power in each state certainly and the different forms of government make laws democratical aristocratical tyrannical with a view to their several interests and these laws which are made by them for their own interests are the justice which they deliver to their subjects and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law and unjust and that is what i mean when i say that in all states there is the same principle of justice which is the interest of the government and as the government must be supposed to have power the only reasonable conclusion is that everywhere there is one principle of justice which is the interest of the stronger now i understand you i said and whether you are right or not i will try to discover but let me remark that in defining justice you have yourself used the word interest which you forbid me to use it is true however that in your definition the words of the stronger are added a small addition you must allow he said great or small never mind about that we must first inquire whether what you are saying is the truth now we are both agreed that justice is interest of some sort but you go on to say of the stronger about this addition i am not so sure and must therefore consider further proceed i will and first tell me do you admit that it is just for subjects to obey their rulers i do but are the rulers of states absolutely infallible or are they sometimes liable to ur to be sure he replied they are liable to ur then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly and sometimes not true when they make them rightly they make them agreeably to their interest when they are mistaken contrary to their interest you admit that yes and the laws that they make must be obeyed by their subjects and that is what you call justice doubtless then justice according to your argument is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse what is that you are saying he asked i am only repeating what you are saying i believe but let us consider have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command and also that to obey them is justice has that not been admitted yes then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury for if as you say justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands in that case oh wisest of men is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do not what is for the interest but what is for the injury of the stronger nothing can be clearer socrates said polymarcus yes said claide fawn interposing if you are allowed to be his witness but there is no need of any witness said polymarcus for thrasamachus himself acknowledges that rulers may sometimes command what is not for their own interest and that for subjects to obey them is justice yes polymarcus thrasamachus said that for subjects to do what was commanded by their rulers is just yes claide fawn but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger and while admitting both these propositions he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger but said claide fawn he meant by the interest of the stronger that the stronger thought to be his interest this was what the weaker had to do and this was affirmed by him to be justice those were not his words rejoined polymarcus never mind i replied if he now says that they are let us accept his statement tell me thrasamachus i said did you mean by justice what the stronger thought to be his interest whether really so or not certainly not he said do you suppose that i call him who is mistaken the stronger at the time when he is mistaken yes i said my impression was that you did so when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken end of book one part two book one part three of plato's republic this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by mb the republic by plato translated by benjamin jowett book one part three you argue like an informer socrates do you mean for example that he who is mistaken about the sick is a physician in that he is mistaken or that he who owes in arithmetic or grammar is an arithmetician or grammarian at the time when he is making the mistake in respect of the mistake true we say that the physician or arithmetician or grammarian has made a mistake but this is only a way of speaking for the fact is that neither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistake in so far as he is what his name implies they none of them are unless their skill fails them and then they cease to be skilled artists no artist or sage or ruler or is at the time when he is what his name implies though he is commonly said to her and i adopted the common mode of speaking but to be perfectly accurate since you are such a lover of accuracy we should say that the ruler in so far as he is a ruler is honoring and being honoring always commands that which is for his own interest and the subject is required to execute his commands and therefore as i said at first and now repeat justice is the interest of the stronger indeed thrasomachus and do i really appear to you to argue like an informer certainly he replied and do you suppose that i ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument nay he replied suppose is not the word i know it but you will be found out and by sheer force of argument you will never prevail i shall not make the attempt my dear man but to avoid any misunderstanding occurring between us in future let me ask in what sense do you speak of a ruler or stronger whose interest as you were saying he being the superior it is just that the inferior should execute is he a ruler in the popular or in the strict sense of the term in the strictest of all senses he said and now cheat and play the informer if you can i ask no quarter at your hands but you never will be able never and do you imagine i said that i am such a madman as to try and cheat thrasomachus i might as well shave a lion why he said you made the attempt a minute ago and you failed enough i said of these civilities it will be better that i should ask you a question is the physician taken in that strict sense of which you are speaking a healer of the sick or a maker of money and remember that i am now speaking of the true physician a healer of the sick he replied and the pilot that is to say the true pilot is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor a captain of sailors the circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account neither is he to be called a sailor the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing but he is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors very true he said now i said every art has an interest certainly for which the art has to consider and provide yes that is the aim of art and the interest of any art is the perfection of it this and nothing else what do you mean i mean what i may illustrate negatively by the example of the body suppose you were to ask me whether the body is self-sufficing or has wants i should reply certainly the body has wants for the body may be ill and require to be cured and has therefore interests through which the art of medicine ministers and this is the origin and intention of medicine as you will acknowledge am i not right quite right he replied but is the art of medicine or any other art faulty or deficient in any quality in the same way that the eye may be deficient in sight or the ear fail of hearing and therefore requires another art to provide for the interests of seeing and hearing has art in itself i say any similar liability to fault or defect and does every art require another supplementary art to provide for its interests and that another and another without end or have the arts to look only after their own interests or have they no need either of themselves or of another having no faults or defects they have no need to correct them either by the exercise of their own art or of any other they have only to consider the interest of their subject matter for every art remains pure and faultless while remaining true that is to say while perfect and unimpaired take the words in your precise sense and tell me whether i am not right yes clearly then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine but the interest of the body true he said nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship but the interests of the horse neither do any other arts care for themselves for they have no needs they care only for that which is the subject of their art true he said but surely thresa macus the arts are the superiors and rulers of their own subjects to this he assented with a good deal of reluctance then i said no science or art considers or and joins the interests of the stronger or superior but only the interest of the subject and weaker he made an attempt to contest this proposition also but finally acquiesced then i continued no physician in so far as he is a physician considers his own good in what he prescribes but the good of his patient for the true physician is also a ruler having the human body as a subject and is not a mere moneymaker that has been admitted yes and the pilot likewise in the strict sense of the term is a ruler of sailors and not a mere sailor that has been admitted and such a pilot and ruler will provide and prescribe for the interest of the sailor who is under him and not for his own or the ruler's interest he gave a reluctant yes then i said thresa macus there is no one in any rule who in so far as he is a ruler considers or and joins what is for his own interest but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art to that he looks and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does when we had got to this point in the argument and everyone saw that the definition of justice had been completely upset thresa macus instead of replying to me said tell me socrates have you got a nurse why do you ask such a question i said when you ought rather to be answering because she leaves you to snivel and never wipes your nose she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep what makes you say that i replied because you fancy that the shepherd or neat herd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master and you further imagine that the rulers of states if they are true rulers never think of their subjects as sheep and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night oh no and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good that is to say the interest of the ruler and stronger and the loss of the subject and servant and injustice the opposite for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just he is the stronger and his subjects do what is for his interest and minister to his happiness which is very far from being their own consider further most foolish socrates that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust first of all in private contracts whenever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that when the partnership is dissolved the unjust man has always more and the just less secondly in their dealings with the state when there is an income tax the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing in the other much observe also what happens when they take an office there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses and getting nothing out of the public because he is just moreover he is hated by his friends and the acquaintances for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways but all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man i am speaking as before of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent and by meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable that is to say tyranny which by fraud and force takes away the property of others not little by little but wholesale comprehending in one things sacred as well as profane private and public for which acts of wrong if you were detected perpetrating any one of them singly he would be punished and incur a great disgrace they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples and man stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves but when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them then instead of these names of reproach he is termed happy and blessed not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice for mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it and thus as I have shown Socrates injustice when on a sufficient scale has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice and as I said at first justice is the interest of the stronger whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest Thrasomachus when he had thus spoken having like a bath man deluged our eyes with his words had a mind to go away but the company would not let him they insisted that he should remain and defend his position and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us Thrasomachus I said to him excellent man how suggestive are your remarks and are you going to run away before you've fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not is the attempt to determine the way of man's life so small a matter in your eyes to determine how life may be passed by each of us to the greatest advantage and do I differ from you he said as to the importance of the inquiry you appear rather I replied to have no care or thought about us Thrasomachus whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know is to you a matter of indifference pretty friend do not keep your knowledge to yourself we are a large party and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded for my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced and that I do not believe in justice to be more gainful than justice even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play for granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself perhaps we may be wrong if so you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice and how am I to convince you he said if you are not already convinced by what I have just said what more can I do for you would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls heaven forbid I said I would only ask you to be consistent or if you change change openly and let there be no deception for I must remark Thrasomachus if you will recall what was previously said that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good but like a mirrored diner or banquet with a view to the pleasures of the table or again as a trader for sale in the market and not as a shepherd yet surely the art of the shepherd is concerned only with the good of his subjects he has only to provide the best for them since the perfection of the art is already ensured whenever all the requirements of it are satisfied and that was what I was saying just now about the ruler I conceived that the art of the ruler considered as ruler whether in a state or in private life could only regard the good of his flock or subjects whereas you seem to think that the rulers in states that is to say the true rulers like being in authority think nay I am sure of it then why in the case of lesser offices do men never take them willingly without payment unless under the idea that they govern for the advantage not of themselves but of others let me ask you a question are not the several arts different by reason of their each having a separate function and my dear illustrious friend do say what you think that we may make a little progress yes that is the difference he replied and each art gives us a particular good and not merely a general one medicine for example gives us health navigation safety at sea and so on yes he said and the art of payment has the special function of giving pay but we do not confuse this with other arts anymore than the art of the pilot is to be confused with the art of medicine because the health of the pilot may be improved by a sea voyage you would not be inclined to say would you that navigation is the art of medicine at least if we are to adopt your exact use of language certainly not or because a man is in good health when he receives pay you would not say that the art of payment is medicine I should not nor would you say that medicine is the art of receiving pay because a man takes fees when he is engaged in healing certainly not and we have admitted I said that the good of each art is specially confined to the art yes then if there be any good which all artists have in common that is to be attributed to something of which they all have the common use true he replied and when the artist is benefited by receiving pay the advantage is gained by an additional use of the art of pay which is not the art professed by him he gave a reluctant assent to this then the pay is not derived by the several artists from their respective arts but the truth is that while the art of medicine gives health and the art of the builder builds a house another art attends them which is the art of pay the various arts may be doing their own business and benefiting that over which they preside but would the artist receive any benefit from his art unless he were paid as well I suppose not but does he therefore confer no benefit when he works for nothing certainly he confers a benefit then now Thrasymachus there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests but as we were before saying they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior and this is the reason my dear Thrasymachus why as I was just now saying no one is willing to govern because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration for in the execution of his work and in giving his orders to another the true artist does not regard his own interest but always that of his subjects and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule they must be paid in one of three modes of payment money or honor or a penalty for refusing what do you mean Socrates said Glaucon the first two modes of payment are intelligible enough but what the penalty is I do not understand or how a penalty can be a payment you mean that you do not understand the nature of this payment which to the best men is the great inducement to rule of course you know that ambition and avarice are held to be as indeed they are a disgrace very true and for this reason I said money and honor have no attraction for them good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves and not being ambitious they do not care about honor where for necessity must be laid upon them and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment and this as I imagine is the reason why the forwardness to take office instead of waiting to be compelled has been deemed dishonorable now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself and the fear of this as I conceive induces the good to take office not because they would but because they cannot help not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves but as a necessity and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to anyone who is better than themselves or indeed as good for there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest but that of his subjects and everyone who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one so far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger the latter question need not be further discussed at present but when Thrasymachus says that the life of the unjust is more advantageous than that of the just his new statement appears to me to be of a far more serious character which of us has spoken truly and which sort of life Glaucon do you prefer I for my part deem the life of the just to be the more advantageous he answered did you hear all of the advantages of the unjust which Thrasymachus was rehearsing yes I heard him he replied but he has not convinced me then shall we try to find some way of convincing him if we can that he is saying what is not true most certainly he replied if I said he makes a set speech and we make another recounting all the advantages of being just and he answers and we rejoin there must be a numbering and measuring of the goods which are claimed on either side and in the end we shall want judges to decide but if we proceed in our inquiry as we lately did by making admissions to one another we shall unite the offices of judge and advocate in our own persons very good he said and which method do I understand you to prefer I said that which you propose end of book one part three