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5.449

To such a city, then, or constitution I apply the terms goodCf. on 427 E, and Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 14; for ὀρθή, normal, see p. 423. and right—and to the corresponding kind of man; but the others I describe as bad and mistaken, if this one is right, in respect both to the administration of states and to the formation κατασκευήν: a highly general word not to be pressed in this periphrasis. Cf. Gorgias 455 E, 477 B. of the character of the individual soul, they falling under four forms of badness.

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What are these,

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he said. And I was going on

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3

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to enumerate them in what seemed to me the order of their evolution

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4

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from one another, when Polemarchus—he sat at some little distance

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5

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from Adeimantus—stretched forth his hand, and, taking hold of his garment

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6

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from above by the shoulder, drew the other toward him and, leaning forward himself, spoke a few words in his ear, of which we overheard nothing

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7

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else save only this,

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Shall we let him off,Cf. on 327 C. then,

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he said,

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or what shall we do?

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By no means,

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said Adeimantus, now raising his voice.

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What, pray,

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9

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said I,

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is it that you are not letting off?

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You,

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said he.

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And for what reason, pray?

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said I.

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We think you are a slacker,

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he said,

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and are trying to cheatCf. Sophocles Trach. 437. us out of a whole division,So Isocrates xv. 74 ὅλοις εἴδεσι. and that not the least, of the argument to avoid the trouble of expounding it, and expect to get away with it by observing thus lightly that, of course, in respect to women and children it is obvious to everybody that the possessions of friends will be in common.Cf. 424 A, Laws 739 C. Aristotle says that the possessions of friends should be separate in ownership but common in use, as at Sparta. Cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 201, Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius x. 11, Aristotle Politics 1263 a 30 ff., Euripides Andromache 270.

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Well, isn’t that right, Adeimantus?

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I said.

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Yes,

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said he,

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but this word right,Cf. 459 D, Laws 668 D, Aristotle Politics 1269 b 13, Shakespeare Tro. and Cre. I. i. 23 But here’s yet in the word hereafter the kneading, the making of the cake, etc. like other things, requires definingCf. Laws 665 B 7. as to the wayCf. Aristotle Politics 1264 a 12. and manner of such a community. There might be many ways. Don’t, then, pass over the one that youEmphatic. Cf. 427 E. have in mind. For we have long been lying in wait for you, expecting that you would say something both of the procreation of children and their bringing up, γενομένους: a noun is supplied from the preceding verb. Cf. on 598 C, and on 341 D. and would explain the whole matter of the community of women and children of which you speak. We think that the right or wrong management of this makes a great difference, all the difference in the world, μέγα . . . καὶ ὅλον: cf. 469 C, 527 C, Phaedo 79 E, Laws 779 B, 944 C, Symposium 188 D, Demosthenes ii. 22, Aeschylus Prom. 961. in the constitution of a state;

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so now, since you are beginning on another constitution before sufficiently defining this, we are firmly resolved, as you overheard, not to let you go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest.

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Set me down, too,

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said Glaucon,

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as voting this ticket.Cf. Protagoras 330 C.

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Surely,

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said Thrasymachus,

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you may consider it a joint resolution of us all, Socrates.

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What a thing you have done,

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said I,

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in thus challengingCf. Theaetetus 184 C, Gorgias 469 C. me! What a huge debate you have started afresh, as it were, about this polity, in the supposed completion of which I was rejoicing, being only too glad to have it accepted as I then set it forth! You don’t realize what a swarmFor the metaphor cf. Euripides Bacchae 710 and σμῆνος, Republic 574 D, Cratylus 401 C, Meno 72 A. of arguments you are stirring upCf. Philebus 36 D, Theaetetus 184 A, Cratylus 411 A. by this demand, which I foresaw and evaded to save us no end of trouble.

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Well,

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said Thrasymachus,

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5

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do you suppose this company has come here to prospect for goldLit. to smelt ore. The expression was proverbial and was explained by an obscure anecdote. Cf. Leutsch, Paroemiographi, ii. pp. 91, 727, and i. p. 464, and commentators on Herodotus iii. 102. and not to listen to discussions?

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Yes,

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I said,

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in measure.

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Nay, Socrates,

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said Glaucon,

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the measurePlato often anticipates and repels the charge of tedious length (see Politicus 286 C, Philebus 28 D, 36 D). Here the thought takes a different turn (as 504 C). The δέ γε implies a slight rebuke (Cf. Class. Phil . xiv. pp. 165-174). of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men. So don’t consider us, and do not you yourself grow weary in explaining to us what we ask or, your views as to how this communion of wives and children among our guardians will be managed, and also about the rearing of the children while still young in the interval betweenSo 498 A. Cf. on Aristophanes Acharnians 434, and Laws 792 A. birth and formal schooling which is thought to be the most difficult part of education. Try, then, to tell us what must be the manner of it.

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It is not an easy thing to expound, my dear fellow,

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said I,

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for even more than the provisions that precede it, it raises many doubts. For one might doubt whether what is proposed is possibleCf. 456 C, Thucydides vi. 98, Introduction xvii. and, even conceding the possibility,εἰ ὅ τι μάλιστα: a common formula for what a disputant can afford to concede. Cf. Lysias xiii. 52, xxii. 1, xxii. 10. It occurs six times in the Charmides. one might still be sceptical whether it is best. For which reason one as it were, shrinks from touching on the matter lest the theory be regarded as nothing but a wish-thought,Cf. Introduction xxxi-xxxii, 456 C, 499 C, 540 D, Laws 736 D, Aristotle Politics 1260 b 29, 1265 a 17 δεῖ μὲν οὖν ὑποτίθεσθαι κατ’ εὐχην, μηδὲν μέντοι ἀδύνατον. my dear friend.

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Do not shrink,

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he said,

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for your hearers will not be inconsiderateἀγνώμονες = inconsiderate, unreasonable, as Andocides ii. 6 shows. nor distrustful nor hostile.

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And I said,

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My good fellow, is that remark intended to encourage me?

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It is,

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he said.

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Well, then,

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said I,

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it has just the contrary effect. For, if I were confident that I was speaking with knowledge, it would be an excellent encouragement. For there is both safety and security in speaking the truth with knowledge about our greatest and dearest concerns to those who are both wise and dear.

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But to speak when one doubts himself and is seeking while he talks is a fearful and slippery venture. The fear is not of being laughed at,Cf. on 452 C-D, Euthydemus 3 C To be laughed at is no matter, Laws 830 B τὸν τῶν ἀνοήτων γέλωτα, Euripides fr. 495. for that is childish, but, lest, missing the truth, I fall down and drag my friends with me in matters where it most imports not to stumble. So I salute Nemesis,Ἀδράστειαν: practically equivalent to Nemesis. Cf. our knock on wood. Cf. Posnansky in Breslauer Phil. Abhandl. v. 2, Nemesis und Adrasteia: Herodotus i. 35, Aeschylus Prom. 936, Euripides Rhesus 342, Demosthenes xxv. 37 καὶ Ἀδράστειαν μὲν ἄνθρωπος ὢν ἐγὼ προσκυνῶ. For the moral earnestness of what follows cf. 336 E, Gorgias 458 A, and Joubert apud Arnold, Essays in Crit. p. 29 Ignorance . . . is in itself in intellectual matters a crime of the first order. Glaucon, in what I am about to say. For, indeed,γὰρ οὖν, for in fact, but often with the suggestion that the fact has to be faced, as e.g. in Timaeus 47 E, where the point is often missed. I believe that involuntary homicide is a lesser fault than to mislead opinion about the honorable, the good, and the just. This is a risk that it is better to run with enemiesAlmost proverbial. Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 27. 21. Plato is speaking here from the point of view of the ordinary man, and not from that of his Sermon on the Mount ethics. Cf. Philebus 49 D and Gorgias 480 E, where Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. pp. 332 and 350, goes astray. Cf. Class. Phil . vol. i. p. 297. than with friends, so that your encouragement is none.

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And Glaucon, with a laugh, said,

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Nay, Socrates, if any false note in the argument does us any harm, we release you asὥσπερ marks the legal metaphor to which ἐκεῖ below refers. Cf. Laws 869 E, and Euripides Hippolytus 1433 and 1448-1450, with Hirzel, Δίκη etc. p. 191, n. 1, Demosthenes xxxvii. 58-59. Plato transfers the idea to the other world in Phaedo 114 A-B, where the pardon of their victims is required for the release of sinners. The passage is used by the older critics in the comparison of Plato with Christianity. in a homicide case, and warrant you pure of hand and no deceiver of us. So speak on with confidence.

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Well,

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said I,

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he who is released in that case is counted pure as the law bids, and, presumably, if there, here too.

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Speak on, then,

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he said,

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for all this objection.

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We must return then,

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said I,

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and say now what perhaps ought to have been said in due sequence there. But maybe this way is right, that after the completion of the male drama we should in turn go through with the female,Sophron’s Mimes are said to have been so classified. For δρᾶμα cf. also Theaetetus 150 A. especially since you are so urgent.

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For men, then, born and bred as we described there is in my opinion no other right possession and use of children and women than that which accords with the start we gave them. Our endeavor, I believe, was to establish these men in our discourse as the guardians of a flockFor the use of analogies drawn from animals cf. 375-376, 422 D, 466 D, 467 B, 491 D-E, 537 A, 546 A-B, 564 A. Plato is only pretending to deduce his conclusions from his imagery. Aristotle’s literal-minded criticism objects that animals have no economy, Politics 1264 b 4-6.?

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Yes.

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Let us preserve the analogy, then, and assign them a generation and breeding answering to it, and see if it suits us or not.

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In what way?

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he said.

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In this. Do we expect the females of watch-dogs to join in guarding what the males guard and to hunt with them and share all their pursuits or do we expect the females to stay indoors as being incapacitated by the bearing and the breeding of the whelps while the males toil and have all the care of the flock?

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They have all things in common,

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he replied,

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except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger.

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Is it possible, then,

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said I,

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to employ any creature for the same ends as another if you do not assign it the same nurture and education?

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It is not possible.

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If, then, we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things.

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Yes.

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Now music together with gymnastic was the training we gave the men.

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Yes.

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Then we must assign these two arts to the women also and the offices of war and employ them in the same way.

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It would seem likely from what you say,

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he replied.

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Perhaps, then,

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said I,

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the contrast with present customReformers always denounce this source of wit while conservative satirists maintain that ridicule is a test of truth. Cf. e.g. >Renan, Avenir de la Science, p. 439 Le premier pas dans la carrière philosophique est de se cuirasser contre le ridicule, and Lucian, Piscator 14 No harm can be done by a joke; that on the contrary, whatever is beautiful shines brighter . . . like gold cleansed, Harmon in Loeb translation, iii. 22. There was a literature for and against custom (sometimes called συνήθεια) of which there are echoes in Cicero’s use of consuetudo, Acad. ii. 75, De off. i. 148, De nat. deor. i. 83. would make much in our proposals look ridiculous if our wordsᾖ λέγεται: cf. on 389 D. are to be realized in fact.

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Yes, indeed,

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he said.

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What then,

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said I,

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is the funniest thing you note in them? Is it not obviously the women exercising unclad in the palestra together with the men, not only the young, but even the older, like old men in gymnasiums,Cf. Theaetetus 162 B, and the ὀψιμαθής or late learner in Theophrastus’ Characters xxvii. 14 Loeb. Euripides Andromache 596 ff. denounces the light attire of Spartan women when exercising. when, though wrinkled and unpleasant to look at, they still persist in exercising?

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Yes, on my word,

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he replied,

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it would seem ridiculous under present conditions.

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Then,

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said I,

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since we have set out to speak our minds, we must not fear all the jibesCf. Propert. iv. 13 Muller. with which the wits would greet so great a revolution, and the sort of things they would say about gymnastics and culture, and most of all about the bearing of arms and the bestriding of horses.

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You’re right,

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he said.

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But since we have begun we must go forward to the rough part of our law,For a variation of this image cf. 568 D. after begging these fellows not to mind their own businessPlato plays on his own favorite phrase. The proper business of the wit is to raise a laugh. Cf. Symposium 189 B. but to be serious, and reminding them that it is not long since the Greeks thought it disgraceful and ridiculous, as most of the barbariansCf. Thucydides i. 6, Herodotus i. 10. Sikes in Anthropolgy and the Classics says this was borrowed from Thucydides, whom Wilamowitz says Plato never read. Cf. Dio Chrys. xiii. 226 M. For ἐξ οὗ cf. Demosthenes iv. 3, Isocrates v. 47. do now, for men to be seen naked. And when the practice of athletics began, first with the Cretans and then with the Lacedaemonians, it was open to the wits of that time to make fun of these practices, don’t you think so?

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I do.

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But when, I take it, experience showed that it is better to strip than to veil all things of this sort, then the laughter of the eyesLit. what (seemed) laughable to (in) the eyes. faded away before that which reason revealed to be best, and this made it plain that he talks idly who deems anything else ridiculous but evil, and who tries to raise a laugh by looking to any other pattern of absurdity than that of folly and wrong or sets up any other standard of the beautiful as a mark for his seriousness than the good.

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Most assuredly,

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said he.

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Then is not the first thing that we have to agree upon with regard to these proposals whether they are possible or not? And we must throw open the debateCf. 607 D δοῖμεν . . . λόγον. to anyone who wishes either in jest or earnest to raise the question whether female human nature is capable of sharing with the male all tasks or none at all, or some but not others,Plato as elsewhere asks whether it is true of all, some, or none. So of the commingling of ideas in Sophist 251 D. Aristotle (Politics 1260 b 38) employs the same would-be exhaustive method. and under which of these heads this business of war falls. Would not this be that best beginning which would naturally and proverbially lead to the best endἀρχόμενος . . . τελευτήσειν: an overlooked reference to a proverb also overlooked by commentators on Pindar, Pyth. i. 35. Cf. Pindar, fr. 108 A Loeb, Laws 775 E, Sophocles, fr. 831 (Pearson), Antiphon the Sophist, fr. 60 (Diels).?

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Far the best,

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he said.

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Shall we then conduct the debate with ourselves in behalf of those othersThis pleading the opponent’s case for him is common in Plato. Cf. especially the plea for Protagoras in Theaetetus 166-167. so that the case of the other side may not be taken defenceless and go by defaultApparently a mixture of military and legal phraseology. Cf. ἐκπέρσῃ in Protagoras 340 A, Iliad v. 140 τὰ δ’ ἐρῆμα φοβεῖται, and the legal phrase ἐρήμην καταδιαιτᾶν or οφλεῖν.?

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Nothing hinders,

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he said.

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Shall we say then in their behalf: There is no need, Socrates and Glaucon, of others disputing against you, for you yourselves at the beginning of the foundation of your city agreedὡμολογεῖτε: cf. 369 E f. For κατὰ φύσιν cf. 370 C and 456 C. The apparent emphasis of φύσις in this book is of little significance. Cf. Laws, passim. that each one ought to mind as his own business the one thing for which he was fitted by nature? We did so agree, I think; certainly! Can it be denied then that there is by nature a great difference between men and women? Surely there is. Is it not fitting, then, that a different function should be appointed for each corresponding to this difference of nature? Certainly. How, then, can you deny that you are mistaken and in contradiction with yourselves when you turn around and affirm that the men and the women ought to do the same thing, though their natures are so far apart? Can you surprise me with an answer to that question?

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Not easily on this sudden challenge,

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he replied:

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but I will and do beg you to lend your voice to the plea in our behalf, whatever it may be.

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These and many similar difficulties, Glaucon,

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said I,

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I foresaw and feared, and so shrank from touching on the law concerning the getting and breeding of women and children.

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It does not seem an easy thing, by heaven,

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he said,

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no, by heaven.

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No, it is not,

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said I;

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but the fact is that whether one tumbles into a little diving-pool or plump into the great sea he swims all the same.

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By all means.

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Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the seaCf. the πέλαγος τῶν λόγων Protagoras 338 A. Similarly Sidney Smith: cut his cable, and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into the wide sea of reasoning eloquence. of argument in the hope that either some dolphinAn allusion to the story of Arion and the dolphin in Herodotus i. 24, as ὑπολαβεῖν perhaps proves. For ἄπορον cf. 378 A. will take us on its back or some other desperate rescue.

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So it seems,

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he said.

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Come then, consider,

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said I,

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if we can find a way out. We did agree that different natures should have differing pursuits and that the nature of men and women differ. And yet now we affirm that these differing natures should have the same pursuits. That is the indictment.

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It is.

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What a grandγενναία: often as here ironical in Plato. Cf. Sophist 231 B, where interpreters misunderstand it. But the new L. and S. is correct. thing, Glaucon,

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said I,

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is the power of the art of contradictionἀντιλογικῆς: one of several designations for the eristic which Isocrates maliciously confounds with dialectic while Plato is careful to distinguish them. Cf. E. S. Thompson, The Meno of Plato , Excursus V., pp. 272 ff. and the introduction to E.H. Gifford’s Euthydemus, p. 42. Among the marks of eristic are the pusuit of merely verbal oppositions as here and Euthydemus 278 A, 301 B, Theaetetus 164 C; the neglect to distinguish and divide, Philebus 17 A, Phaedrus 265 E, 266 A, B; the failure to distinguish the hypothesis from its consequences, Phaedo 101 E, Parmenides 135-136.!

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Why so?

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Because,

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said I,

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many appear to me to fall into it even against their wills, and to suppose that they are not wrangling but arguing, owing to their inability to apply the proper divisions and distinctions to the subject under consideration. They pursue purely verbal oppositions, practising eristic, not dialectic on one another.

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Yes, this does happen to many,

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he said;

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but does this observation apply to us too at present?

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Absolutely,

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said I;

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at any rate I am afraid that we are unawaresἄκοντες is almost unconscious. Cf. Philebus 14 C. slipping into contentiousness.

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In what way?

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The principle that natures not the same ought not to share in the same pursuits we are following up most manfully and eristicallyGreek style often couples thus two adverbs, the second defining more specifically the first, and, as here and often in Plato and Aristophanes, with humorous or paradoxical effect. Cf. Aristophanes Knights 800 εὖ καὶ μιαρῶς. So Shakespeare well and chirurgeonly. in the literal and verbal sense but we did not delay to consider at all what particular kind of diversity and identityCf. Sophist 256 A-B for the relativity of same and other.Politicus 292 C describes in different language the correct method. of nature we had in mind and with reference to what we were trying to define it when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same.

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No, we didn’t consider that,

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he said.

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Wherefore, by the same token,

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I said,

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we might ask ourselves whether the natures of baldFor this humorously trivial illustration cf. Mill, Rep. Gov. chap. viii. p. 190: I have taken no account of difference of sex. I consider it to be as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height, or in the color of the hair; and Mill’s disciple Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, i. 291: We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men. and long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the long-haired to do so, or vice versa.

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That would be ridiculous,

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he said.

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Would it be so,

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said I,

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for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely to the kind of diversity and homogeneity that was pertinentCf. Laches 190 D εἰς ὃ τείνειν δοκεῖ, Protagoras 345 B. to the pursuits themselves?

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We meant, for example, that a man and a woman who have a physician’sAdam makes difficulties, but Cf. Laws 963 A νοῦν . . . κυβερνητικὸν μὲν καὶ ἰατρικὸν καὶ στρατηγικόν. The translation follows Hermann despite the objection that this reading forestalls the next sentence. Cf. Campbell ad loc. and Apelt, Woch. für klass. Phil ., 1903, p. 344. mind have the same nature. Don’t you think so?

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I do.

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But that a man physician and a man carpenter have different natures?

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Certainly, I suppose.

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Similarly, then,

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said I,

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if it appears that the male and the female sex have distinct qualifications for any arts or pursuits, we shall affirm that they ought to be assigned respectively to each. But if it appears that they differ only in just this respect that the female bears and the male begets, we shall say that no proof has yet been produced that the woman differs from the man for our purposes, but we shall continue to think that our guardians and their wives ought to follow the same pursuits.

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And rightly,

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said he.

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Then, is it not the next thing to bid our opponent tell us precisely for what art or pursuit concerned with the conduct of a state the woman’s nature differs from the man’s?

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That would be at any rate fair.

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Perhaps, then, someone else, too, might say what you were saying a while ago, that it is not easy to find a satisfactory answer on a sudden,Plato anticipates the objection that the Socratic dialectic surprises assent. Cf. more fully 487 B, and for a comic version Hippias Major 295 A if I could go off for a little by myself in solitude I would tell you the answer more precisely than precision itself. but that with time for reflection there is no difficulty.

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He might say that.

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Shall we, then, beg the raiser of such objections to follow us, if we may perhaps prove able to make it plain to him that there is no pursuit connected with the administration of a state that is peculiar to woman?

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By all means.

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Come then, we shall say to him, answer our question. Was this the basis of your distinction between the man naturally gifted for anything and the one not so gifted—that the one learned easily, the other with difficulty; that the one with slight instruction could discoverCf. Politicus 286 E, where this is said to be the object of teaching. much for himself in the matter studied, but the other, after much instruction and drill, could not even remember what he had learned; and that the bodily faculties of the one adequately servedCf. Protagoras 326 B, Republic 498 B, 410 C, Isocrates xv. 180, Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1. 28. his mind, while, for the other, the body was a hindrance? Were there any other points than these by which you distinguish the well endowed man in every subject and the poorly endowed?

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No one,

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said he,

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will be able to name any others.

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Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points?On the alleged superiority of men even in women’s occupations cf. the amusing diatribe of the old bachelor in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, chap. xxi.: I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all but what a man can do better than women, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor makeshift way, and the remarks on women as cooks of the bachelor Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 234. But Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 11 takes the ordinary view. On the character of women generally Cf. Laws 781 and Aristotle in Zeller trans. ii. 215. Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter?

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You are right,

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he said,

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that the one sexCf. Cratylus 392 C ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος. is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say.

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Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— yet for all the woman is weaker than the man.

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Assuredly.

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Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women?

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How could we?

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We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical?

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Surely.

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Can we, then, deny that one woman is naturally athletic and warlike and another unwarlike and averse to gymnastics?

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I think not.

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And again, one a lover, another a hater, of wisdom? And one high-spirited, and the other lacking spirit?

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That also is true.

5.456

Then it is likewise true that one woman has the qualities of a guardian and another not. Were not these the natural qualities of the men also whom we selected for guardians?

5.456

They were.

5.456

The women and the men, then, have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save in so far as the one is weaker, the other stronger.

5.456

Apparently.

5.456

Women of this kind, then, must be selected to cohabit with men of this kind and to serve with them as guardians since they are capable of it and akin by nature.

5.456

By all means.

5.456

And to the same natures must we not assign the same pursuits?

5.456

The same.

5.456

We come round,Cf. Gorgias 517 C. then, to our previous statement, and agree that it does not run counter to nature to assign music and gymnastics to the wives of the guardians.

5.456

By all means.

5.456

Our legislation, then, was not impracticable or utopian,Cf. on 450 D. since the law we proposed accorded with nature. Rather, the other way of doing things, prevalent today, proves, as it seems, unnatural.

5.456

Apparently.

5.456

The object of our inquiry was the possibility and the desirabilityCf. Introduction p. xvii. of what we were proposing.

5.456

It was.

5.456

That it is possible has been admitted.

5.456

Yes.

5.456

The next point to be agreed upon is that it is the best way.

5.456

Obviously.

5.456

For the production of a guardian, then, education will not be one thing for our men and another for our women, especially since the nature which we hand over to it is the same.

5.456

There will be no difference.

5.456

How are you minded, now, in this matter?

5.456

In what?

5.456

In the matter of supposing some men to be better and some worse,This is only a more complicated case of the point of style noted on 349 D. Cf. Cratylus 386 A, Sophist 247 A. or do you think them all alike?

5.456

By no means.

5.456

In the city, then, that we are founding, which do you think will prove the better men, the guardians receiving the education which we have described or the cobblers educated by the art of cobblingCf. on 421 A. We should not press this incidental phrase to prove that Plato would not educate all the citizens, as he in fact does in the Laws and by implication in the Politicus.?

5.456

An absurd question,

5.456

he said.

5.456

I understand,

5.456

said I;

5.456

and are not these the best of all the citizens?

5.456

By far.

5.456

And will not these women be the best of all the women?

5.456

They, too, by far.

5.456

Is there anything better for a state than the generation in it of the best possible womenCf. Morley, Voltaire, p. 103: It has been rather the fashion to laugh at the Marquise de Châtelet, for no better reason than that she, being a woman, studied Newton. . . . There is probably nothing which would lead to so rapid and marked an improvement in the world as a large increase of the number of women in it with the will and the capacity to master Newton as thoroughly as she did. and men?

5.456

There is not.

5.457

And this, music and gymnastics applied as we described will effect.

5.457

Surely.

5.457

Then the institution we proposed is not only possible but the best for the state.

5.457

That is so.

5.457

The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will be clothed with virtue as a garment,Cf. Rousseau, Lettre à d’Alembert, Couvertes de l’honnêteté publique. and must take their part with the men in war and the other duties of civic guardianship and have no other occupation. But in these very duties lighter tasks must be assigned to the women than to the men because of their weakness as a class. But the man who ridicules unclad women, exercising because it is best that they should, plucks the unripeCf. Pindar, fr. 209 Schroeder, ἀτελῆ σοφίας καρπὸν δρέπειν. Plato varies the quotation to suit his purpose. fruit of laughter and does not know, it appears, the end of his laughter nor what he would be at. For the fairest thing that is said or ever will be said is this, that the helpful is fairThis is one of the chief texts for the alleged utilitarianism of Plato, a question too complicated to be settled by anything less than a comparative study of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Philebus, Republic (IX) and Laws. ὠφέλιμον suggests benefit rather than utility. Cf. Introduction to second volume of this translation, and on 339 A-B. and the harmful foul.

5.457

Assuredly.

5.457

In this matter, then, of the regulation of women, we may say that we have surmounted one of the waves of our paradox and have not been quite sweptCf. Aeschylus Septem, in fine. away by it in ordaining that our guardians and female guardians must have all pursuits in common, but that in some sort the argument concurs with itself in the assurance that what it proposes is both possible and beneficial.

5.457

It is no slight wave that you are thus escaping.

5.457

You will not think it a greatFor this form of exaggeration Cf. on 414 C, 339 B. one,

5.457

I said,

5.457

when you have seen the one that follows.

5.457

Say on then and show me,

5.457

said he.

5.457

This,

5.457

said I,

5.457

and all that precedes has for its sequel, in my opinion, the following law.

5.457

What?

5.457

That these women shall all be commonOn the whole topic cf. Introduction p. xxxiv, Lucian, Fugitivi 18 οὐκ εἰδότες ὅπως ὁ ἱερὸς ἐκεῖνος ἠξίου κοινὰς ἡγεῖσθαι τὰς γυναῖκας, Epictetus fr. 53, p. 21, Rousseau, Emile, v: je ne parle point de cette prétendue communauté de femmes dont le reproche tant répété prouve que ceux qui le lui font ne l’ont jamais lu. But Rousseau dissents violently from what he calls cette promiscuité civile qui confond partout les deux sexes dans les mêmes emplois. Cf. further the denunciations of the Christian fathers passim, who are outdone by De Quincey’s Otaheitian carnival of licentious appetite, connected with a contempt of human life which is excessive even for paganism. Most of the obvious parallels between Plato and Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae follow as a matter of course from the very notion of communal marriage and supply no evidence for the dating of a supposed earlier edition of the whole or a part of the Republic. In any case the ideas of the Republic might have come to Aristophanes in conversation before publication; and the Greeks knew enough of the facts collected in such books as Westermarck’s Marriage, not to be taken altogether by surprise by Plato’s speculations. Cf. Herodotus iv. 104, and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 20. Cf. further Adam’s exhaustive discussion in the appendix to this book, Grube, The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic, Classical Quarterly, 1927, pp. 95 ff., Teichmüller, Literarische Fehden, i. p. 19 n., and the more recent literature collected in Praechter-Ueberweg, 12th ed. i. p. 207, Pöhlmann, Geschichte der Sozialenfrage und des Sozialsmus in der antiken Welt, ii. p. 578, Pohlenz, Aus Platon’s Werdezeit, pp. 225-228, C. Robert, Hermes lvii. pp. 351 ff. to all the men, and that none shall cohabit with any privately; and that the children shall be common, and that no parent shall know its own offspring nor any child its parent.

5.457

This is a far bigger paradox than the other, and provokes more distrust as to its possibility and its utility.A distinct suggestion of the topics of the useful and the possible in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.

5.457

I presume,

5.457

said I,

5.457

that there would be no debate about its utility, no denial that the community of women and children would be the greatest good, supposing it possible. But I take it that its possibility or the contrary would be the chief topic of contention.

5.457

Both,

5.457

he said,

5.457

would be right sharply debated.

5.457

You mean,

5.457

said I,

5.457

that I have to meet a coalition of arguments. But I expected to escape from one of them, and that if you agreed that the thing was beneficial, it would remain for me to speak only of its feasibility.

5.457

You have not escaped detection,

5.457

he said,

5.457

in your attempted flight, but you must render an account of both.

5.458

I must pay the penalty,

5.458

I said,

5.458

yet do me this much grace: Permit me to take a holiday, just as men of lazy minds are wont to feast themselves on their own thoughts when they walk alone.Cf. Isocrates ii. 47, on those who in solitude do not deliberate but imagine what they wish, and Chesterton’s saying, All feeble spirits live in the future, because it is a soft job; cf. further on day-dreams, Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. p. 71, and Lucian’s Πλοῖον ἢ εὐχαί. Plato’s description anticipates the most recent psychology in everything except the term autistic thinking. Such persons, without waiting to discover how their desires may be realized, dismiss that topic to save themselves the labor of deliberating about possibilities and impossibilities, assume their wish fulfilled, and proceed to work out the details in imagination, and take pleasure in portraying what they will do when it is realized, thus making still more idle a mind that is idle without that.ἄλλως: Cf. 495 B. I too now succumb to this weaknessCf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Clouds 727. and desire to postponeCf. Herodotus ix. 8. He returns to the postponed topic in 466 D, but again digresses and does not take it up definitely till 471 C or rather 473 C-D. The reason is that the third wave of paradox is also the condition of the possibility of realization. Cf. Introduction p. xvii. and examine later the question of feasibility, but will at present assume that, and will, with your permission, inquire how the rulers will work out the details in practice, and try to show that nothing could be more beneficial to the state and its guardians than the effective operation of our plan. This is what I would try to consider first together with you, and thereafter the other topic, if you allow it.

5.458

I do allow it,

5.458

he said:

5.458

proceed with the inquiry.

5.458

I think, then,

5.458

said I,

5.458

that the rulers, if they are to deserve that name, and their helpers likewise, will, the one, be willing to accept orders,Cf. on 340 A-B. and the other, to give them, in some things obeying our laws, and imitatingThat is to say, they are to imitate or conform to our principles in the details which we leave to them. So in the Laws, 770 B, 846 C, 876 E, and the secondary divinities in the Timaeus, 69 C. Cf. Politicus 301 A, and Aristotle Politics 1261 b 2 μιμεῖται. them in others which we leave to their discretion.

5.458

Presumably.

5.458

You, then, the lawgiver,

5.458

I said,

5.458

have picked these men and similarly will select to give over to them women as nearly as possible of the same nature.Cf. 456 B. Plato has already explained that he means of like nature in respect to capacity for government. There is no contradiction of the doctrine of the Politicus, 310 A (Cf. Laws 773 A-B) that the mating should blend opposite temperaments. Those elements are already mixed in the selection of the guardians. Cf. 375 B-C, 410 D-E and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 62, n. 481. And they, having houses and meals in common, and no private possessions of that kind, will dwell together, and being commingled in gymnastics and in all their life and education, will be conducted by innate necessity to sexual union. Is not what I say a necessary consequence?

5.458

Not by the necessities of geometry,

5.458

he said,

5.458

but by those of love,The phrase is imitated by Plutarch, Adv. Col. 1122 D φυσικαῖς, οὐ γεωμετρικαῖς ἑλκόμενος ἀνάγκαις. which are perhaps keener and more potent than the other to persuade and constrain the multitude.

5.458

They are, indeed,

5.458

I said;

5.458

but next, Glaucon, disorder and promiscuity in these unions or in anything else they do would be an unhallowed thing in a happy state and the rulers will not suffer it.

5.458

It would not be right,

5.458

he said.

5.458

Obviously, then, we must arrange marriages, sacramental so far as may be. And the most sacred marriages would be those that were most beneficial.

5.459

By all means.

5.459

How, then, would the greatest benefit result? Tell me this, Glaucon. I see that you have in your house hunting-dogs and a number of pedigree cocks.Cf. Laws 789 B-C. Have you ever considered something about their unions and procreations?

5.459

What?

5.459

2

5.459

he said.

5.459

In the first place,

5.459

I said,

5.459

among these themselves, although they are a select breed, do not some prove better than the rest?

5.459

They do.

5.459

Do you then breed from all indiscriminately, or are you careful to breed from the bestThis commonplace of stirpiculture or eugenics, as it is now called, begins with Theognis 184, and has thus far got no further.?

5.459

From the best.

5.459

And, again, do you breed from the youngest or the oldest, or, so far as may be, from those in their prime?

5.459

From those in their prime.

5.459

And if they are not thus bred, you expect, do you not, that your birds and hounds will greatly degenerate?

5.459

I do,

5.459

he said.

5.459

And what of horses and other animals?

5.459

I said;

5.459

is it otherwise with them?

5.459

It would be strange if it were,

5.459

said he.

5.459

Gracious,

5.459

said I,

5.459

dear friend, how imperative, then, is our need of the highest skill in our rulers, if the principle holds also for mankind.

5.459

Well, it does,

5.459

he said,

5.459

but what of it?

5.459

This,

5.459

said I,

5.459

that they will have to employ many of those drugsA recurrence to the metaphor of 389 B, as we are reminded below in D. of which we were speaking. We thought that an inferior physician sufficed for bodies that do not need drugs but yield to diet and regimen. But when it is necessary to prescribe drugs we know that a more enterprising and venturesome physician is required.

5.459

True; but what is the pertinency?

5.459

This,

5.459

said I:

5.459

it seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefitCf. 389 B, 414 C, and Laws 663 D ἐπ’ ἀγαθῷ ψεύδεσθαι of their subjects. We said, I believe, that the use of that sort of thing was in the category of medicine.

5.459

And that was right,

5.459

he said.

5.459

In our marriages, then, and the procreation of children, it seems there will be no slight need of this kind of right.

5.459

How so?

5.459

It follows from our former admissions,

5.459

I said,

5.459

that the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flockCf. on 343 A-B and Politicus 267 B-C, 268 B. αὖ below merely marks the second consideration, harmony, the first being eugenics. is to be as perfect as possible. And the way in which all this is brought to pass must be unknown to any but the rulers, if, again, the herd of guardians is to be as free as possible from dissension.

5.459

Most true,

5.459

he said.

5.460

We shall, then, have to ordain certain festivals and sacrifices, in which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and our poets must compose hymns suitable to the marriages that then take place. But the number of the marriages we will leave to the discretion of the rulers, that they may keep the number of the citizens as nearly as may be the same,Plato apparently forgets that this legislation applies only to the guardians. The statement that ancient civilization was free from the shadow of Malthusianism requires qualification by this and many other passages. Cf. 372 C and Laws 740 D-E. The ancients in fact took it for granted. taking into account wars and diseases and all such considerations, and that, so far as possible, our city may not grow too great or too small.

5.460

Right,

5.460

he said.

5.460

Certain ingenious lots, then, I suppose, must be devised so that the inferior man at each conjugation may blame chance and not the rulers.

5.460

Yes, indeed,

5.460

he said.

5.460

And on the young men, surely, who excel in war and other pursuits we must bestow honors and prizes, and, in particular, the opportunity of more frequent intercourse with the women, which will at the same time be a plausible pretext for having them beget as many of the children as possible.

5.460

Right.

5.460

And the children thus born will be taken over by the officials appointed for this, men or women or both, since, I take it, the official posts too are common to women and men. The offspring of the good, I suppose, they will take to the pen or créche, to certain nurses who live apart in a quarter of the city, but the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret,Opinions differ whether this is euphemism for exposure. On the frequency or infrequency of this practice cf. Professor La Rue Van Hook’s article in T.A.P.A. vol. li, and that of H. Bolkestein, Class. Phil. vol. xvii. (1922) pp. 222-239. so that no one will know what has become of them.

5.460

That is the condition,

5.460

he said,

5.460

of preserving the purity of the guardians’ breed.

5.460

They will also supervise the nursing of the children, conducting the mothers to the pen when their breasts are full, but employing every deviceCf. on 414 B and Aristotle Politics 1262 a 14 ff. to prevent anyone from recognizing her own infant. And they will provide others who have milk if the mothers are insufficient. But they will take care that the mothers themselves shall not suckle too long, and the trouble of wakeful nights and similar burdens they will devolve upon the nurses, wet and dry.

5.460

You are making maternity a soft jobAnother favorite idea and expression. Cf. Gorgias 459 C, Laws 648 C, 713 D, 720 C, 779 A, 903 E, Isocrates iv. 36, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 13. 5. for the women of the guardians.

5.460

It ought to be,

5.460

said I,

5.460

but let us pursue our design. We said that the offspring should come from parents in their prime.

5.460

True.

5.460

Do you agree that the period of the prime may be fairly estimated at twenty years for a woman and thirty for a man?

5.460

How do you reckon it?

5.460

5

5.460

he said.

5.460

The women,

5.460

I said,

5.460

beginning at the age of twenty, shall bear for the stateHalf humorous legal language. Cf. Aristotle Politics 1335 b 28 λειτουργεῖν . . . πρὸς τεκνοποιίαν, and Lucan’s urbi pater est, urbique maritus (Phars. ii. 388). The dates for marriage are given a little differently in the Laws, 785 B, 833 C-D, men 30-35, women 16-20. On the whole question and Aristotle’s opinion cf. Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 183; cf. also Grube, Class. Quarterly 1927, pp. 95 ff., The Marriage Laws in Plato’s Republic. to the age of forty, and the man shall beget for the state from the time he passes his prime in swiftness in running to the age of fifty-five.

5.461

That is,

5.461

he said,

5.461

the maturity and prime for both of body and mind.

5.461

Then, if anyone older or younger than the prescribed age meddles with procreation for the state, we shall say that his error is an impiety and an injustice, since he is begetting for the city a child whose birth, if it escapes discovery, will not be attended by the sacrifices and the prayers which the priests and priestesses and the entire city prefer at the ceremonial marriages, that ever better offspring may spring from good siresCf. Horace, Odes iv. 4. 29. and from fathers helpful to the state sons more helpful still. But this child will be born in darkness and conceived in foul incontinence.

5.461

Right,

5.461

he said.

5.461

And the same rule will apply,

5.461

I said,

5.461

if any of those still within the age of procreation goes in to a woman of that age with whom the ruler has not paired him. We shall say that he is imposing on the state a base-born, uncertified, and unhallowed child.

5.461

Most rightly,

5.461

he said.

5.461

But when, I take it, the men and the women have passed the age of lawful procreation, we shall leave the men free to form such relations with whomsoever they please, exceptCf. Laws 838 A and 924 E. daughter and mother and their direct descendants and ascendants, and likewise the women, save with son and father, and so on, first admonishing them preferably not even to bring to lightCf. Newman, op. cit. p. 187. anything whatever thus conceived, but if they are unable to prevent a birth to dispose of it on the understanding that we cannot rear such an offspring.

5.461

All that sounds reasonable,

5.461

he said;

5.461

but how are they to distinguish one another’s fathers and daughters, and the other degrees of kin that you have just mentioned?

5.461

They won’t,

5.461

said I,

5.461

except that a man will call all male offspring born in the tenth and in the seventh month after he became a bridegroom his sons, and all female, daughters, and they will call him father.Cf. Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology, p. 89: A native of Hawaii, for example, calls by the name of father . . . every man of an age such that he could be his father. Cf. Aristophanes Eccles. 636-637. And, similarly, he will call their offspring his grandchildrenCf. 363 D and Laws 899 E, 927 B. and they will call his group grandfathers and grandmothers. And all children born in the period in which their fathers and mothers were procreating will regard one another as brothers and sisters. This will suffice for the prohibitions of intercourse of which we just now spoke. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to cohabit if the lot so falls out and the Delphic oracle approves.

5.461

Quite right,

5.461

said he.

5.461

This, then, Glaucon, is the manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the next point that we must get confirmed by the argument. Is not that so?

5.462

It is, indeed,

5.462

he said.

5.462

Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprintsWe may perhaps infer from the more explicit reference in Theaetetus 193 C that Plato is thinking of the recognition by footprints in Aeschylus Choeph.205-210. of the good and do not suit those of the evil?

5.462

By all means,

5.462

he said.

5.462

Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that distracts it and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?

5.462

We do not.

5.462

Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths?

5.462

By all means,

5.462

he said.

5.462

But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings to the city and its inhabitants?

5.462

Of course.

5.462

And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as mine and not mine, and similarly with regard to the word alien?

5.462

2

5.462

Precisely so.

5.462

That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression mine and not mine of the same things in the same way.

5.462

Much the best.

5.462

And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.Cf. Laws 829 A. For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for integrationI so translate to bring out the analogy between Plato and e.g. Sherrington. For to the soul Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 328, Laws 673 A, Timaeus 45 D, 584 C, Philebus 33, 34, 43 B-C. Poschenrieder, Die Platonischen Dialoge in ihrem Verhältnisse zu den Hippocratischen Schriften, p. 67, compares the De locis in homine, vi. p. 278 Littré. with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure.

5.462

The same,

5.462

he said,

5.462

and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.

5.462

That is the kind of a state, then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole.

5.462

Inevitably,

5.462

he said,

5.462

if it is well governed.

5.462

It is time,

5.462

I said,

5.462

to return to our city and observe whether it, rather than any other, embodies the qualities agreed upon in our argument.For these further confirmations of an established thesis cf. on 442-443.

5.462

We must,

5.462

he said.

5.463

Well, then, there are to be found in other cities rulers and the people as in it, are there not?

5.463

There are.

5.463

Will not all these address one another as fellow-citizens?

5.463

Of course.

5.463

But in addition to citizens, what does the people in other states call its rulers.

5.463

In most cities, masters. In democratic cities, just this, rulers.

5.463

But what of the people in our city. In addition to citizens, what do they call their rulers?

5.463

Saviors and helpers,

5.463

he said.

5.463

And what term do these apply to the people?

5.463

Payers of their wage and supporters.

5.463

And how do the rulers in other states denominate the populace?

5.463

Slaves,

5.463

he said.

5.463

And how do the rulers describe one another?

5.463

Co-rulers,

5.463

he said.

5.463

And ours?

5.463

Co-guardians.

5.463

Can you tell me whether any of the rulers in other states would speak of some of their co-rulers as belonging and others as outsiders?

5.463

Yes, many would.

5.463

And such a one thinks and speaks of the one that belongs as his own, doesn’t he, and of the outsider as not his own?

5.463

That is so.

5.463

But what of your guardians. Could any of them think or speak of his co-guardian as an outsider?

5.463

By no means,

5.463

he said;

5.463

for no matter whom he meets, he will feel that he is meeting a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or the offspring or forebears of these.

5.463

Excellent,

5.463

said I;

5.463

but tell me this further, will it be merely the namesτὰ ὀνόματα μόνον may be thought to anticipate Aristotle’s objections. of this kinship that you have prescribed for them or must all their actions conform to the names in all customary observance toward fathers and in awe and care and obedience for parents, if they look for the favorCf. 554 D ὅτι οὐκ ἄμεινον. of either gods or men, since any other behaviour would be neither just nor pious? Shall these be the unanimous oracular voices that they hear from all the people, or shall some other kind of teaching besetCf. the reliance on a unanimous public opinion in the Laws, 838 C-D. the ears of your children from their birth, both concerningπερὶ . . . περί: for the preposition repeated in a different sense cf. Isocrates iv. 34, ix, 3, and Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. i. As here by Caesar and by you cut off. what is due to those who are pointed out as their fathers and to their other kin?

5.463

These,

5.463

he said;

5.463

for it would be absurd for them merely to pronounce with their lips the names of kinship without the deeds.

5.463

Then, in this city more than in any other, when one citizen fares well or ill, men will pronounce in unison the word of which we spoke: It is mine that does well; it is mine that does ill.

5.463

That is most true,

5.463

he said.

5.464

And did we not say that this conviction and way of speechδόγματός τε καὶ ῥήματος: Cf. Sophist 265 C, Laws 797 C. brings with it a community in pleasures and pains?

5.464

And rightly, too.

5.464

Then these citizens, above all others, will have one and the same thing in common which they will name mine, and by virtue of this communion they will have their pleasures and pains in common.

5.464

Quite so.

5.464

And is not the cause of this, besides the general constitution of the state, the community of wives and children among the guardians?

5.464

It will certainly be the chief cause,

5.464

he said.

5.464

But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.

5.464

And we were right in so agreeing.

5.464

Then it is the greatest blessing for a state of which the community of women and children among the helpers has been shown to be the cause.

5.464

Quite so,

5.464

he said.

5.464

And this is consistent with what we said before. For we said,Cf. 416-417. I believe, that these helpers must not possess houses of their own or land or any other property, but that they should receive from the other citizens for their support the wage of their guardianship and all spend it in common. That was the condition of their being true guardians.

5.464

Right,

5.464

he said.

5.464

Is it not true, then, as I am trying to say, that those former and these present prescriptions tend to make them still more truly guardians and prevent them from distracting the city by referring mine not to the same but to different things, one man dragging off to his own house anything he is able to acquire apart from the rest, and another doing the same to his own separate house, and having women and children apart, thus introducing into the state the pleasures and pains of individuals? They should all rather, we said, share one conviction about their own, tend to one goal, and so far as practicable have one experience of pleasure and pain.

5.464

By all means,

5.464

he said.

5.464

Then will not law-suits and accusations against one another vanish,For a similar list Cf. Laws 842 D. Aristotle, Politics 1263 b 20 f., objects that it is not lack of unity but wickedness that causes these evils. one may say,Softens the strong word οἰχήσεται. from among them, because they have nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common? So that we can count on their being free from the dissensions that arise among men from the possession of property, children, and kin.

5.464

They will necessarily be quit of these,

5.464

he said.

5.464

And again, there could not rightly arise among them any law-suit for assault or bodily injury. For as between age-fellowsCf. A.J.P. vol. xiii. p. 364, Aeschines iii. 255, Xenophon Rep. Lac. 4. 5, Laws 880 A. we shall say that self-defence is honorable and just, thereby compelling them to keep their bodies in condition.

5.464

Right,

5.464

he said.

5.465

And there will be the further advantage in such a law that an angry man, satisfying his anger in such wise, would be less likely to carry the quarrel to further extremes.

5.465

Assuredly.

5.465

As for an older man, he will always have the charge of ruling and chastising the younger.

5.465

Obviously.

5.465

Again, it is plain that the young man, except by command of the rulers, will probably not do violence to an elder or strike him, or, I take it, dishonor him in any other way. Two guardians sufficient to prevent that there are, fear and awe, awe restraining him from laying hands on one who may be his parent, and fear in that the others will rush to the aid of the sufferer, some as sons, some as brothers, some as fathers.

5.465

That is the way it works out,

5.465

he said.

5.465

Then in all cases the laws will leave these men to dwell in peace together.

5.465

Great peace.

5.465

And if these are free from dissensions among themselves, there is no fear thatOne of the profoundest of Plato’s political aphorisms. Cf. on 545 D, Laws 683 E, and Aristotle Politics 1305 a 39. the rest of the city will ever start faction against them or with one another.

5.465

No, there is not.

5.465

But I hesitate, so unseemlyAlma sdegnosa. Cf. 371 E, 396 B, 397 D, 525 D. are they, even to mention the pettiest troubles of which they would be rid, the flatteringsCf. Aristotle Politics 1263 b 22. of the rich, the embarrassments and pains of the poor in the bringing-up of their children and the procuring of money for the necessities of life for their households, the borrowings, the repudiations, all the devices with which they acquire what they deposit with wives and servitors to husband,Cf. 416 D, 548 A, 550 D. and all the indignities that they endure in such matters, which are obvious and ignoble and not deserving of mention.

5.465

Even a blindProverbial. Cf. Sophist 241 D. man can see these,

5.465

he said.

5.465

From all these, then, they will be finally free, and they will live a happier life than that men count most happy, the life of the victors at Olympia.Cf. 540B-C, 621D, Laws 715C, 807C, 840A, 946-947, 964C, Cicero Pro Flacco 31 Olympionicen esse apud Graecos prope maius et gloriosius est quam Romae trimphasse. The motive is anticipated or parodied by Dracontion, Athenaeus 237 D, where the parasite boasts—γέρα γὰρ αὐτοῖς ταῦτα τοῖς τἀλύμπιανικῶσι δέδοται χρηστότητος οὕνεκα.

5.465

How so?

5.465

The things for which those are felicitated are a small part of what is secured for these. Their victory is fairer and their public support more complete. For the prize of victory that they win is the salvation of the entire state, the fillet that binds their brows is the public support of themselves and their children— they receive honor from the city while they live and when they die a worthy burial.

5.465

A fair guerdon, indeed,

5.465

he said.

5.466

Do you recall,

5.466

said I,

5.466

that in the precedingCf. 419 E-20. argument the objection of somebody or other rebuked us for not making our guardians happy, since, though it was in their power to have everything of the citizens, they had nothing, and we, I believe, replied that this was a consideration to which we would return if occasion offered, but that at present we were making our guardians guardians and the city as a whole as happy as possible, and that we were not modellingCf. 420 C. Omitting τό, translate that we were not fixing our eyes on any one class, and portraying that as happy. our ideal of happiness with reference to any one class?

5.466

I do remember,

5.466

he said.

5.466

Well then, since now the life of our helpersἐπικούρων: the word here includes the rulers. has been shown to be fairer and better than that of the victors at Olympia, need we compareκατά, comparable to, on a level with. Cf. Apology 17 B, Gorgias 512 B. it with the life of cobblers and other craftsmen and farmers?

5.466

I think not,

5.466

he said.

5.466

But further, we may fairly repeat what I was saying then also, that if the guardian shall strive for a kind of happiness that will unmake μηδέ: cf. 420 D. him as a guardian and shall not be content with the way of life that is moderate and secure and, as we affirm, the best, but if some senseless and childish opinion about happiness shall beset him and impel him to use his power to appropriate everything in the city for himself, then he will find out that HesiodHes. WD 40. So Plat. Laws 690 E. was indeed wise, who said that the half was in some sort more than the whole. Hes. WD 40

5.466

If he accepts my counsel,

5.466

he said,

5.466

he will abide in this way of life.

5.466

You accept, then, as we have described it, this partnership of the women with our men in the matter of education and children and the guardianship of the other citizens, and you admit that both within the city and when they go forth to war they ought to keep guard together and hunt together as it were like hounds, and have all things in every way, so far as possible, in common, and that so doing they will do what is for the best and nothing that is contrary to female human natureτήν: this order is frequent and sometimes significant in the Laws. Cf. 690 C, 720 E, 814 E, 853 A, 857 D, 923 B. in comparison with male or to their natural fellowship with one another.

5.466

I do admit it,

5.466

he said.

5.466

Then,

5.466

I said,

5.466

is not the thing that it remains to determine this, whether, namely, it is possible for such a community to be brought about among men as it is in the other animals,Cf. on 451 D. The community in this case, of course, refers only to occupations. and in what way it is possible?

5.466

You have anticipated,

5.466

he said,

5.466

the point I was about to raise.

5.466

Forμὲν γάρ: forced transition to a delaying digression. as for their wars,

5.466

I said,

5.466

the manner in which they will conduct them is too obvious for discussion.

5.466

How so,

5.466

said he.

5.466

It is obvious that they will march out together,So with modifications Laws 785 B, 794 C-D, 804 D-E, 806 A-B, 813-814, 829 E. and, what is more, will conduct their children to war when they are sturdy, in order that, like the children of other craftsmen,For this practice of Greek artists see Klein, Praxiteles, Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Politics p. 352, Pater, The Renaissance 104, Protagoras 328 A, Laws 643 B-C, Protagoras frag. 3 (Diels), Aristotle Politics 1336 b 36, Iambl. Protrept. xx., Polyb. vi. 2. 16, iii. 71. 6 καὶ παιδομαθῆ περὶ τὰ πολεμικά, Aristides x. 72 who quoted Plato; Antidotus, Athenaeus, 240 B, where the parasite boasts that he was a παιδομαθής in his art, and Sosipater, Athenaeus 377 F, where the cook makes the same boast, Phocyl. frag. 13, (Edmonds, Elegy and IambusI., L.C.L.), Henry Arthur Jones, Patriotism and popular Education, Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 361. Greek language and satire contrasted such παιδομαθεῖς with the ὀψιμαθεῖς or late learners. they may observe the processes of which they must be masters in their maturity;

5.467

and in addition to looking on they must assist and minister in all the business of war and serve their fathers and mothers. Or have you never noticed the practice in the arts, how for example the sons of potters look on as helpers a long time before they put their hands to the clay?

5.467

They do, indeed.

5.467

Should these then be more concerned than our guardians to train the children by observation and experience of what is to be their proper business?

5.467

That would be ridiculous,

5.467

he said.

5.467

But, further, when it comes to fighting, every creature will do better in the presence of its offspring?

5.467

That is so, but the risk, Socrates, is not slight, in the event of disasters such as may happen in war, that, losing their children as well as themselves, they make it impossible for the remnant of the state to recover.

5.467

What you say is true,

5.467

I replied;

5.467

but, in the first place, is it your idea that the one thing for which we must provide is the avoidance of all danger?

5.467

By no means.

5.467

And, if they are to take chances, should it not be for something success in which will make them better?

5.467

Clearly.

5.467

Do you think it makes a slight difference and not worth some risk whether men who are to be warriors do or do not observe war as boys?

5.467

No, it makes a great difference for the purpose of which you speak.

5.467

Starting, then, from this assumption that we are to make the boys spectators of war, we must further contriveπροσμηχανᾶσθαι: Cf. on 414 B. security for them and all will be well, will it not?

5.467

Yes.

5.467

To begin with, then,

5.467

said I,

5.467

will not the fathers be, humanly speaking, not ignorant of war and shrewd judges of which campaigns are hazardous and which not?

5.467

Presumably,

5.467

he said.

5.467

They will take the boys with them to the one and avoid the others?

5.467

Rightly.

5.467

And for officers, I presume,

5.467

said I,

5.467

they will put in charge of them not those who are good for nothing else but men who by age and experience are qualified to serve at once as leaders and as caretakers of children.

5.467

Yes, that would be the proper way.

5.467

Still, we may object, it is the unexpectedπαρὰ δόξαν: cf. Thucydides i. 122 ἥκιστα ὁ πόλεμος ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς χωρεῖ, ii. 11, iii. 30, iv. 102, vii. 61. that happens to many in many cases.

5.467

Yes, indeed.

5.467

To provide against such chances, then, we must wingπτεροῦν: metaphorical. In Aristophanes Birds 1436-1438 literal. the children from the start so that if need arises they may fly away and escape.

5.467

What do you mean?

5.467

he said.

5.467

We must mount them when very young,

5.467

said I,

5.467

and first have them taught to ride, and then conduct them to the scene of war, not on mettlesome war-steeds, but on the swiftest and gentlest horses possible; for thus they will have the best view of their own future business and also, if need arises, will most securely escape to safety in the train of elder guides.

5.467

I think you are right,

5.467

he said.

5.468

But now what of the conduct of war? What should be the attitude of the soldiers to one another and the enemy? Am I right in my notions or not?

5.468

Tell me what notions,

5.468

he said.

5.468

Anyone of them who deserts his post, or flings away his weapons,The terms are technical. Cf. Laws 943 D ff., Lipsius, Das attische Recht (1908), ii. pp. 452 ff. or is guilty of any similar act of cowardice, should be reduced to the artisan or farmer class, should he not?

5.468

By all means.

5.468

And anyone who is taken alive by the enemyεἰς τοὺς πολεμίους: technical. Cf. inscription in Bulletin de corr. hellénique, xii. p. 224, n. 1 τῶν ἁλόντων εἰς τοὺς πολεμίους. we will make a present of to his captors, shall we not, to deal with their catchἄγρᾳ: the word is chosen to give a touch of Spartan, or, as we should say, Roman severity. Cf. Sophist 235 C, Aeschylus Eumenides 148, Horace, Odes, iii. 5. 33 ff. Plutarch, De aud. poet. 30, says that in Homer no Greeks are taken prisoners, only Trojans. as they please?

5.468

Quite so.

5.468

And don’t you agree that the one who wins the prize of valor and distinguishes himself shall first be crowned by his fellows in the campaign, by the lads and boys each in turn?

5.468

I do.

5.468

And be greeted with the right hand?

5.468

That, too.

5.468

But I presume you wouldn’t go as far as this?

5.468

What?

5.468

That he should kiss and be kissed by everyoneThe deplorable facetiousness of the following recalls the vulgarity of Xenophon’s guard-house conversations. It is almost the only passage in Plato that one would wish to blot. Helvetius, otherwise anything but a Platonist, characteristically adopts it, Lange, History of Materialism, ii. p. 86.?

5.468

By all means,

5.468

he said,

5.468

and I add to the law the provision that during that campaign none whom he wishes to kiss be allowed to refuse, so that if one is in love with anyone, male or female, he may be the more eager to win the prize.

5.468

Excellent,

5.468

said I,

5.468

and we have already said that the opportunity of marriage will be more readily provided for the good man, and that he will be more frequently selected than the others for participation in that sort of thing, in order that as many children as possible may be born from such stock.

5.468

We have,

5.468

he replied.

5.468

But, furthermore, we may cite HomerHom. Il. 7.321-322. Cf. also viii. 162, xii. 311. too for the justice of honoring in such ways the valiant among our youth. For Homer says that Ajax, who had distinguished himself in the war, was honored with the long chine,I.e, the back. Hom. Il. 7.321-322. assuming that the most fitting meed for a brave man in the prime of his youth is that from which both honor and strength will accrue to him.

5.468

Most rightly,

5.468

he said.

5.468

We will then,

5.468

said I,

5.468

take Homer as our guide in this at least. We, too, at sacrifices and on other like occasions, will reward the good so far as they have proved themselves good with hymns and the other privileges of which we have just spoken, and also with seats of honor and meat and full cups Hom. Il. 8.162, so as to combine physical training with honor for the good, both men and women.

5.468

Nothing could be better,

5.468

he said.

5.468

Very well; and of those who die on campaign, if anyone’s death has been especially glorious, shall we not, to begin with, affirm that he belongs to the golden race?

5.468

7

5.468

By all means.

5.469

And shall we not believe Hesiod

5.469

1

5.469

who tells us that when anyone of this race dies, so it is that they become

5.469

Hallowed spirits dwelling on earth, averters of evil,

5.469

Guardians watchful and good of articulate-speaking mortals?

5.469

Hes. WD 121

5.469

We certainly shall believe him.

5.469

We will inquire of Apollo,Cf. 427 B-C. then, how and with what distinction we are to bury men of more than human, of divine, qualities, and deal with them according to his response.ἐξηγῆται: cf. 427 C.

5.469

How can we do otherwise?

5.469

And ever afterτὸν λοιπὸν δὴ χρόνον: cf. Pindar in Meno 81 C, Phaedo 81 A. we will bestow on their graves the tendance and worship paid to spirits divine. And we will practice the same observance when any who have been adjudged exceptionally good in the ordinary course of life die of old age or otherwise.

5.469

That will surely be right,

5.469

he said.

5.469

But again, how will our soldiers conduct themselves toward enemies?

5.469

In what respect?

5.469

First, in the matter of making slaves of the defeated, do you think it right for Greeks to reduce Greek citiesFor this Pan-Hellenic feeling cf. Xenophon Ages. 7. 6, Hellen. i. 6. 14, Aeschines ii. 115, Isocrates Panegyricus. to slavery, or rather that so far as they are able, they should not suffer any other city to do so, but should accustom Greeks to spare Greeks, foreseeing the dangerFor the following Cf. Laws 693 A, and Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, iii. p. 275. of enslavement by the barbarians?

5.469

Sparing them is wholly and altogether the better,

5.469

said he.

5.469

They are not, then, themselves to own Greek slaves, either, and they should advise the other Greeks not to?

5.469

By all means,

5.469

he said;

5.469

at any rate in that way they would be more likely to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands from one another.

5.469

And how about stripping the dead after victory of anything except their weapons: is that well? Does it not furnish a pretext to cowards not to advance on the living foe, as if they were doing something needful when pokingκυπτάζωσι: cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Nubes 509. about the dead? Has not this snatching at the spoils ere new destroyed many an army?

5.469

Yes, indeed.

5.469

And don’t you think it illiberal and greedy to plunder a corpse, and is it not the mark of a womanish and pettyCf. Juvenal, Satire xiii. 189-191. spirit to deem the body of the dead an enemy when the real foeman has flown awayἀποπταμένου: both Homer and Sappho so speak of the soul as flitting away. and left behind only the instrumentThe body is only the instrument of the soul. Cf. Socrates’ answer to the question, How shall we bury you? Phaedo 115 C ff. and the elaboration of the idea in Alc. I. 129 E, whence it passed in to European literature. with which he fought? Do you see any difference between such conduct and that of the dogsQuoted by Aristotle, Rhet. 1406 b. Epictetus iii. 19. 4 complains that nurses encourage children to strike the stone on which they stumble. Cf. also Lucan vi. 220-223. Otto, Sprichwörter der Römer, p. 70, cites Pliny, N.H. xxix. 102, and Pacuv. v. 38, Ribb. Trag. Cf. Montaigne i. 4, Ainsin emporte les bestes leur rage à s’attaquer à la pierre et au fer qui les a blecées. who snarl at the stones that hit them but don’t touch the thrower?

5.469

Not the slightest.

5.469

We must abandon, then, the plundering of corpses and the refusal to permit their burial.Plato as a boy may have heard of the Thebans’ refusal to allow the Athenians to bury their dead after Delium. Cf. Thucydides iv. 97-101, and Euripides Supplices.

5.469

By heaven, we certainly must,

5.469

he said.

5.470

And again, we will not take weapons to the temples for dedicatoryFor the practice cf. Aeschylus Septem 275-279 and Agamemnon 577-579. Italian cities and American states have restored to one another the flags so dedicated from old wars. Cf. Cicero De inventione ii. 70 at tamen aeternum inimicitiarum monumentum Graios de Graiis statuere non oportet. offerings, especially the weapons of Greeks, if we are at all concerned to preserve friendly relations with the other Greeks. Rather we shall fear that there is pollution in bringing such offerings to the temples from our kind unless in a case where the god bids otherwiseFor similar caution cf. on 427 B-C..

5.470

Most rightly,

5.470

he said.

5.470

And in the matter of devastating the land of Greeks and burning their houses, how will your soldiers deal with their enemies.

5.470

I would gladly hear your opinion of that.

5.470

In my view,

5.470

said I,

5.470

they ought to do neither, but confine themselves to taking away the annual harvest. Shall I tell you why?

5.470

Do.

5.470

In my opinion, just as we have the two terms, war and faction, so there are also two things, distinguished by two differentiae.I have so translated in order to imply that the Plato of the Republic is already acquainted with the terminology of the Sophist. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, notes 375 and 377, followed by Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 504. But most editors take διαφορά here as dissension, and construe applied to the disagreements of two things, which may be right. Cf. Sophist 228 A στάσιν . . . τὴν τοῦ φύσει συγγενοῦς ἔκ τινος διαφθορᾶς διαφοράν. The two things I mean are the friendly and kindred on the one hand and the alien and foreign on the other. Now the term employed for the hostility of the friendly is faction, and for that of the alien is war.

5.470

What you say is in nothing beside the mark,

5.470

he replied.

5.470

Consider, then, if this goes to the mark. I affirm that the Hellenic race is friendly to itself and akin, and foreign and alien to the barbarian.

5.470

Rightly,

5.470

he said.

5.470

We shall then say that Greeks fight and wage war with barbarians, and barbarians with Greeks, and are enemies by nature,Plato shared the natural feeling of Isocrates, Demosthenes, and all patriotic Greeks. Cf. Isocrates Panegyricus 157, 184, Panath. 163; Menexenus 237 ff., Laws 692 C and 693 A. It is uncritical then with Newman (op. cit. p. 430) and many others to take as a recantation of this passage the purely logical observation in Politicus 262 D that Greek and barbarinan is an unscientific dichotomy of mankind. Cf. on the whole question the dissertation of Friedrich Weber, Platons Stellung zu den Barbaren. and that war is the fit name for this enmity and hatred. Greeks, however, we shall say, are still by nature the friends of Greeks when they act in this way, but that Greece is sick in that case and divided by faction, and faction is the name we must give to that enmity.

5.470

I will allow you that habit of speech,

5.470

he said.

5.470

Then observe,

5.470

said I,

5.470

that when anything of this sort occurs in faction, as the word is now used, and a state is divided against itself, if either party devastates the land and burns the houses of the other such factional strife is thought to be an accursed thing and neither party to be true patriots. Otherwise, they would never have endured thus to outrage their nurse and mother.Cf. 414 E, Menexenus 237 E, Timaeus 40 B, Laws 740 A, Aeschylus Septem 16. But the moderate and reasonable thing is thought to be that the victors shall take away the crops of the vanquished, but that their temper shall be that of men who expect to be reconciled and not always to wage war.

5.470

That way of feeling,

5.470

he said,

5.470

is far less savage than the other.

5.470

Well, then,

5.470

said I,

5.470

is not the city that you are founding to be a Greek city?

5.470

It must be,

5.470

he said.

5.470

Will they then not be good and gentle?

5.470

Indeed they will.

5.470

And won’t they be philhellenes,Cf. Epistles 354 A, Herodotus ii. 178, Isocrates Phil. 122, Panegyricus 96, Evagoras 40, Panath. 241. The word is still significant for international politics, and must be retained in the translation. lovers of Greeks, and will they not regard all Greece as their own and not renounce their part in the holy places common to all Greeks ?

5.470

Most certainly.

5.471

Will they not then regard any difference with Greeks who are their own people as a form of faction and refuse even to speak of it as war?

5.471

Most certainly.

5.471

And they will conduct their quarrels always looking forward to a reconciliation?

5.471

By all means.

5.471

They will correct them, then, for their own good, not chastising them with a view to their enslavementCf. Newman, op. cit. p. 143. or their destruction, but acting as correctors, not as enemies.

5.471

They will,

5.471

he said.

5.471

They will not, being Greeks, ravage Greek territory nor burn habitations, and they will not admit that in any city all the population are their enemies, men, women and children, but will say that only a few at any time are their foes,The same language was frequently used in the recent World War, but the practice was sometimes less civilized than that which Plato recommends. Hobhouse (Mind in Evolution, p. 384), writing earlier, said, Plato’s conclusions (Republic 469-471) show how narrow was the conception of humanitarian duties in the fourth century. It is, I think, only modern fancy that sees irony in the conclusion: treating barbarians as Greeks now treat Greeks. those, namely, who are to blame for the quarrel. And on all these considerations they will not be willing to lay waste the soil, since the majority are their friends, nor to destroy the houses, but will carry the conflict only to the point of compelling the guilty to do justice by the pressure of the suffering of the innocent.

5.471

I,

5.471

he said,

5.471

agree that our citizens ought to deal with their Greek opponents on this wise, while treating barbarians as Greeks now treat Greeks.

5.471

Shall we lay down this law also, then, for our guardians that they are not to lay waste the land or burn the houses?

5.471

Let us so decree,

5.471

he said,

5.471

and assume that this and our preceding prescriptions are right. ButIt is a mistaken ingenuity that finds a juncture between two distinct versions here. I fear, Socrates,that if you are allowed to go on in this fashion, you will never get to speak of the matter you put aside in order to say all this, namely, the possibility of such a polity coming into existence, and the way in which it could be brought to pass. I too am ready to admit that if it could be realized everything would be lovelyπάντ’ . . . ἀγαθά: idiomatically colloquial. Cf. Politicus 284 B, Laws 711 D, 757 D, 780 D, Aristophanes Acharnians 978, 982, Frogs 302. for the state that had it, and I will add what you passed by, that they would also be most successful in war because they would be least likely to desert one another, knowing and addressing each other by the names of brothers, fathers, sons. And if the females should also join in their campaigns, whether in the ranks or marshalled behind to intimidate the enemy,Cf. Laws 806 B. or as reserves in case of need, I recognize that all this too would make them irresistible. And at home, also, I observe all the benefits that you omit to mention. But, taking it for granted that I concede these and countless other advantages, consequent on the realization of this polity, don’t labor that point further; but let us at once proceed to try to convince ourselves of just this, that it is possible and how it is possible, dismissing everything else.

5.472

This is a sudden assault,ὥσπερ marks the figurative use as τινα in Aeschines, Tim. 135 τινα καταδρομήν. indeed,

5.472

said I,

5.472

that you have made on my theory, without any regard for my natural hesitation. Perhaps you don’t realize that when I have hardly escaped the first two waves, you are now rolling up against me the

5.472

great third wave

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2

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of paradox, the worst of all. When you have seen and heard that, you will be very ready to be lenient,

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3

5.472

recognizing that I had good reason after all for shrinking and fearing to enter upon the discussion of so paradoxical a notion.

5.472

The more such excuses you offer,

5.472

he said,

5.472

the less you will be released by us from telling in what way the realization of this polity is possible. Speak on, then, and do not put us off.

5.472

The first thing to recall, then,

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I said,

5.472

is that it was the inquiry into the nature of justice and injustice that brought us to this pass.Cf. Introduction p. xii. and note d. Plato seems to overlook the fact that the search was virtually completed in the fourth book.

5.472

Yes; but what of it?

5.472

he said.

5.472

Oh, nothing,οὐδέν: idiomatic, like the English of the translation. Cf. Charmides 164 A, Gorgias 498 A, 515 E. The emphatic statement that follows of the value of ideals as ideals is Plato’s warning hint that he does not expect the literal realization of his Utopia, though it would be disillusionizing to say so too explicitly. Cf. introduction p. xxxi-xxxii, and my paper on Plato’s Laws, Class. Phil. ix. (1914) pp. 351 and 353. This is one of the chief ideas that Cicero derived from Plato. He applies it to his picture of the ideal orator, and the mistaken ingenuity of modern scholarship has deduced from this and attributed to the maleficent influence of Plato the post-Renaissancee and eighteenth-century doctrine of fixed literary kinds. Cf. my note in the New York Nation, vol. ciii. p. 238, Sept. 7, 1916.

5.472

I replied,

5.472

only this: if we do discover what justice is, are we to demand that the just man shall differ from it in no respect, but shall conform in every way to the ideal? Or will it suffice us if he approximate to it as nearly as possible and partake of it more than others?

5.472

That will content us,

5.472

he said.

5.472

A pattern, then,

5.472

said I,

5.472

was what we wanted when we were inquiring into the nature of ideal justice and asking what would be the character of the perfectly just man, supposing him to exist, and, likewise, in regard to injustice and the completely unjust man. We wished to fix our eyes upon them as types and models, so that whatever we discerned in them of happiness or the reverse would necessarily apply to ourselves in the sense that whosoever is likest them will have the allotment most like to theirs. Our purpose was not to demonstrate the possibility of the realization of these ideals.

5.472

In that,

5.472

he said,

5.472

you speak truly.

5.472

Do you think, then, that he would be any the less a good painter,An ideal in the plastic arts is used to illustrate the thought. Cf. Aristotle Poetics 1461 b 14, Politics 1281 b 10, Cicero, Orator ii. 3, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 10, Finsler, Platon u. d. aristotelische Poetik, p. 56. Polyb. vi. 47. 7 gives a different turn to the comaprison of the Republic to a statue. Plato is speaking from the point of view of ordinary opinion, and it is uncritical to find here and in 501 an admission that the artist copies the idea, which is denied in Book X. 597 E ff. Apelt, Platonische Aufsätze, p. 67. who, after portraying a pattern of the ideally beautiful man and omitting no touch required for the perfection of the picture, should not be able to prove that it is actually possible for such a man to exist?

5.472

Not I, by Zeus,

5.472

he said.

5.472

Then were not we, as we say, trying to create in words the pattern of a good state?

5.472

Certainly.

5.472

Do you think, then, that our words are any the less well spoken if we find ourselves unable to prove that it is possible for a state to be governed in accordance with our words?

5.472

Of course not,

5.472

he said.

5.472

That, then,

5.472

said I,

5.472

is the truthCf. 372 E. of the matter. But if, to please you, we must do our best to show how most probably and in what respect these things would be most nearly realized, again, with a view to such a demonstration, grant me the same point.The point is so important that Plato repeats it more specifically.

5.472

What?

5.473

Is it possible for anything to be realized in deed as it is spoken in word, or is it the nature of things that action should partake of exact truth less than speech, even if some deny itPlato is contradicting the Greek commonplace which contrasts the word with the deed. Cf. Apology 32 A, Sophist 234 E, Euripides frag. Alcmene λόγος γὰρ τοὔργον οὐ νικᾷ ποτε, and perhaps Democritus’s λόγος ἔργου σκιή. Cf. A.J.P. xiii. p. 64. The word is the expression of the thought. It is more plastic (588 D, Laws 736 B) and, as Goethe says, von einem Wort lässt sich kein Iota rauben.? Do you admit it or not?

5.473

I do,

5.473

he said.

5.473

Then don’t insist,

5.473

said I,

5.473

that I must exhibit as realized in action precisely what we expounded in words. But if we can discover how a state might be constituted most nearly answering to our description, you must say that we have discovered that possibility of realization which you demanded. Will you not be content if you get this?

5.473

I for my part would.

5.473

And I too,

5.473

he said.

5.473

Next, it seems, we must try to discover and point out what it is that is now badly managed in our cities, and that prevents them from being so governed, and what is the smallest change that would bring a state to this manner of government, preferably a change in one thing, if not, then in two, and, failing that, the fewest possible in number and the slightest in potency.

5.473

By all means,

5.473

he said.

5.473

There is one change, then,

5.473

said I,

5.473

which I think that we can show would bring about the desired transformation. It is not a slight or an easy thing but it is possible.

5.473

What is that?

5.473

said he.

5.473

I am on the very verge,

5.473

said I,

5.473

of what we likened to the greatest wave of paradox. But say itεἰρήσεται: so used by the orators to introduce a bold statement. Cf. Aeschines ii. 22, Demosthenes xix. 224, xi. 17, xiv. 24, xxi. 198, etc. I will, even if, to keep the figure, it is likely to washMore literally deluge or overwhelm with ridicule. us away on billows of laughter and scorn. Listen.

5.473

I am all attention,

5.473

he said.

5.473

Unless,

5.473

said I,

5.473

either philosophers become kingsThis is perhaps the most famous sentence in Plato. Cf. for the idea 499 B, 540 D, Laws 711 D, 712 A, 713 E ff. It is paraphrased by the author of the seventh Epistle (324 B, 326 A-B, 328 A-B) who perhaps quotes Plato too frequently to be Plato himself. Epistle ii. 310 E, though sometimes quoted in this connection, is not quite the same thought. It is implied in the Phaedrus 252 E φιλόσοφος καὶ ἡγεμονικός, and Politicus 293 C, and only seems to be contradicted in Euthydemus 306 B. Aristotle is said to have contradicted it in a lost work (fr. 79, 1489 b 8 ff.). It is paraphrased or parodied by a score of writers from Polybius xii. 28 to Bacon, Hobbes, More, Erasmus, and Bernard Shaw. Boethius transmitted it to the Middle Ages (Cons. Phil. i. 4. 11). It was always on the lips of Marcus Aurelius. Cf. Capitol, Aurelius i. 1 and iv. 27. It was a standardized topic of compliment to princes in Themistius, Julian, the Panegyrici Latini, and many modern imitators. Among the rulers who have been thus compared with Plato’s philosophic king are Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, Arcadius, James I., Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. There is a partial history of the commonplace in T. Sinko’s Program, Sententiae Platonicae de philophis regnantibus fata quae fuerint, Krakow, 1904, in the supplementary article of Karl Praechter, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xiv. (1905) pp. 4579-491, and in the dissertation of Emil Wolff, Francis Bacons Verhaltnis zu Platon, Berlin, 1908, pp. 60 ff. in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophic intelligence, while the motley horde of the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsorily excluded, there can be no cessation of troubles, dear Glaucon, for our states, nor, I fancy, for the human race either. Nor, until this happens, will this constitution which we have been expounding in theory ever be put into practice within the limits of possibility and see the light of the sun. But this is the thing that has made me so long shrink from speaking out, because I saw that it would be a very paradoxical saying. For it is not easyPlato’s condescension to the ordinary mind that cannot be expected to understand often finds expression in this form. Cf. 366 C, 489 C, Theaetetus 176 C, and Republic 495 E ἀνάγκη. to see that there is no other way of happiness either for private or public life.

5.474

Whereupon he,

5.474

Socrates,

5.474

said he,

5.474

after hurling at us such an utterance and statement as that, you must expect to be attacked by a great multitude of our men of light and leading,Lit. many and not slight men. who forthwith will, so to speak, cast off their garmentsCf. Hipponax, fr. 74 (58), Theophrast. Char. 27, Aristophanes Wasps 408. and strip and, snatching the first weapon that comes to hand, rush at you with might and main, prepared to doCf. Apology 35 A, Theaetetus 151 A. dreadful deeds. And if you don’t find words to defend yourself against them, and escape their assault, then to be scorned and flouted will in very truthτῷ ὄντι verifies the strong word τωθαζόμενος. be the penalty you will have to pay.

5.474

And isn’t it you,

5.474

said I,

5.474

that have brought this upon me and are to blame?

5.474

And a good thing, too,

5.474

said he;

5.474

but I won’t let you down, and will defend you with what I can. I can do so with my good will and my encouragement, and perhaps I might answer your questions more suitablyCf. Theaetetus 162 A 7. The dialectician prefers a docile respondent. Cf. Sophist 217 C, Parmenides 137 B. than another. So, with such an aid to back you, try to make it plain to the doubters that the truth is as you say.

5.474

I must try,

5.474

I replied,

5.474

since you proffer so strong an alliance. I think it requisite, then, if we are to escape the assailants you speak of, that we should define for them whom we mean by the philosophers, who we dare to say ought to be our rulers. When these are clearly discriminated it will be possible to defend ourselves by showing that to them by their very nature belong the study of philosophy and political leadership, while it befits the other sort to let philosophy alone and to follow their leader.

5.474

It is high time,

5.474

he said,

5.474

to produce your definition.

5.474

Come, then, follow me on this line, if we may in some fashion or other explain our meaning.

5.474

Proceed,

5.474

he said.

5.474

Must I remind you, then,

5.474

said I,

5.474

or do you remember, that when we affirm that a man is a lover of something, it must be apparent that he is fond of all of it? It will not do to say that some of it he likes and someτὸ δὲ μή: for the idiom Cf. Philebus 22 A, Laws 797 E, 923 C, Demodocus’s epigram on the Chians, Aeschylus Persae 802, Sophocles O. C. 1671. does not.

5.474

I think you will have to remind me,

5.474

he said,

5.474

for I don’t apprehend at all.

5.474

That reply, Glaucon,

5.474

said I,

5.474

befitted another rather than you. It does not become a lover to forget that all adolescents in some sort sting and stir the amorous lover of youth and appear to him deserving of his attention and desirable. Is not that your reaction to the fair? One, because his nose is tip-tilted,Another of the famous sentences that would be worth a monograph. Cf. Lucretius iv. 1160, Molière, Misanthrope, ii. 5, Horace, Satire i. 338. F. Brunetière, Les Epoques du théâtre francÿais, p. 76, thinks that Molière took it from Scarron, not from Lucretius. Shakespeare Much Ado, III. i. reverses the conceit, Santayana, Reason in Society, p. 25, writes prettily about it. you will praise as piquant, the beak of another you pronounce right-royal, the intermediate type you say strikes the harmonious mean, the swarthy are of manly aspect, the white are children of the gods divinely fair, and as for honey-hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth?

5.475

And, in short, there is no pretext you do not allege and there is nothing you shrink from saying to justify you in not rejecting any who are in the bloom of their prime.

5.475

If it is your pleasure,

5.475

he said,

5.475

to take me as your example of this trait in lovers, I admit it for the sake of the argument.

5.475

Again,

5.475

said I,

5.475

do you not observe the same thing in the lovers of wine?

5.475

1

5.475

They welcome every wine on any pretext.

5.475

They do, indeed.

5.475

And so I take it you have observed that men who are covetous of honor,Cf. Theophrastus, Char. 21 (Loeb) μικροφιλοτιμίας, petty pride. if they can’t get themselves elected generals, are captains of a company.τριττυαρχοῦσι, command the soldiers of a trittys or third of one of the ten tribes. And if they can’t be honored by great men and dignitaries, are satisfied with honor from little men and nobodies. But honor they desire and must have.

5.475

Yes, indeed.

5.475

Admit, then, or reject my proposition. When we say a man is keen about something, shall we say that he has an appetite for the whole class or that he desires only a part and a part not?

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The whole,

5.475

he said.

5.475

Then the lover of wisdom, too, we shall affirm, desires all wisdom, not a part and a part not.

5.475

Certainly.

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The student, then, who is finical

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4

5.475

about his studies, especially when he is young and cannot yet know by reason what is useful and what is not, we shall say is not a lover of learning or a lover of wisdom, just as we say that one who is dainty about his food is not really hungry, has not an appetite for food, and is not a lover of food, but a poor feeder.

5.475

We shall rightly say so.

5.475

But the one who feels no distaste in sampling every study, and who attacks his task of learning gladly and cannot get enough of it, him we shall justly pronounce the lover of wisdom, the philosopher, shall we not?

5.475

To which Glaucon replied,

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5

5.475

You will then be giving the name to a numerous and strange band, for all the lovers of spectaclesCf. the argument in the first sentence of Aristotle’s Metaphysics that men’s pleasure in sense-perception is a form of their love of knowledge. are what they are, I fancy, by virtue of their delight in learning something. And those who always want to hear some new thingφιλήκοοι: the word, like curiosity in Ruskin’s interpretation, may have a higher and lower meaning. It is used half technically of intellectual interests generally. Cf. Euthydemus 304 B.The abstract φιληκοΐα became a virtual synonym of culture and reading. are a very queer lot to be reckoned among philosophers. You couldn’t induce them to attend a serious debate or any such entertainment,Cf. on 498 A, and in Parmenides 126 E, Antiphon, who studied Eleatic dialectic in his youth, but now gives his time to horses. The word διατριβή has a long history in philosophy and literature, starting from such passages as Charmides 153 A and Lysis 204 A. but as if they had farmed out their ears to listen to every chorus in the land, they run about to all the Dionysiac festivals,In addition to the presentation of new plays at the city Dionysia, there were performances at the Peiraeus and in the demes. never missing one, either in the towns or in the country-villages. Are we to designate all these, then, and similar folk and all the practitioners of the minor arts as philosophers?

5.475

Not at all,

5.475

I said;

5.475

but they do bear a certain likenessCf. Theaetetus 201 B 3, Sophist 240 B οὐδαμῶς ἀληθινόν γε, ἀλλ’ ἐοικὸς μέν. to philosophers.

5.475

Whom do you mean, then, by the true philosophers?

5.475

Those for whom the truth is the spectacle of which they are enamored,Cf. Aristotle Eth. 1098 a 32 θεατὴς γὰρ τἀληθοῦς.

5.475

said I.

5.475

Right again,Cf. 449 C.

5.475

said he;

5.475

but in what sense do you mean it?

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It would be by no means easy to explain it to another,

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I said,

5.475

but I think that you will grant me this.

5.475

What?

5.475

That since the fair and honorable is the opposite of the base and ugly, they are two.

5.476

Of course.

5.476

And since they are two, each is one.Plato is merely restating the theory of Ideas to prepare for his practical distinction between minds that can and minds that cannot apprehend abstractions. He does not here enter into the metaphysics of the subject. But he does distinctly show that he is already aware of the difficulties raised in the Parmenides, 131 B ff., and of the misapprehension disposed of in the Sophist 252 ff. that the metaphysical isolation of the Ideas precludes their combination and intermingling in human thought and speech. For the many attempts to evade ἀλλήλων κοινωνία Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, n. 244, and add now Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 567, who, completely missing the point, refers to 505 A, which is also misunderstood. He adds mit den Problemen des Sophistes hat das gar nichts zu tun; sie waren ihm noch nicht aufgestossen, which begs the question.

5.476

That also.

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And in respect of the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, and all the ideas or forms, the same statement holds, that in itself each is one, but that by virtue of their communion with actions and bodies and with one another they present themselves everywhere, each as a multiplicity of aspects.

5.476

Right,

5.476

he said.

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This, then,

5.476

said I,

5.476

is my division. I set apart and distinguish those of whom you were just speaking, the lovers of spectacles and the arts, and men of action, and separate from them again those with whom our argument is concerned and who alone deserve the appellation of philosophers or lovers of wisdom.

5.476

What do you mean?

5.476

he said.

5.476

The lovers of sounds and sights,

5.476

I said,

5.476

delight in beautiful tones and colors and shapes and in everything that art fashions out of these, but their thought is incapable of apprehending and taking delight in the nature of the beautiful in itself.

5.476

Why, yes,

5.476

he said,

5.476

that is so.

5.476

And on the other hand, will not those be fewLe petit nombre des élus is a common topic in Plato. Cf. on 494 A. who would be able to approach beauty itself and contemplate it in and by itself?

5.476

They would, indeed.

5.476

He, then, who believes in beautiful things, but neither believes in beauty itself nor is able to follow when someone tries to guide him to the knowledge of it—do you think that his life is a dream or a wakingThe dream state is a very different thing for Plato from what it is for some modern sentimental Platonists. Cf. 520 C-D, Phaedrus 277 D, Timaeus 52 B, and 71 E, if rightly interpreted.? Just consider. Is not the dream state, whether the man is asleep or awake, just this: the mistaking of resemblance for identity?

5.476

I should certainly call that dreaming,

5.476

he said.

5.476

Well, then, take the opposite case: the man whose thought recognizes a beauty in itself, and is able to distinguish that self-beautiful and the things that participate in it, and neither supposes the participants to be it nor it the participants—is his life, in your opinion, a waking or a dream state?

5.476

He is very much awake,

5.476

he replied.

5.476

Could we not rightly, then, call the mental state of the one as knowing, knowledge, and that of the other as opining, opinion?

5.476

Assuredly.

5.476

Suppose, now, he who we say opines but does not know should be angry and challenge our statement as not true. Can we find any way of soothing him and gentlyἠρέμα: Cf. Symposium 221 B. Plato’s humorous use of this word is the source of Emerson’s humorous use of gently. winning him over, without telling him too plainly that he is not in his right mind?

5.476

We must try,

5.476

he said.

5.476

Come, then, consider what we are to say to him, or would you have us question him in this fashion—premising that if he knows anything, nobody grudges it him, but we should be very glad to see him knowing something—but tellFor the humor of the sudden shift to the second person cf. Juvenal, Satire i. profer, Galla, caput. us this: Does he who knows know something or nothing? Do you reply in his behalf.

5.476

I will reply,

5.476

he said,

5.476

that he knows something.

5.476

Is it something that is or is notTo understand what follows it is necessary (1) to assume that Plato is not talking nonsense; (2) to make allowance for the necessity that he is under of combating contemporary fallacies and sophisms which may seem trivial to us (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 50 ff.); (3) to remember the greater richness of the Greek language in forms of the verb to be; and the misunderstandings introduced by the indiscriminate use of the abstract verbal noun being in English—a difficulty which I have tried to meet by varying the terms of the translation; (4) to recognize that apart from metaphysics Plato’s main purpose is to insist on the ability to think abstractly as a prerequisite of the higher education; (5) to observe the qualifications and turns of phrase which indicate that Plato himself was not confused by the double meaning of is not, but was already aware of the distinctions explicitly explained in the Sophist. (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 53 ff. nn. 389 ff.)?

5.477

That is. How could that which is not be known?

5.477

We are sufficiently assured of this, then, even if we should examine it from every point of view, that that which entirelyπαντελῶς: cf. μηδαμῇ and 478 D πάντως. Not foreseeing modern philology Plato did not think it necessary to repeat these qualifying adverbs in 478 B ἢ ἀδύνατον καὶ δοξάσαι τὸ μὴ ὄν, which is still sometimes quoted to prove that Plato was yet naively unaware of the distinction between is-not-at-all (does not exist) and is-not-this-or-that.is is entirely knowable, and that which in no way is is in every way unknowable.

5.477

Most sufficiently.

5.477

Good. If a thing, then, is so conditioned as both to be and not to be, would it not lie between that which absolutely and unqualifiedly is and that which in no way is?

5.477

Between.

5.477

Then if knowledge pertains to that which is and ignorance of necessity to that which is not, for that which lies between we must seek for something between nescience and science, if such a thing there be.

5.477

By all means.

5.477

Is there a thing which we call opinion?

5.477

Surely.

5.477

Is it a different faculty from science or the same?

5.477

A different.

5.477

Then opinion is set over one thing and science over another, each by virtue of its own distinctive power or faculty.

5.477

That is so.

5.477

May we say, then, that science is naturally related to that which is,Apart from the metaphysical question of the relativity of all knowledge, the word ἐπιστήμη in Greek usage connotes certainty, and so Plato and Aristotle always take it. But more specifically that which (always) is, for Plato, is the idea which is not subject to change and therefore always is what it is, while a particular material thing subject to change and relativity both is and is not any and every predicate that can be applied to it. And since knowledge in the highest sense is for Plato knowledge of abstract and general ideas, both in his and in our sense of the word idea, knowledge is said to be of that which is. It is uncritical to ignore Plato’s terminology and purpose and to talk condescendingly of his confusing subjective with objective certainty in what follows. to know that and how that which is is? But rather, before we proceed, I think we must draw the following distinctions.

5.477

What ones?

5.477

Shall we say that faculties,The history of the word δύναμις has been studied in recent monographs and its various meanings, from potentiality to active power, discriminated. Cf. J. Souilhé, Etude sur le terme δύναμις dans les Dialogues de Platon, Paris, 1919, pp. 96, 163 ff. But Plato makes his simple meaning here quite plain, and it would be irrelevant to bring in modern denunciations of the old faculty psychology. powers, abilities are a class of entities by virtue of which we and all other things are able to do what we or they are able to do? I mean that sight and hearing, for example, are faculties, if so be that you understand the class or type that I am trying to describe.

5.477

I understand,

5.477

he said.

5.477

Hear, then, my notion about them. In a faculty I cannot see any color or shape or similar mark such as those on which in many other cases I fix my eyes in discriminating in my thought one thing from another. But in the case of a faculty I look to one thing only—that to which it is related and what it effects,Cf. my note on Simplic. De An. 146. 21, Class. Phil . xvii. p. 143. and it is in this way that I come to callCf. Ion 537 D οὕτω καλῶ τὴν μὲν ἄλλην, τὴν δὲ ἄλλην τέχνην. each one of them a faculty, and that which is related toἐπί: Cf. Parmenides 147 D-E ἕκαστον τῶν ὀνομάτων οὐκ ἐπί τινι καλεῖς; the same thing and accomplishes the same thing I call the same faculty, and that to another I call other. How about you, what is your practice?

5.477

The same,

5.477

he said.

5.477

To return, then, my friend,

5.477

said I,

5.477

to science or true knowledge, do you say that it is a faculty and a power, or in what class do you put it?

5.477

Into this,

5.477

he said,

5.477

the most potent of allCf. Protagoras 352 B, Aristotle Eth. 1145 b 24. faculties.

5.477

And opinion—shall we assign it to some other class than faculty.

5.477

By no means,

5.477

he said,

5.477

for that by which we are able to opine is nothing else than the faculty of opinion.For the various meanings of δόξα Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 47 the word δόξα may be used in this neutral, psychological sense; it may be taken unfavorably to denote mere opinion as opposed to knowledge, or favorably when true opinions and beliefs are set in antithesis to the appetites and instincts.

5.477

But not long ago you agreed that science and opinion are not identical.

5.477

How could any rational man affirm the identity of the infallible with the fallible?

5.478

Excellent,

5.478

said I,

5.478

and we are plainly agreed that opinion is a differentPlato reaffirms this strongly Timaeus 51 E, where, however, νοῦς is used, not ἐπιστήμη. Of course where distinctions are irrelevant Plato may use many of the terms that denote mental processes as virtual synonyms. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought pp. 47-49. thing from scientific knowledge.

5.478

Yes, different.

5.478

Each of them, then, since it has a different power, is related to a different object.

5.478

Of necessity.

5.478

Science, I presume, to that which is, to know the condition of that which is. But opinion, we say, opines.

5.478

Yes.

5.478

Does it opine the same thing that science knows, and will the knowable and the opinable be identical, or is that impossible?

5.478

Impossible by our admissions,Cf. Symposium 200 B, 201 D.

5.478

he said.

5.478

If different faculties are naturally related to different objects and both opinion and science are faculties, but each different from the other, as we say—these admissions do not leave place for the identity of the knowable and the opinable.

5.478

Then, if that which is is knowable, something other than that which is would be the opinable.Cf. on 447 C.

5.478

Something else.

5.478

Does it opine that which is not,Plato is, of course, aware that this is true only if μὴ ὄν be taken in the absolute sense. We cannot suppose that he himself is puzzled by a fallacy which he ironically attributes to the Sophists and to Protagoras (Theaetetus 167 A), and ridicules in the Cratylus 188 D and Euthydemus 286 C. Cf. Unity of Platos’ Thought, pp. 53, 54. As Aristotle explicitly puts it, De interpr. 11. 11 τὸ δὲ μὴ ὂν ὅτι δοξαστὸν οὐκ ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν ὄν τι· δόξα γὰρ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν, οὐχ ὅτι ἔστιν ἀλλ’ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι. or is it impossible even to opine that which is not? Reflect: Does not he who opines bring his opinion to bear upon something or shall we reverse ourselves and say that it is possible to opine, yet opine nothing?

5.478

That is impossible.

5.478

Then he who opines opines some one thing.

5.478

Yes.

5.478

But surely that which is not could not be designated as some one thing, but most rightly as nothing at all. To that which is not we of necessity assigned nescience, and to that which is, knowledge.

5.478

Rightly,

5.478

he said.

5.478

Then neither that which is nor that which is not is the object of opinion.

5.478

It seems not.

5.478

Then opinion would be neither nescience nor knowledge.

5.478

So it seems.

5.478

Is it then a faculty outside of these, exceeding either knowledge in lucidity or ignorance in obscurity?

5.478

It is neither.

5.478

But do you deem opinion something darker than knowledge but brighter than ignorance?

5.478

Much so,

5.478

he said.

5.478

And does it lie within the boundaries of the two?

5.478

Yes.

5.478

Then opinion would be between the two.

5.478

Most assuredly.

5.478

Were we not saying a little while agoCf. 477 A. that if anything should turn upCf. 477 A-B. This is almost a standardized method with Plato. Cf. 609 B, Charmides 168 B, Gorgias 496 C, 346 B, Philebus 11 D, 66 E, Laws 896 C. such that it both is and is not, that sort of thing would lie between that which purely and absolutely is and that which wholly is not, and that the faculty correlated with it would be neither science or nescience, but that which should appear to hold a place correspondingly between nescience and science.

5.478

Right.

5.478

And now there has turned up between these two the thing that we call opinion.

5.478

There has.

5.478

It would remain, then, as it seems, for us to discover that which partakes of both, of to be and not to be, and that could not be rightly designated either in its exclusive purity; so that, if it shall be discovered, we may justly pronounce it to be the opinable, thus assigning extremes to extremes and the intermediate to the intermediate. Is not that so?

5.478

It is.

5.479

This much premised, let him tell me, I will say, let him answer me, that goodIronical. Cf. Phaedrus 266 E. fellow who does not think there is a beautiful in itself or anyτινὰ does not mean that the theory of Ideas is a novelty here or that the terminology is new and strange. It merely says that the type of mind that is absorbed in the concrete cannot apprehend any general aspect of things. αὐτό and κατὰ ταὐτά are the technical designation of the Idea here. Cf. my note on Philebus 64 A, Class. Phil. xx. (1925) p. 347. idea of beauty in itself always remaining the same and unchanged, but who does believe in many beautiful things—the lover of spectacles, I mean, who cannot endure to hear anybody say that the beautiful is one and the just one, and so of other things—and this will be our question: My good fellow, is there any one of these many fair-and-honorable things that will not sometimes appear ugly and basePlato consciously uses mere logic to lend the emphasis and dignity of absolute metaphysics to his distinction between the two types of mind, which is for all practical purposes his main point here. If you cannot correctly define the beautiful, all your imperfect definitions will be refuted by showing that they sometimes describe what is ugly. Cf. Hippias Major 289 C and note on Republic i. 333 E. The many concrete objects are this and are not that, and so with conscious use of the ambiguity of the copula may be said to tumble about between being and not-being. That this is the consciously intended meaning may be inferred from the fact that in Timaeus 37 E, where Plato must have had in mind the conclusions of the Sophist, he still avails himself of this ambiguity to suggest an absolute being behind phenomena. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 55, 56, 60, De Platonis Idearum Doctrina pp. 48, 49.? And of the just things, that will not seem unjust? And of the pious things, that will not seem impious?

5.479

No, it is inevitable,

5.479

he said,

5.479

that they would appear to be both beautiful in a way and ugly, and so with all the other things you asked about.

5.479

And again, do the many double thingsCf. on 524 A, B. appear any the less halves than doubles?

5.479

None the less.

5.479

And likewise of the great and the small things, the light and the heavy things—will they admit these predicates any more than their opposites?

5.479

No,

5.479

he said,

5.479

each of them will always hold of, partake of, both.

5.479

Then is each of these multiples rather than it is not that which one affirms it to be?

5.479

They are like those jesters who palter with us in a double sense at banquets,

5.479

he replied,

5.479

and resemble the children’s riddle

5.479

5

5.479

about the eunuch and his hitting of the bat—with what and as it sat on what they signify that he struck it. For these things too equivocate, and it is impossible to conceive firmly

5.479

6

5.479

any one of them to be or not to be or both or neither.

5.479

Do you know what to do with them, then?

5.479

said I,

5.479

and can you find a better place to put them than that midway between existence or essence and the not-to-be? For we shall surely not discover a darker region than not-beingCf. Sophist 254 A εἰς τὴν τοῦ μὴ ὄντος σκοτεινότητα. that they should still more not be, nor brighter than being that they should still more be.

5.479

Most true,

5.479

he said.

5.479

We would seem to have found, then, that the many conventionsA further thought is developed here, suggested in 479 A, B. Just as the many particular horses, trees, or tables shift and change, and are and are not in comparision with the unchanging multitude of each, so the many opinions of the multitude about justice and the good and the beautiful and other moral conceptions change, and both are and are not in comparison with the unalterable ideas of justice and beauty, which the philosopher more nearly apprehends. Thus, for the purposes of this contrast, notions, opinions, and what English usage would call ideas, fall into the same class as material objects. Cf. Euthyphro 6 D, Phaedo 78 D, Parmenides 131 D, Gorgias 488 D τὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἄρα νόμιμα, Laws 715 B τὰ τούτων δίκαια, 860 C τοῖς μὲν τοίνυν πολλοῖς etc., 962 D τὰ τῶν πόλεων (of states) νόμιμα. The practical truth of this distinction is unaffected by our metaphysics. Plato is speaking of what he elsewhere calls the εἴδωλα of justice, beauty and the like. Cf. 517 D, 532 D, Theaetetus 150 B, and The Idea of Good in Plato’s Republic, University of Chicago Studies in Classical Philology, i. p. 238. of the many about the fair and honorable and other things are tumbled about inCf. Phaedrus 275 E, Phaedo 81 C, 82 E. Isocrates uses καλινδέομαι in similar contemptuous connotation, v. 82, xiii. 20, xv. 30. the mid-region between that which is not and that which is in the true and absolute sense.

5.479

We have so found it.

5.479

But we agreed in advance that, if anything of that sort should be discovered, it must be denominated opinable, not knowable, the wanderer between being caught by the faculty that is betwixt and between.

5.479

We did.

5.479

We shall affirm, then, that those who view many beautiful things but do not see the beautiful itself and are unable to follow another’s guidanceCf. Aristotle Metaphysics 989 a 33 τοῖς ἐπάγουσιν αὐτόν. to it, and many just things, but not justice itself, and so in all cases—we shall say that such men have opinions about all things, but know nothing of the things they opine.

5.479

Of necessity.

5.479

And, on the other hand, what of those who contemplate the very things themselves in each case, ever remaining the same and unchanged—shall we not say that they know and do not merely opine?

5.479

That, too, necessarily follows.

5.480

Shall we not also say that the one welcomes to his thought and loves the things subject to knowledge and the other those to opinion? Do we not remember that we said that those loved and regarded tones and beautiful colours and the like, but they could not endure the notion of the reality of the beautiful itself?

5.480

We do remember.

5.480

Shall we then offend their ears if we call them doxophilistsPlato coins a word which means lovers of opinion. rather than philosophers and will they be very angry if we so speak?

5.480

Not if they heed my counsel,

5.480

he said,

5.480

for to be angry with truth is not lawful.

5.480

Then to those who in each and every kind welcome the true being, lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinionIsocrates xv. 271 is conceivably an answer to this. is the name we must give.

5.480

By all means.

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