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 Philippus 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 portagoras are of higher excellence. But no other dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view 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 to conceive the 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 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, concupitant, 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's City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, and of the numerous other imaginary states which are framed upon the same model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian 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 great 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 Goethe 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, in 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 gymnastics, a manlier strain of poetry, and 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 Christ 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 in number. Book one and the first half of book two, down to the paragraph beginning, I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adei Montes, 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 is 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, two, 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 fidress, 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, he 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 as the principal 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 in the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Timaos, 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 and the plastic arts and poetry and 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 1. Part 2 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 2 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 of fiction, 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 Bohac, 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 reconcilments of them in order to avoid chronological difficulties. Such, for example, as the conjecture of C. F. Herman, that Glaucon and Adéimantus 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, Therasimachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adéimantus. Cephalus appears in the introduction only. Polymarcus drops at the end of the first argument, and Therasimachus is reduced to silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adéimantus. Among the company is Lysius, 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, in the dialogue which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Therasimachus. Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a sacrifice.  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 agorality, 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 De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks, the age 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, Polymarcus, 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 Sophists like Glaucon and Adeamontus, 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 Thirty 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 Thury to Athens. The Calcedonian Giant, Thrasymachus, of whom we had already heard in the Fidris, 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 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 learn 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, lost ever bold in battle, seems to show that the description of him is not devoid of verisalimitude. When Throsimachus 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 uvinus 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 Throsimachus 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 turned 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 the 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, Adeimontus. The soldier, and, like Adeimontus, has been distinguished at the Battle of Megara. The character of Adeimontus is deeper in graver, and the profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimontus pursues the argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of youth. Adeimontus 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, Adeimontus 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, Adeimontus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastics to the end of the book. It is Adeimontus 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 Adeimontus 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 Adeimontus. 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, Adeimontus returns with the allusion 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, Polymarcus, and Thrasymachus, 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 Silanus, 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 into 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 view. 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 at 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 seven is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in book six. The composite animal in book nine is an allegory of the parts of the soul. The noble captain in the ship and the true pilot in book six 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 lengths of connection and 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. 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 pityed 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, Adeimantus, Polymarcus, Cephalus, Thrasymachus, Clytofon, 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. End of introduction. Book 1, Part 1 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 M.B. The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett Book 1, Part 1 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 Nicaus, 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 along, 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. Then 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 then we found his brothers, Lysius and Euthedemus, and with them Thrasymachus the Chalcedonian, Tramanthides the Pneon, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonimus. There was, too, Cethilus, 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 semi-circle 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, Cethilus, than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travellers who have gone on 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 in 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 Serpian 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 I 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, Sophocles, 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 Lysenius 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, Tearishes 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, Art I to give them back to him? No one would say that I art, Any more than he would say That I ought always to speak the truth, And to one who is in his condition.  But then I said, Speaking the truth and paying your debts Is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, If Simonides is to be believed, Said Polymarcus 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 Polymarcus And the company. I said, To be sure, he answered, And went away laughing to the sacrifices. Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, What did Simonides 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, 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 Simonides 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 Are 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 are 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, Simonides 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 ask 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 then 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 Inconsiders, then justice is the art Which gives good to friends and evil To enemies. That is his meaning then? I think so. And who is best able to do good For the 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. Then in time of peace justice Will be of no use? I am very far from thinking so. You think that justice may be of use In peace as well as in war? Yes. 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 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 to game with droughts? The skillful player. And in the laying of bricks and stones Is the just man a more useful Or a 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, Paul and Marcus, 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 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 Surely 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 M.B. 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 important And he who is most scuffle 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 favourite 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 practised however For the good of friends And for the harm of enemies 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 Ur about good and evil Many who are not good Seem to be so and conversely That is 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 any justice True Then according to your argument It is just to injure those Who do no wrong Nay 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 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 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 may be said You would argue that the good Are our friends and the bad Our enemies Yes 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 unmusical 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 Any more than he 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 Then you and I Are prepared to take up arms Against anyone who attributes Such a saying to Simonides Or bias or pitticus Or any other wise man or seer I am quite ready to do battle at your side He said Shall I tell you Whose I believe the saying to be Whose I believe that Periander Or Perdiccus Or Xerxes 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 Thrasimachus 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 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 honour to yourself 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 Thrasymachus, I said with a quiver Don't be hard upon us Polymarcus 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 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 I am very proud and well know That if you ask a person what numbers Make up twelve, 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 Thracomapus, 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 Is that your meaning How would you answer him Just as if the two cases were at all Like 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, are not he to say What he thinks, whether you and I Forbid him or not I presume that you are going to make One of the interdicted answers I dare say that I may not Was standing the danger if upon reflection I approve of any of them 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 Glaucon And you Thracomapus Need be under no anxiety about money Yes, he replied And 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 Fate 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 Glaucon and the rest of the company Joined in my request And Thracomapus, 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 I am grateful 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, you 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 What, Thrasymachus, is the meaning of this? You cannot mean to say that because Polydamus, the pancrethias Is stronger than we are And finds the eating of beef Condusive 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 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 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 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 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 err To be sure, he replied They are liable to err Then in making their laws 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 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 This is the obedience which the subject Renders through 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 Clytophon interposing If you are allowed to be his witness But there is no need of any witness Said Polymarcus For Thrasymachus himself acknowledges That what is not for their own interest And that for subjects to obey them is justice Yes, Polymarcus Thrasymachus said That for subjects to do what was commanded By their rulers is just Yes, Clytophon 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 That is to say quite as much as the interest Of the stronger But said Clytophon 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, Thrasymachus I said 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 1, Part 2 Book 1, 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 M.B. The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett Book 1, Part 3 You argue like an informer of 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 urs 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 Insofar as he is what his name implies They none of them ur Unless their skill fails them And then they cease to be skilled artists No artist or sage or ruler Urs at the time when he is what his name implies Though he is commonly said to ur 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 Insofar 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 The stronger Indeed, Thrasymachus 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 Would any misunderstanding occurring Between us in future let me ask In what sense do you speak of a ruler Or a 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 man is to try and cheat Thrasymachus, 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 A sailor's 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 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 intention of medicine As you will acknowledge 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 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 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 And either 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 Thresymachus The arts are the superiors 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 insofar as he is a physician Considered 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 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 Thresymachus there is no one in any rule Who insofar as he is a ruler Considered or enjoins what is for his own interest But always what is for the interest Of 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 Thresymachus 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 And she has not even taught you To know the shepherd from the sheep When he heard 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 And 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 hated by his friends And 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 my 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 Approach 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 Thressomachus 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 Thressomachus 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 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 Thressomachus 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 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 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 Thressomachus 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 As a shepherd tends the sheep Not with a view to their own good But like a mirrored diner or banker 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 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 Any more 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 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 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 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 honour Or a penalty for refusing 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 am only 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 honour Wherefore 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 dishonourable And 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 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 Rasmakas that justice Is the interest of the stronger The latter question Is further discussed at present But when Rasmakas 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 Glockon 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 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 accounting 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 As we greatly 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 1 Part 3 Book 1 Part 4 Of Plato's Republic This is a Librivox recording For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librivox.org Recording by MB The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett Book 1 Part 4 Well then Thrasumachus I said You say that perfect injustice Is more gainful than perfect justice Yes that is what I say And I have given you my reasons And what is your view about them Would you call one of them virtue And the other vice Certainly I suppose that you would call Justice virtue and injustice vice What a charming notion So likely too seeing that I affirm Injustice to be profitable And justice not What else then would you say The opposite He replied And would you call justice vice No I would rather say sublime simplicity Then you would call injustice malignity No I would rather say discretion And do the unjust appear to you To be wise and good Yes he said At any rate those of them who are Able to be perfectly unjust And who have the power of subduing States and nations But perhaps you imagine me to be talking Of cut purses If undetected has advantages Though they are not to be compared With those of which I was just now speaking I do not think that I misapprehend Your meaning Thrasymachus I replied But still I cannot hear without amazement That you class injustice with wisdom And virtue and justice with the opposite Certainly I do so class them Now I said You are on more substantial And almost unanswerable ground For if the injustice which you were Being to be profitable Had been admitted by you as by others To be vice and deformity An answer might have been given to you On received principles But now I perceive that you will call Injustice honorable and strong And to the unjust you will attribute All the qualities which were attributed By us before to the just Seeing that you do not hesitate to rank Injustice with wisdom and virtue You have guessed most infallibly He replied Then I certainly ought not to shrink So long as I have reason to think that you Thrasymachus are speaking your real mind For I do believe that you are now In earnest and are not amusing yourself At our expense I may be in earnest or not But what is that to you To refute the argument is your business Very true I said That is what I have to do But will you be so good as answer Yet one more question Does the just man try to gain Far otherwise if he did He would not be the simple amusing creature Which he is And would he try to go beyond just action He would not And how would he regard the attempt To gain an advantage over the unjust Would that be considered by him as just Or unjust He would think it just And would try to gain the advantage But he would not be able Whether he would or would not be able I said is not to the point That the just man While refusing to have more than Another just man would wish and claim To have more than the unjust Yes, he would And what of the unjust Does he claim to have more than The just man and to do more than Is just Of course He said for he claims to have more Than all men And the unjust man will strive And struggle to obtain more than The unjust man or action More than all True We may put the matter thus I said the just Does not desire more than his like But more than his unlike Whereas the unjust Desires more than both his like And his unlike Nothing, he said Can be better than that statement And the unjust is good and wise And the just is neither Good again, he said And is not the unjust Good and the just unlike them Of course, he said He who is of a certain nature Is like those who are of a certain nature He who is not, not Each of them, I said Is such as his like is Certainly, he replied Very good Thresymachus, I said And now to take the case of the arts You would admit that One man is a musician And another not a musician Yes And which is wise and which is foolish Clearly, the musician is wise And he who is not a musician Is foolish And he is good in as far as he is wise And bad in as far as he is foolish Yes And you would say the same Sort of thing of the physician Yes And do you think, my excellent friend That a musician when he adjusts A desire would desire Or claim to exceed or go beyond A musician in the tightening And loosening the strings I do not think that he would But he would claim to exceed The non-musician Of course And what would you say of the physician In prescribing meats and drinks Would he wish to go beyond Another physician or beyond The practice of medicine He would not But he would wish to go Yes And about knowledge and ignorance In general See whether you think that any man Who has knowledge ever would wish To have the choice of saying or doing More than another man who has knowledge Would he not rather say or do the same As he is like in the same case That I suppose can hardly be denied And what of the ignorant Would he not desire to have more Than either the knowing or the ignorant I dare say And the knowing is wise Yes And the wise is good True Then the wise and good Will not desire to gain more than his like But more than his unlike and opposite I suppose so Whereas the bad and ignorant Will desire to gain more than both Yes But did we not say, Thrasymachus That the unjust goes beyond His like and unlike Were not these your words They were And you also said That the just will not go beyond his like But his unlike Yes Then the just is like the wise and good And the unjust like the evil and ignorant That is the inference And each of them is such as his like is That was admitted Then the just has turned out to be wise And good and the unjust Evil and ignorant Thrasymachus made all these admissions Not fluently as I repeat them But with extreme reluctance It was a hot summer's day And the perspiration poured from him in torrents And then I saw what I had never seen before Thrasymachus blushing As we were now agreed That justice was virtue and wisdom And injustice, vice and ignorance I proceeded to another point Well, I said Thrasymachus, that matter is now settled But were we not also saying That injustice had sprank? Do you remember? Yes, I remember, he said But do not suppose that I approve Of what you are saying or have no answer If however I were to answer You would be quite certain To accuse me of haranguing Therefore either permit me to have my say out Or if you would rather ask Do so and I will answer very good As they say to storytelling old women Certainly not, I said If contrary to your real opinion Yes, he said I will to please you Since you will not let me speak What else would you have? Nothing in the world, I said And if you are so disposed I will ask and you shall answer Proceed Then I will repeat the question Which I asked before In order that our examination Of the relative nature of justice A statement was made That injustice is stronger And more powerful than justice But now justice, having been identified With wisdom and virtue Is easily shown to be stronger than injustice If injustice is ignorance This can no longer be questioned By anyone But I want to view the matter Of Razumakis in a different way You would not deny that a state may be Unjust and may be unjustly attempting To enslave other states Or may have already enslaved them True, he replied And I will add that the best And most perfectly unjust state Will be most likely to do so I know, I said That such was your position But what I would further consider is Whether this power which is possessed By the superior state can exist Or be exercised without justice Or only with justice If you are right in your view And justice is wisdom Then only with justice Then without justice I am delighted, Razumakis, to see you are not Only nodding assent and dissent But making answers which are quite excellent That is out of civility to you, he replied You are very kind, I said And would you have the goodness also to inform me Whether you think that a state Or an army or a band of robbers and thieves Or any other gang of evil doers Could act at all if they injured one another No indeed, he said they could not But if they abstained from injuring one another They might act together better Yes And this is because injustice creates divisions And hatreds and fighting And justice imparts harmony and friendship Is that not true, Razumakis? I agree, he said Because I do not wish to quarrel with you How good of you, I said But I should like to know also Whether injustice having this tendency To arouse hatred wherever existing Among slaves or among freemen Will not make them hate one another And set them at variance And render them incapable of common action And certainly And even if injustice be found in two only Will they not quarrel and fight And become enemies to one another And to the just They will And suppose injustice abiding in a single person Would your wisdom say That she loses or that she retains Her natural power Let us assume that she retains her power Yet is not the power which injustice Exercises of such a nature That wherever she takes up her abode Whether in a city, in an army, in a family Or in any other body That body is to begin with Rendered incapable of united action By reason of sedition and distraction And does not become its own enemy And at variance with all that opposes it And with the just Is this not the case? Yes, certainly And is not injustice equally fatal When existing in a single person In the first place, rendering him incapable of action Because he is not at unity with himself And in the second place, making him an enemy To himself and the just Is that not true, Thrasymachus? Yes And oh my friend, I said Surely the gods are just Granted that they are But if so The unjust will be the enemy of the gods And the just will be their friend Feast away in triumph And take your fill of the argument I will not oppose you, lest I should displease the company Well then proceed with your answers And let me have the remainder of my repast For we have already shown That the just are clearly wiser and better And abler than the unjust And that the unjust are incapable of common action Name more that to speak as we did Of men who are evil acting at any time Vigorously together It is not strictly true For if they had been perfectly evil They would have laid hands upon one another But it is evident that there must have been Some remnant of justice in them Which enabled them to combine If there had not been They would have injured one another As well as their victims They were but half villains in their enterprises For had they been whole villains And utterly unjust They would have been utterly incapable of action That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter And not what you said at first But whether the just have a better and happier life Than the unjust Is a further question which we also proposed To consider I should think that they have And for the reasons which I have given But still I should like to examine further For no light matters at stake Nothing less than the rule of human life Proceed I will proceed by asking a question Would you not say that a horse has some end? I should And the end Or use of a horse or of anything Would be that which could not be accomplished Or not so well accomplished By any other thing I do not understand He said Let me explain Can you see, except with the eye Certainly not Or hear, except with the ear No Then these may be truly said To be the ends of these organs They may But you can cut off a vine branch With a dagger or with a chisel Of course And yet not so well as with a pruning hook Made for the purpose True May we not say that this is the end Of a pruning hook We may Then now I think you will have no difficulty In understanding my meaning when I asked the question Whether the end of anything would be that Which could not be accomplished Or not so well accomplished By any other thing I understand your meaning, he said And ascent The end is appointed Also has an excellence Need I ask again whether the eye has an end? It has And has not the eye an excellence? Yes And the ear has an end and an excellence also? Truth And the same is true of all other things They have each of them an end And a special excellence That is so Well, and can the eyes fulfill their end If they are wanting in their own proper excellence And have a defect instead How can they, he said If they are blind and cannot see You mean to say If they have lost their proper excellence Which is sight But I have not arrived at that point yet I would rather ask the question more generally And only inquire Whether the things which fulfill their ends Fulfill them by their own proper excellence And fail of fulfilling them by their own defect Certainly, he replied I might say the same of the ears When deprived of their own proper excellence They cannot fulfill their end True And the same observation will apply To all other things I agree Well, and has not the soul an end Which nothing else can fulfill For example, to superintend and command And deliberate and the like Are not these functions proper to the soul And can they be rightly assigned To any other To no other And is not life to be reckoned Of the soul Assuredly, he said And has not the soul an excellence also Yes And can she or can she not fulfill Her own ends when deprived of that excellence She cannot Then an evil soul Must necessarily be an evil ruler And superintendent And the good soul a good ruler Yes, necessarily And we have admitted that justice Is the absence of the soul And injustice the defect of the soul That has been admitted Then the just soul and the just man Will live well and the unjust man Will live ill That is what your argument proves And he who lives well Is blessed and happy And he who lives ill The reverse of happy Certainly Then the justice happy And the unjust miserable But happiness and not misery is profitable Of course Then my blessed Thrasomachus Injustice can never be more profitable Than justice Let this, Socrates he said Be your entertainment at the Bendidae For which I am indebt to you I said Now that you have grown gentle Towards me and have left off scolding Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained But that was my own fault and not yours As an epicure snatches a taste Of every dish which is successively brought to table He not having allowed himself time To enjoy the one before So have I gone from one subject to another Without having discovered what I sought at first The nature of justice I left that inquiry and turned away To consider whether justice is virtue and wisdom Or evil and folly And when there arose a further discussion About the comparative advantages Of justice and injustice I could not refrain from passing on to that And the result of the whole discussion has been That I know nothing at all For I know not what justice is And therefore I am not likely to know Whether it is or is not a virtue Nor can I say whether the just man Is happy or unhappy End of book one Book two 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 M.B. The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett Book two part one With these words I was thinking that I had made An end of the discussion But the end in truth Proved to be only a beginning For Glaucon, who is always the most Pugnacious of men He wanted to have the battle out So he said to me Socrates, do you really wish to persuade us Or only to seem to have persuaded us That to be just is always better Than to be unjust I should wish really to persuade you I replied if I could Then you certainly have not succeeded Let me ask you how How would you arrange goods Are there not some which we welcome For their own sakes and independently Of their consequences As, for example, harmless pleasures And enjoyments which delight us At the time, although nothing Follows from them I agree in thinking that there is Such a class, I replied Is there not only a second class Of goods such as knowledge, sight, health Which are desirable not only in themselves But also for their results Certainly I said And would you not recognize A third class such as gymnastic And the care of the sick And the positions are Also the various ways of money making These do us good But we regard them as disagreeable And no one would choose them For their own sakes but only for the sake Of some reward or result which flows from them There is, I said This third class also But why do you ask Because I want to know In which of the three classes You would place justice In the highest class I replied For the sake of their results Then the many are of another mind They think that justice Is to be reckoned in the troublesome class Among goods which are to be pursued For the sake of rewards and of reputation But in themselves are disagreeable And rather to be avoided I know, I said That this is their manner of thinking And that this was the thesis Thrasomachus was maintaining just now When he censured justice And praised injustice But I am too stupid to be convinced by him He said That you would hear me as well as him And then I shall see whether you and I agree For Thrasomachus seems to me like a snake To have been charmed by your voice Sooner than he ought to have been But to my mind The nature of justice and injustice Have not yet been made clear Setting aside their rewards and results I want to know what they are in themselves And how they inwardly work in the soul If you please then I will revive the argument of Thrasomachus And first I will speak of the nature According to the common view of them Secondly I will show that all men who practice justice Do so against their will of necessity But not as a good And thirdly I will argue that there is reason In this view For the life of the unjust is after all Better far than the life of the just If what they say is true Socrates Since I myself am not of their opinion But still I acknowledge that I am perplexed When I hear the voices of Thrasomachus And myriads of others dimming in my ears And on the other hand I have never yet heard the superiority of justice To injustice maintained by anyone In a satisfactory way I want to hear justice praised in respect of itself Then I shall be satisfied And you are the person from whom I think That I am most likely to hear this And therefore I will praise the unjust life To the utmost of my power And my manner of speaking will indicate The manner in which I desire to hear You too praising justice and centering injustice Will you say whether you approve Of my proposal Indeed I do Nor can I imagine any theme about which A man of sense would often or wish to converse I am delighted, he replied To hear you say so And shall begin by speaking as I proposed Of the nature and the origin of justice They say that to do injustice Is by nature good To suffer injustice evil And that the evil is greater than the good And so when men have both done And suffered injustice And have had experience of both Not being able to avoid the one And obtain the other They think that they had better agree Among themselves to have neither Hence there arise laws and mutual covenants And that which is ordained by law Is termed by them lawful and just This they affirm to be the origin And nature of justice It is a mean or compromise Between the best of all Which is to do injustice and not be punished And the worst of all Which is to suffer injustice Without the power of retaliation And the middle point between the two Is tolerated not as good But as the lesser evil And honored by reason of the inability Of men to do injustice For no man who is worthy to be called a man Would ever submit to such an agreement If he were able to resist He would be mad if he did Such is the received account socrates Of the nature and origin of justice Now that those who practice justice Do so involuntarily And because they have not the power To be unjust To be worthy of this kind Having given both to the just And the unjust power to do what they will Let us watch and see wither desire Will lead them Then we shall discover in the very act The just and unjust man To be proceeding along the same road Following their interest Which all natures deem to be their good And are only diverted into the path of justice By the force of law The liberty which we are supposing May be most completely given to them In the form of such a power That the king of the cities The ancestor of cresis the Lydian According to the tradition Gaijes was a shepherd In the service of the king of Lydia There was a great storm And an earthquake made an opening In the earth at the place Where he was feeding his flock Amazed at the sight He descended into the opening Where, among other marvels He beheld a hollow brazen horse Having doors at which He's stooping and booking in This he took from the finger of the dead And re-ascended Now the shepherds met together According to custom That they might send their monthly report About the flocks to the king Into their assembly he came Having the ring on his finger And as he was sitting among them He chanced to turn the collet of the ring Inside his hand When instantly he became invisible To the rest of the company And they began to speak of him As if he were no longer present In the trials of the ring And always with the same result When he turned the collet inwards He became invisible When outwards he reappeared Whereupon he contrived to be chosen One of the messengers who were sent to the court Whereas as soon as he arrived He seduced the queen And with her help conspired against the king And slew him and took the kingdom Suppose now that there were two such magic rings And the just put on one of them And the unjust the other No man can be imagined Fast in justice No man would keep his hands off What was not his own When he could safely take what he liked Out of the market or go into houses And lie with anyone at his pleasure Or kill or release from prison whom he would And in all respects be like a god among men Then the actions of the just Would be as the actions of the unjust They would both come at last To the same point And we may truly affirm to be a great proof That a man is just not willingly Or because he thinks that justice is any good To him individually but of necessity For wherever anyone thinks that he can Safely be unjust There he is unjust For all men believe in their hearts That injustice is far more profitable To the individual than justice And he who argues as I have been supposing Will say they are right If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power To become invisible and never doing any wrong Or touching what was in others He would be thought by the lookers on The most wretched idiot Although they would praise him to one another's faces And keep up appearances with one another From a fear that they too might suffer injustice Enough of this Now if we are to form a real judgement Of the life of the just and unjust We must isolate them There is no other way And how is the isolation to be affected I answer Let the unjust man be entirely unjust And the just man entirely just Nothing is to be taken away from either of them And both are to be perfectly furnished For the work of their respective lives First let the unjust be like other distinguished Masters of craft Like the skilful pilot or physician Who knows intuitively his own powers And keeps within their limits And who if he fails at any point Is able to recover himself So let the unjust make his unjust attempts In the right way And lie hidden if he means to be great In his injustice He who is found out is nobody For the highest reach of injustice is To be deemed just when you are not Therefore I say That in the perfectly unjust man We must assume the most perfect injustice There is to be no deduction But we must allow him While doing the most unjust acts To have acquired the greatest reputation For justice If he have taken a false step He must be able to recover himself He must be one who can speak with effect If any of his deeds come to light And who can force his way where force is Required by his courage and strength And command of money and friends And at his side Let us place the just man In his nobleness and simplicity Wishing, as Escalus says, To be and not to seem good There must be no seeming For if he seemed to be just He will be honoured and rewarded And then we shall not know Whether he is just for the sake of justice Or for the sake of honours and rewards Therefore let him be clothed in justice only And have no other covering And he must be imagined in a state of life The opposite of the former Let him be the best of men And let him be thought the worst Then he will have been put to the proof And we shall see whether he will be affected By the fear of infamy and its consequences And let him continue thus to the hour of death Being just and seeming to be unjust When both have reached the other most extreme The one of justice and the other of injustice Let judgment be given which of them Is the happier of the two Heavens, my dear Glaucon, I said How energetically you polish them up for the decision First one and then the other As if they were two statues I'd do my best, he said And now that we know what they are like There is no difficulty in tracing out The sort of life which awaits either of them This I will proceed to describe But as you may think the description A little too coarse I ask you to suppose, Socrates, That the words which follow are not mine Let me put them into the mouths Of the eulogists of injustice They will tell you that the just man Who is thought unjust will be Scorched, wracked, bound Will have his eyes burnt out And, at last, after suffering Every kind of evil, he will be impaled Then he will understand That he ought to seem only And not to be just For the words of Escalus Then at the just For the unjust is pursuing a reality He does not live with a view to appearances He only wants to be really unjust And not to seem only His mind has a soil deep and fertile Out of which spring his prudent councils In the first place he is thought just And therefore bears rule in the city He can marry whom he will And give in marriage to whom he will And also he can trade and deal where he likes And always to his own advantage He has no misgivings about injustice And at every contest Whether in public or private He gets the better of his antagonists And gains at their expense and is rich And out of his gains He can benefit his friends and harm his enemies Moreover he can offer sacrifices And dedicate gifts to the gods Abundantly and magnificently And can honour the gods Or any man whom he wants to honour In a far better style than the just And therefore he is likely to be Deerer than they are to the gods Gods and men are said to unite In making the life of the unjust Better than the life of the just I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon When Adamantus, his brother, interposed Socrates, he said Do you not suppose that there is nothing more to be urged? Why, what else is there? I answered The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned He replied Well then, according to the proverb Let brother help brother If he fails in any part Do you assist him? Although I must confess that Glaucon has already said Quite enough to lay me in the dust And take from me the power of helping justice Nonsense, he replied But let me add something more There is another side to Glaucon's argument About the praise and censure of justice And injustice Which is equally required in order to bring out What I believe to be his meaning Parents and tutors are always telling their sons And their wards that they are to be just But why? But for the sake of character and reputation In the hope of obtaining for him who is reputed Just some of those offices, marriages and the like Which Glaucon has enumerated among the advantages accruing to the unjust from the reputation of justice More, however, is made of appearances by this class of persons than by the others For they throw in the good opinion of the gods and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, reign upon the pious And this accords with the testimony of the first of whom says that the gods make the oaks of the just To bear acorns at their summit and bees in the middle And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their fleeces And many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them And Homer has a very similar strain For he speaks of one whose fame is As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, maintains justice To whom the black earth brings forth wheat and barley whose trees are bowed with fruit and fish Still grander are the gifts of heaven which Mousseus and his son vouchsafe to the just They take them down into the world below where they have the saints lying on couches at a feast everlastingly drunk, crowned with garlands Their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest mead of virtue Some extend their rewards yet further The posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive to the third while in which they praise justice But about the wicked there is another strain They bury them in a slew in Hades and make them carry water and a sieve Also, while they are yet living they bring them to infamy and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust Nothing else does their invention supply Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other Once more Socrates I will ask you to consider this which is not confined to the poets but is found in prose writers The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honorable but grievous and toilsome and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment and are only censured by law and opinion They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy and to honor them both in public and in social while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor even though acknowledging them to be better than the others But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods They say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men and good and happiness to the wicked and the mendicant prophets go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have to offer vices and charms with rejoicings and feasts and they promise to harm an enemy whether just or unjust at a small cost with magic arts and incantations binding heaven as they say to execute their will and the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod vice may be had in abundance without trouble the way is smooth then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men for he also says the gods too may be turned from their purpose and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by libations and the odor of fat when they have sinned and transgress and they produce a host of books written by Museus and Orpheus who were children of the moon and the Muses that is what they say according to which they perform in their cities that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour and are equally at the service of the living and the dead the latter sort they call mysteries and they redeem us from the pains of hell but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits us he proceeded and now when the young hear all this said about virtue and vice and the way in which gods and men regard them how are their minds and are quick-witted and like bees on the wing light on every flower and from all that they hear are prone to draw conclusions as to what manner of persons they should be and in what way they should walk if they make the best of life probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days for what men say is that if I am really just and am not also thought just and lost on the other hand are unmistakable but if though unjust I acquire the reputation of justice a heavenly life is promised to me since then as philosophers prove appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness to appearance I must devote myself I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox and the man's but I hear someone exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult to which I answer nothing great is easy nevertheless the argument indicates this if we would be happy to be the path along which we should proceed with a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs and there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies and so partly by persuasion they are punished still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived neither can they be compelled but what if there are no gods or suppose them to have no care of human things why in either case should we mind about concealment and even if there are gods and they do care about us yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets and these are the very persons who say they may be influenced and turned by offerings let us be consistent then and believe both or neither if the poets speak truly why then we had better be unjust and offer of the fruits of injustice for if we are just although we may escape the vengeance of heaven we shall lose the gains of injustice but if we are unjust we shall keep the gains and by our sinning and praying and praying and sinning the gods will be propitiated and we shall not be punished and suffer for our unjust deeds yes my friend will be the reflection but there are mysteries and atoning deities and these have great power that is what mighty cities declare and the children of the gods who were their poets and prophets bear a like testimony on what principle then shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice when if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances we shall fare to our mind and to our death as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us knowing all this Socrates how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth be willing to honour justice or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised and even if there should be someone who is able to disprove the truth of my words and who is satisfied that justice is best still he is not angry with the unjust but is very ready to forgive them so unless per adventure there be someone whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice or who has attained knowledge of the truth but no other man he only blames injustice who owing to cowardice or age or some weakness has not the power of being unjust and this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be the cause of all this Socrates and when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing Panagyrists of justice beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us and ending with the men of our own time no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories honours and benefits which flow from them no one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil had this been the universal strain had you sought to persuade us from this from our youth upwards we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong but everyone would have been his own watchman because afraid if he did wrong of harboring in himself the greatest of evils I dare say that Thrasomachus and others in the language which I have been merely repeating and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice grossly as I conceive perverting their true nature but I speak in this vehement manner as I must frankly confess to you because I want to hear from you the opposite side and I would ask you to show not only the superiority which justice has over injustice but what effect they have on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him to exclude the reputations for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the false we shall say that you do not praise justice but the appearance of it we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark and that you really agree with Thrasomachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest though injurious to the weaker now as you have admitted that justice which are desired indeed for their results but in a far greater degree for their own sakes like sight or hearing or knowledge or health or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them let others praise justice and censure injustice magnifying the rewards and honors and abusing the other that is a manner of arguing which coming from them I am ready to tolerate but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question unless I hear the contrary from your own lips I expect something better and therefore I say not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice but show what they either of them due to the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil whether seen or unseen by gods and men this is part 2 part 2 of Plato's Republic this is a LibriVox Record all LibriVox Recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Veran Miao the Republic by Plato translated by Benjamin Joet part 2 part 2 I had always admired the genius of Lorden the genius of Gorgon and as I meant it, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said, Sons of an illustrious father, that was not at that beginning of the Elegant Versus, which the admirer of Gorgon made in honour of you after you had distinguished yourselves hath a battle of Magaba. Sons of Ariston, he sang, divide offspring of an illustrious hero. The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice and remaining unconvinced by your own arguments. And I do believe that you are not convinced. This I infer from your general character, for hath I judged only from your speeches, I should have mistrusted you. But now the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say, for I am in a strait between two. On the one hand, I feel that I am unequal to the task, and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you are not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasi Marcus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice hath over injustice. And yet I cannot refuse to help, long breath and speech remain to me. I am afraid that there would be an impiety in being present when justice is evil spoken of, and not lifting up a hand in her defence. And therefore I hath best gift such help as I can. Glawkin and the rest entreated me, by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about the relative advantages. I told them what I really thought, that the inquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits. I think that we had better adopt a method, which I may illustrate thus. Suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by someone to read small letters from a distance, and it occurred to someone else that they might be found in another place which was larger, and in which the letters were larger. If they were the same, and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser, this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adimentus, that how this illustration applied to our inquiry. I will tell you, I replied, justice, which is the subject of our inquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as a virtue of an individual, and sometimes as a virtue of a state. True, he replied. And is not a state larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger, the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easy to signable. I propose therefore that we inquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first, as they appear in the state, and secondly, in the individual, proceeding from the greater to lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the state in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the state in process of creation also. I dare say, when the state is completed, there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered. Yes, far more easily. But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said, for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore. I have reflected, said Edamontis, and am anxious that you should proceed. A state, I said, arises as I conceive, out of the need of mankind. No one is self surprising, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a state be imagined? There can be no other. Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose, and another for another. And when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation, the body of inhabitants bestowed a state. True, he said. And the exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, and the idea that the exchange will be for a decade. Very true. Then, I said, let us begin and create an idea a state. And yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. Of course, he replied. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. Suddenly, the second is a dwelling in the third clothing, and the like. True. Then now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand. We may suppose that one man is a husband man, another a builder, someone else a weaver. Shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? Quite right. The various notions of a state must include four or five men. Clearly. And how will they proceed? Well, each bring the results of his labours into a common stock. The individual has men, for example, producing for four and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food, with which he supplies others as well as himself. Or will he have nothing to do with others and not be the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three fourths of his time, the employed in making a house, or a coat, or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? Audimantes thought that he should aim at producing food, only and not at producing everything. Probably, I replied, that would be the better way. And when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all like. There are diversities of natures among us, which are adapted to different occupations. Very true. And will you have a work that are done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? When he has only one? Further, there can be no doubt that our work is bought, but not done at the right time. No doubt. The business is not disposed away until the doer of the business is at leisure, but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object. He must, and if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily, and offer better quality when one man does one thing, which is natural to him, and does it at the right time, and leaves other things undou