Book IV

SocratesAdeimantus broke in here. “What will you say in your defense, Socrates,” he said, “if someone says you’re not making these men very happy at all, and that it’s their own doing? The city really belongs to them, and yet they enjoy nothing good from it, as others do who own lands, build fine big houses and acquire furnishings to match, offer private sacrifices to the gods, entertain guests, and, above all, as you were just saying, own gold and silver and everything that’s thought necessary for anyone who is going to be blessed.

“Instead, he might say, they seem simply to sit around like hired auxiliaries in 420a the city, doing nothing but standing guard.”

“Yes,” I said, “and for their keep alone, without even getting wages on top of their food like the others, so that they can’t travel abroad privately if they want to, or give gifts to courtesans, or spend money wherever else they might wish, the way people who are thought happy spend it. These and many other points like them you’re leaving out of the charge.”

“Well,” he said, “let these be added to the charge too.” 420b

“Then you’re asking what our defense will be?”

“Yes.”

“If we follow the same path,” I said, “we’ll find, I think, what to say. We’ll say that it wouldn’t be surprising if these men too were happiest as they are; but that we aren’t founding the city with an eye to making any one group in it exceptionally happy, but the whole city as happy as possible. For we thought that we’d be most likely to find justice in a city like this, and injustice, again, in the worst-governed 420c one, and that by observing them we could decide what we’ve long been looking for. For now, then, we’re shaping what we take to be the happy city—not picking out a few people in it and making them happy, but the whole. Shortly we’ll look at its opposite.

“‘But don’t advise us to do that. For if we listen to you, the farmer won’t be a farmer, 421a nor the potter a potter, nor will anyone else keep any of the roles that make up a city. With the others it matters less: if cobblers become bad and corrupt and pretend to be what they aren’t, it’s nothing terrible for a city. But guardians of the laws and of the city who aren’t really guardians but only seem to be—you see that they destroy the whole city utterly, while they alone, in turn, hold the key to its being well governed and happy.’ Now if we are making true guardians, 421b the least likely to harm the city, while the one who says that other thing is talking about some sort of farmers, happy banqueters as if at a festival rather than in a city, he’d be talking about something other than a city.

“Well,” he said, “I think you put that well.”

“Then will you think I’m speaking reasonably,” I said, “if I say something closely related to this as well?”

“What exactly?” 421d

“Consider whether the following things corrupt the other craftsmen too, so that they actually become bad.”

“What things are these?”

“Wealth,” I said, “and poverty.”

“How so?”

“Like this. Once a potter gets rich, do you think he’ll still be willing to attend to his craft?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Won’t he become lazier and more careless than he used to be?”

“Much.”

“So he becomes a worse potter?”

“Yes,” he said, “much worse.”

“And then again, if poverty leaves him unable to provide himself with tools or anything else his craft needs, the work he turns out will be shoddier, 421e and he’ll teach his sons, or whoever else he teaches, to be worse craftsmen.”

“Of course.”

“So from both of them, poverty and wealth, the products of the crafts get worse, and so do the craftsmen themselves.”

“Evidently.”

“Then it seems we’ve found other things for the guardians, which they must guard against in every way, so that these never slip into the city without their noticing.”

“What are they?”

“Wealth,” I said, “and poverty. The one produces luxury, idleness, and revolution; the other, meanness and bad workmanship, as well as revolution.”

“Certainly,” he said. “But consider this, Socrates. How will our city be able to wage war when it has no money, especially if it’s forced to fight a large and wealthy city?”

“Clearly,” I said, “against one such city it’s harder, 422b but against two it’s easier.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“First of all,” I said, “if they have to fight, won’t they be fighting against rich men, while they themselves are athletes of war?”

“Yes, that much is true,” he said.

“Well then, Adeimantus,” I said, “don’t you think one boxer, trained as well as possible for the job, could easily fight two men who aren’t boxers but are rich and fat?”

“Maybe not both at once,” he said.

“Not even,” I said, “if he could retreat and then turn and strike whichever one 422c came at him first, and did this again and again in the blazing sun and stifling heat? Wouldn’t a man like that overpower even more than two of them?”

“No doubt,” he said. “That would be nothing surprising.”

“And don’t you think the rich have more share, in knowledge and experience, in boxing than in warfare?”

“I do,” he said.

“Then in all likelihood our athletes will easily fight twice or three times their own number.”

“I’ll grant you that,” he said, “since I think you’re right.” 422d

“And what if they send an embassy to the other city and tell the truth: ‘We have no use for gold or silver, nor is it lawful for us, though it is for you. So join us in the war, and keep what belongs to the other side’? Do you think anyone who heard that would choose to make war on hard, lean dogs rather than join the dogs against fat, tender sheep?”

“I don’t think so. But if the wealth of all the others,” he said, “is gathered into a single city, 422e watch out that it doesn’t pose a danger to the city that isn’t wealthy.”

“How fortunate you are,” I said, “to think anything deserves to be called a city other than the sort we’ve been founding.”

“Why, what else?” he said.

“The others,” I said, “need a bigger name. Each of them is a great many cities, not a city, as in the game.note

“Whatever else is true, each contains two, at war with each other, 423a one of the poor and one of the rich, and within each of these there are a great many. If you treat them as one, you’ll miss the mark entirely; but if you treat them as many, handing over the money and power, or even the persons, of one group to the others, you’ll always have many allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is governed with moderation, in the way it was just now arranged, it will be the greatest—I don’t mean in reputation, but truly the greatest—even if it has only a thousand men to fight for it. You won’t easily find a single city so great among either Greeks or non-Greeks, 423b though you’ll find many that seem to be, and many times its size. Or do you think otherwise?”

“No, by Zeus,” he said.

“Then this would also be the best limit for our rulers,” I said, “on how large they should make the city, and how much land they should mark off for a city of that size, letting the rest go.”

“What limit?” he said.

“I think,” I said, “this one: let it grow as far as it can while still being one, and no further.” 423c

“And a fine one,” he said.

“Then we’ll give the guardians this further order as well: to guard in every way against the city’s being either small or great in appearance only; it must be adequate, and one.”

“And a trivial order, I suppose,” he said, “that we’ll be giving them.”

“And here’s one still more trivial,” I said, “which we mentioned earlier, when we said that if an inferior child is born to the guardians, it must be sent off 423d to the others, and if a good one is born to the others, it must go to the guardians. This was meant to show that the other citizens too must each be brought to the one job each is naturally suited for, so that each, practicing his own single pursuit, may become not many but one, and so the whole city may grow to be one and not many.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s a smaller matter than the other.”

“Really, my good Adeimantus,” I said, “these orders we’re giving them aren’t, as someone might think, many and great; 423e they’re all trivial, provided they guard the one great thing, as the saying goes—or rather, not great but sufficient.”

“What’s that?” he said.

“Education,” I said, “and upbringing. If they’re well educated and become reasonable men, they’ll easily see through all this, and other things we’re passing over now: the possession of women, marriage, and having children—that 424a all these must be made, as far as possible, ‘common among friends,’ as the proverb has it.”

“Yes,” he said, “that would be the most correct way.”

“What’s more,” I said, “once a constitution gets off to a good start, it keeps growing, like a circle. Good upbringing and education, when preserved, produce good natures, and good natures in turn, taking hold of such an education, grow up better than those before them, in other respects and also in 424b producing offspring, just as with other animals.”

“That’s likely,” he said.

“To put it briefly, then, those in charge of the city must hold fast to this, and guard it above everything, so that it isn’t corrupted without their noticing: there must be no innovation in gymnastics and music contrary to the established order; they must guard it as closely as they can. And whenever someone says that people care most for the song ‘that circles newest among the singers,’ they must be afraid 424c that people may take the poet to mean not new songs but a new manner of song, and praise that. One shouldn’t praise such a thing, or take the poet that way. For one must beware of changing to a new form of music, since this puts everything at risk: the modes of music are never disturbed without the greatest laws of the city being disturbed too, as Damon says and as I’m convinced.”note

“Count me among the convinced as well,” said Adeimantus. 424d

“So it seems,” I said, “that the guardians must build their guardhouse somewhere here, in music.”

“Lawlessness of this kind, anyway,” he said, “easily slips in unnoticed.”

“Yes,” I said, “as if it were just a form of play and did no harm.”

“And it doesn’t do any,” he said, “except that, having settled in little by little, it quietly seeps into people’s characters and ways of life. From these it emerges, grown larger, into their dealings with one another; and from their dealings, Socrates, it advances on 424e the laws and constitutions with great insolence, until in the end it overturns everything, private and public.”

“Well,” I said, “is that really how it is?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Then, as we said at the start, mustn’t our children take part in more lawful play right from the beginning, since if play becomes lawless, and the children too, it’s impossible for them to grow up into law-abiding and serious 425a men?”

“Of course,” he said.

“So when children make a good start in their play and take in good order through music, then—the reverse of the others—it goes with them in everything and makes them grow, setting right anything in the city that had fallen before.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“And so these people also rediscover the seemingly minor customs that their predecessors had entirely lost.”

“What sort?” 425b

“Things like these: the silence the young should keep in the presence of their elders; giving up their places to them and standing up when they come in; taking care of parents; and also haircuts, clothes, shoes, and the whole bearing of the body, and everything else of the kind. Don’t you think so?”

“I do.”

“But I think it’s naive to legislate about them. Such rules surely don’t come about, and wouldn’t last, if they’re laid down in words and in writing.”

“How could they?”

“It looks, at any rate, Adeimantus,” I said, “as if the direction someone sets out in from education 425c determines what follows. Doesn’t like always summon like?”

“Of course.”

“And in the end, I think, we’d say it turns out as one complete and vigorous whole, either good or the opposite.”

“Why not?” he said.

“That’s why,” I said, “I wouldn’t try any longer to legislate about such things.”

“Reasonably enough,” he said.

“And, for heaven’s sake,” I said, “what about business matters: the contracts people make with one another in the marketplace, 425d and, if you like, contracts for manual work, slander and assault, the filing of lawsuits and the appointment of jurors, and any tolls that may need to be collected or imposed in markets or harbors, and in general all the regulations of markets, city, and harbors, and everything else of the kind—shall we venture to legislate about any of that?”

“No,” he said, “it isn’t worth dictating to men who are fine and good. 425e They’ll easily find out for themselves, I imagine, most of what needs to be legislated.”

“Yes, my friend,” I said, “if a god grants them the preservation of the laws we went through before.”

“If not,” he said, “they’ll spend their lives constantly laying down many such rules and amending them, thinking they’ll hit on the best.”

“You mean,” I said, “that such people will live like those who are sick but, from intemperance, unwilling to give up a bad way of life.”

“Exactly.” 426a

“And a charming life they lead! For all their doctoring they achieve nothing, except to make their illnesses more complicated and worse, and they’re always hoping that whatever drug someone recommends will make them healthy.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s just how people ill in that way behave.”

“Well,” I said, “and isn’t this charming of them: they regard as their worst enemy the person who tells them the truth—that until they stop drinking, gorging, indulging in sex, and idling, 426b neither drugs nor cautery nor surgery, nor spells or amulets or anything else of the kind, will do them any good?”

“Not charming at all,” he said. “There’s nothing charming about being angry with someone who gives good advice.”

“You don’t seem to be an admirer of such men,” I said.

“No, by Zeus, I’m not.”

“Then you won’t admire the city either, as we were just saying, if as a whole it does this sort of thing. Or don’t you think the badly governed cities are doing the same as these men, when they warn 426c their citizens not to disturb the city’s whole established order, on pain of death for anyone who does, while whoever serves them most pleasantly as they’re governed this way, and gratifies them by fawning on them, anticipating their wishes and being clever at fulfilling them—he’s the one who’ll be a good man and wise in great matters, and honored by them?”

“Yes,” he said, “I think they do the same, and I don’t approve of it in the least.” 426d

“And what about those who are willing, even eager, to serve such cities? Don’t you admire their courage and readiness?”

“I do,” he said, “except for those who’ve been taken in by them and think they’re truly statesmen because the many praise them.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you forgive the men?” I said. “Or do you think it’s possible for a man who doesn’t know how to measure, when many others 426e like him tell him he’s six feet tall, not to believe it about himself?”

“No,” he said, “not that, anyway.”

“Then don’t be hard on them. Surely such people are the most charming of all: they legislate on the sort of things we just went through and keep amending them, always thinking they’ll find some end to the wrongdoing in contracts and the other things I was just talking about, not knowing that in reality they’re cutting at a Hydra.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

“So I, for my part,” I said, “wouldn’t have thought the true lawgiver should trouble himself with this kind of law and constitution, whether the city is badly governed or well—in the one because it’s useless and achieves nothing, in the other because some of it anyone at all could discover, and the rest follows of its own accord from the practices already established.” 427b

“Then what,” he said, “would still be left for us in the way of legislation?”

And I said, “For us, nothing; but for Apollo at Delphi, the greatest, finest, and first of laws.”

“What are they?” he said.

“The founding of temples, sacrifices, and other forms of service to gods, divinities, and heroes; and again, the burial of the dead, and all the services we must render to those in the other world to keep them gracious. We ourselves know nothing about such things, and in founding a city 427c we won’t trust anyone else, if we have any sense, or use any interpreter but our ancestral one. For surely this god is the ancestral interpreter of such matters for all mankind, and he gives his interpretations seated at the navel, in the center of the earth.”

“You’re right,” he said, “and that’s what we must do.”note

“Well, son of Ariston,” I said, “your city 427d may now be considered founded. Next, get yourself enough light from somewhere and look inside it—you yourself, and call in your brother and Polemarchus and the others—to see if we can somehow discover where justice might be and where injustice, how they differ from each other, and which of the two a person must have if he’s going to be happy, whether or not all gods and men are aware of it.”

“Nonsense,” said Glaucon. “You promised to search yourself, 427e saying it would be impious of you not to come to justice’s aid in every way you could.”

“That’s a true reminder,” I said, “and I must do so; but you must all help too.”

“We will,” he said.

“Then I hope,” I said, “to find it this way. I think our city, if it’s been rightly founded, is completely good.”

“It must be,” he said.

“Clearly, then, it is wise, courageous, moderate, and just.”

“Clearly.”

“Then whichever of these we find in it, what’s left will be the one not yet found?”

“Of course.”

“It’s as with any other four things: if we were looking for one of them in something, and recognized that one first, that would be enough for us; but if we recognized the other three first, by that very fact the one we were looking for would have been identified, since clearly it could be nothing but the one left over.”

“You’re right,” he said.

“So with these too, since there happen to be four, we should search in the same way?”

“Clearly.”

“Well, the first thing I think is plainly visible in it 428b is wisdom, and there’s something odd about it.”

“What?” he said.

“The city we’ve described really does seem wise to me, since it’s good at deliberating, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And this very thing, good deliberation, is clearly a kind of knowledge, since it’s surely not by ignorance but by knowledge that people deliberate well.”

“Clearly.”

“But there are many kinds of knowledge, of every sort, in the city.”

“Of course.”

“Then is it because of the carpenters’ knowledge that the city should be called wise and good at deliberating?” 428c

“Not at all,” he said. “Because of that it would be called good at carpentry.”

“So it isn’t because of its knowledge about wooden articles, when it deliberates how they’d be best, that a city should be called wise.”

“Certainly not.”

“What about knowledge of bronze articles, or anything else of that kind?”

“None of them,” he said.

“Nor the knowledge of growing crops from the earth: because of that it’s good at farming.”

“I think so.”

“Well then,” I said, “is there some knowledge in the city we’ve just founded, among some of the citizens, by which it deliberates not about some particular thing 428d in the city, but about the city itself as a whole, how it can best conduct its relations both with itself and with other cities?”

“There certainly is.”

“What is it,” I said, “and in whom?”

“It’s guardianship,” he said, “and it’s in those rulers we just now called complete guardians.”

“Then because of this knowledge, what do you call the city?”

“Good at deliberating,” he said, “and truly wise.”

“Now do you think,” I said, “there’ll be more smiths 428e in our city, or more of these true guardians?”

“Far more smiths,” he said.

“And of all the others who have some knowledge and get a name from it, these would be the fewest?”

“By far.”

“So it’s because of its smallest group and part, and the knowledge in it—the part that leads and rules—that a city founded according to nature would be wise as a whole. And this, it seems, is by nature 429a the smallest class, the one whose place it is to share in this knowledge, which alone of all kinds of knowledge should be called wisdom.”

“Very true,” he said.

“So we’ve found—I don’t know quite how—this one of the four, both what it is and where in the city it has its seat.”

“I think, anyway,” he said, “it’s been found well enough.”

“And courage, too—both what it is and where in the city it lies, making the city deserve to be called courageous—isn’t very hard to see.”

“How so?” 429b

“Who,” I said, “would call a city cowardly or courageous by looking to anything but the part that fights for it and goes to war on its behalf?”

“No one,” he said, “would look to anything else.”

“No, for I don’t think,” I said, “that the others in it, whether cowardly or courageous, would decide whether it is one or the other.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“So a city is courageous, too, by a certain part of itself, because in that part it has a power that will preserve through everything its opinion about 429c what is to be feared: that these are the things, and things of this kind, that the lawgiver proclaimed in their education. Or don’t you call this courage?”

“I didn’t quite understand what you said,” he said. “Say it again.”

“I’m saying,” I said, “that courage is a kind of preservation.”

“What kind of preservation?”

“Preservation of the opinion, produced by law through education, about what things, and what kinds of things, are to be feared. And by preserving it ‘through everything’ I meant keeping it safe and not throwing it out, whether one is in pains or in 429d pleasures, in desires or in fears. If you like, I’m willing to show you what I think it resembles.”

“I’d like that.”

“You know,” I said, “that dyers, when they want to dye wool purple, first pick out, from all the many colors, the one kind that is white; then they prepare it beforehand, treating it with no small preparation so that it will take the color as well as possible, and only then do they dye it. 429e Whatever is dyed in this way becomes colorfast, and no washing, with cleansers or without, can take the color out of it. But you know what happens to things that aren’t, whether someone dyes other colors or dyes these without treating them first.”

“I know,” he said. “They wash out and look ridiculous.”

“Then suppose,” I said, “that we too were doing something like this, as far as we could, when we selected our soldiers and 430a educated them in music and gymnastics. Don’t think we were contriving anything but this: that, persuaded by us, they would take in the laws as well as possible, like a dye, so that their opinion about what is to be feared, and about everything else, would become colorfast, because they had the right nature and upbringing; and so that those cleansers wouldn’t wash the dye out of them, formidable as they are at scouring—pleasure, more formidable at this than any soda 430b or lye, and pain, fear, and desire, more than any other cleanser. This power, then, this preservation through everything of right and lawful opinion about what is and isn’t to be feared, is what I call courage, and set down as such, unless you have something else to say.”

“No, I have nothing else to say,” he said. “For I take it that right opinion about these same things that arises without education—the kind found in beasts and slaves—you don’t consider altogether lawful, and you call it something other than courage.” 430c

“Very true,” I said.

“Then I accept that this is courage.”

“Yes, accept it,” I said, “as civic courage, anyway, and you’ll be right to. We’ll go through it more thoroughly another time, if you like. At present it isn’t this we’re looking for, but justice; and for the search for that, I think, this is enough.”

“You’re right,” he said.

“Now two things are still left,” I said, “that we must make out in the 430d city: moderation, and the thing for whose sake we’re looking for them all, justice.”

“Certainly.”

“How could we find justice, so as not to have to bother any more about moderation?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said, “and I wouldn’t want justice to come to light first, if we’re not going to look into moderation after all. If you want to do me a favor, look at this one before that one.” 430e

“I’m certainly willing,” I said, “unless it would be wrong of me.”

“Then look,” he said.

“We must look,” I said. “And seen from here, it resembles a kind of concord and harmony more than the others did.”

“How?”

“Moderation,” I said, “is surely a kind of order, a mastery of certain pleasures and desires. People speak of someone as ‘stronger than himself,’ though I don’t know quite what they mean by it, and other such expressions are used that are like traces of it. Isn’t that so?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“But isn’t ‘stronger than himself’ ridiculous? The one who is stronger than himself would also, I suppose, be weaker than himself, and the weaker would be stronger, 431a since it’s the same person spoken of in all these expressions.”

“Of course.”

“But it seems to me,” I said, “that this expression means that in the person himself, in his soul, there’s a better part and a worse; and when the naturally better part is in control of the worse, that’s what is meant by ‘stronger than himself’—it’s praise, at any rate. But when, through bad upbringing or bad company, the better part, being smaller, 431b is overpowered by the mass of the worse, this is criticized as something shameful, and the person in that condition is called weaker than himself and undisciplined.”

“Yes, that seems right,” he said.

“Now look at our new city,” I said, “and you’ll find the first of these in it. You’ll say it’s rightly called stronger than itself, if what has its better part ruling its worse is to be called moderate and stronger than itself.”

“I’m looking,” he said, “and what you say is true.”

“And again, the many desires of every kind, 431c and pleasures and pains, are found above all in children, women, and household slaves, and, among the so-called free, in the many and inferior.”

“Certainly.”

“But the simple and measured ones, which are guided by reasoning with the help of intelligence and right opinion, you’ll meet only in a few, those with the best natures and the best education.”

“True,” he said.

“And don’t you see that these too are present in your city, and that there the desires in the many and 431d inferior are mastered by the desires and the understanding in the fewer and more decent?”

“I do,” he said.

“So if any city is to be called stronger than its pleasures and desires, and than itself, this one should be.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“And isn’t it also moderate, on all these counts?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“And again, if in any other city rulers 431e and ruled share the same opinion about who should rule, that would be present in this one too. Don’t you think so?”

“Very much so,” he said, “absolutely.”

“Then in which of the citizens will you say moderation is present, when they’re in this condition? In the rulers or the ruled?”

“In both, I suppose,” he said.

“So do you see,” I said, “that we guessed pretty well just now when we said moderation resembles a kind of harmony?”

“Why is that?”

“Because it doesn’t work the way courage and wisdom do. Each of those resided in one part of the city 432a and made it wise or courageous respectively. Moderation doesn’t act like that. It stretches straight through the whole city, across the entire scale, and makes the weakest, the strongest and those in between all sing the same tune together—whether you rank them by understanding, or by strength, or, if you like, by numbers or wealth or anything else of the sort. So we’d be quite right to say that this unanimity is moderation: the natural concord between worse and better about which of them should rule, both in a city and in each individual.” 432b

“I entirely agree,” he said.

“Well then,” I said, “we’ve spotted three of them in our city, at least as far as it looks at this stage. So what could the remaining form be, the one that would give the city a further share in excellence? Obviously it’s justice.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, Glaucon, now’s the time for us to station ourselves in a circle around the thicket like hunters, and keep our wits about us, so that justice doesn’t slip away somewhere and vanish from sight. 432c It’s clearly somewhere around here. So look, and do your best to catch sight of it—maybe you’ll see it before I do and can point it out to me.”

“If only I could,” he said. “But you’ll be making quite reasonable use of me if you treat me as a follower who can see what’s pointed out to him.”

“Follow, then,” I said, “once you’ve said a prayer with me.”

“I will,” he said. “Just lead the way.”

“The place certainly looks hard going,” I said, “and overgrown. It’s dark, at any rate, and difficult to search. Still, we have to go on.” 432d

“We do,” he said.

Then I caught sight of something. “Aha! Aha, Glaucon!” I said. “It looks as though we’ve found a track, and I don’t think it’s going to get away from us now.”

“Good news,” he said.

“Honestly,” I said, “we’ve been behaving like dullards.”

“How so?”

“It’s been rolling around at our feet all along, my dear fellow, right from the start, and we never saw it. We were utterly ridiculous. Like people who sometimes go looking for what they’re holding 432e in their hands, we didn’t look at the thing itself but gazed off somewhere into the distance—which is probably just why it escaped us.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“This,” I said: “I think we’ve been talking about it and hearing about it for a long time without realizing that we ourselves were, in a way, describing it.”

“That’s a long preamble,” he said, “for someone who’s eager to hear.”

“Then this, my friend,” I said, “doing one’s own work, when it comes about in a certain way, looks as if it’s justice. Do you know what my evidence is?”

“No—tell me,” he said.

“I think,” I said, “that what’s left in the city, beyond the things we’ve examined—moderation, courage and understanding—is the thing that gave all of them the power to arise in the first place, and that preserves them once they’ve arisen, as long as it’s 433c present. And we did say that justice would be what was left over once we’d found the three.”

“It must be,” he said.

“And yet,” I said, “if we had to decide which of these would do most to make our city good by its presence, it would be hard to judge. Is it the agreement in opinion between rulers and ruled? Or the preservation, in the soldiers, of the lawful opinion about what is and isn’t to be feared? Or the understanding and vigilance present in 433d the rulers? Or is what most makes the city good the fact, present in child and woman, slave and free, craftsman, ruler and ruled, that each did his own work as one person and didn’t meddle?”

“Hard to judge,” he said. “Of course it is.”

“So it seems that, when it comes to a city’s excellence, the power of each person in it to do his own work rivals its wisdom, moderation and courage.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Then wouldn’t you count justice as the thing that rivals these in contributing to the excellence 433e of a city?”

“Absolutely.”

“Now look at it this way too and see whether you’ll agree. Will you assign the rulers in the city to judge lawsuits?”

“Of course.”

“And will their aim in judging be anything other than this: that no one should have what belongs to others or be deprived of what’s his own?”

“No, just that.”

“Because that’s just?”

“Yes.”

“So in this way too, the having and 434a doing of what is one’s own and belongs to oneself would be agreed to be justice.”

“That’s right.”

“Now see whether you agree with me. Suppose a carpenter tries to do a shoemaker’s work, or a shoemaker a carpenter’s; or they swap tools or honors; or the same man tries to do both jobs—with all the rest swapped around like that, do you think it would do the city much harm?”

“Not much,” he said.

“But when someone who is by nature a craftsman or some other kind of moneymaker 434b gets carried away by wealth or numbers or strength or something like that and tries to move into the class of warriors, or one of the warriors tries to move into the class of counselors and guardians when he’s unworthy of it, and these people swap each other’s tools and honors—or when the same man tries to do all these things at once—then, I think you’ll agree too, this interchange and meddling among them is the ruin of the city.”

“Absolutely.”

“So when there are three classes, meddling among them and interchange from one 434c to another is the greatest harm to the city, and would quite rightly be called the worst of crimes.”

“Exactly.”

“And won’t you say that the worst crime against one’s own city is injustice?”

“Of course.”

“So that is injustice. Now let’s put it the other way round. The opposite of that—when the moneymaking, auxiliary and guardian classes each mind their own business, each doing its own work in the city—wouldn’t that be justice, and make the city just?” 434d

“I think it’s that,” he said, “and nothing else.”

“Let’s not state it with complete confidence just yet,” I said. “If this form, when we apply it to each individual human being as well, is agreed to be justice there too, then we’ll grant it—what else could we say? If not, we’ll look into something else. For now, let’s finish the inquiry we undertook in the belief that, if we first tried to observe justice in some larger thing that has it, it would be easier to see what it’s like in a single person. And 434e we decided that this larger thing was a city, and so we founded the best one we could, knowing well that justice would be found in the good one, at any rate. So let’s apply what came to light there to the individual. If it agrees, well and good.

“But if something different shows up in the individual, we’ll go back to the city and test it there, and 435a perhaps, by looking at the two side by side and rubbing them together, we might make justice blaze out, as fire does from fire-sticks. And once it’s come to light, we’ll confirm it for ourselves.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s a sound way to proceed, and we should do it.”

“Now,” I said, “when you call two things, one bigger and one smaller, by the same name, are they unlike in the respect in which they’re called the same, or alike?”

“Alike,” he said. 435b

“Then a just man won’t differ at all from a just city with respect to the form of justice itself; he’ll be like it.”

“Like it,” he said.

“But the city seemed to be just when the three kinds of natures present in it each did their own work; and it was moderate, courageous and wise because of certain other conditions and states of those same classes.”

“True,” he said.

“In that case, my friend, we’ll expect the individual to have these same 435c forms in his own soul, and to be rightly called by the same names as the city because they’re in the same conditions.”

“It has to be so,” he said.

“Well, my remarkable friend,” I said, “here we’ve stumbled on another trivial little question about the soul: does it have these three forms in it or not?”

“It doesn’t look trivial to me at all,” he said. “Perhaps the saying is true, Socrates, that fine things are hard.”

“Evidently,” I said. “And you should know, Glaucon, that in my 435d opinion we’ll never get an exact grasp of this by methods like the ones we’re now using in our discussion—the road that leads there is a different one, longer and fuller. But perhaps we can manage it in a way that lives up to what we’ve already said and examined.”

“Isn’t that enough to be content with?” he said. “For me, at present anyway, it would be enough.”

“Well,” I said, “it will certainly do for me too.”

“Then don’t lose heart,” he said. “Carry on with the inquiry.” 435e

“Well,” I said, “aren’t we absolutely bound to agree that the same forms and characteristics are present in each of us as in the city? They surely didn’t get there from anywhere else.

“It would be absurd for anyone to think that the spirited part didn’t come into cities from the individuals who are credited with it—the people of Thrace and Scythia, for instance, and pretty much the whole northern region—or the love of learning, which one would chiefly credit to our part 436a of the world, or the love of money, which one might say is found especially among the Phoenicians and the people of Egypt.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“So that’s how that is,” I said, “and it’s not hard to recognize.”

“Certainly not.”note

“But this is hard: whether we do each of these things with the same thing, or with three different things, one for each. Do we learn with one of the things in us, get angry with another, and with a third have appetites for the pleasures of food and procreation and whatever is akin to 436b them? Or do we act with the whole soul in each case, whenever we set about them? That’s what will be hard to determine in a way that does the question justice.”

“I think so too,” he said.

“Then let’s try to settle whether they’re the same as one another or different, in this way.”

“How?”

“Let’s make our agreement still more precise, so that we don’t end up disputing it as we go on. If someone said of a man who is standing still but moving his hands and head that the same man is standing still and moving at the same time, we wouldn’t, I think, accept that as the right 436d way to put it; we’d say that one part of him is standing still and another part is moving. Isn’t that so?”

“It is.”

“And if the person saying this got even more playful and argued ingeniously that spinning tops, at least, stand still and move as wholes at the same time, when they spin with the peg fixed in one spot—or that anything else that goes around in a circle in the same place does the same—we wouldn’t accept it, since in such cases it isn’t in the same parts 436e of themselves that they’re at rest and in motion. We’d say they have in them an axis and a circumference, and that with respect to the axis they’re standing still, since it doesn’t tilt at all, while with respect to the circumference they’re moving in a circle; and when the axis tilts to the right or the left, forward or backward, while it’s spinning, then it isn’t standing still in any way.”

“Quite right,” he said.

“So none of these objections will throw us, or do anything more to persuade us that the same thing could ever, at the same time, in the same 437a respect and in relation to the same thing, undergo or be or do opposite things.”

“They won’t persuade me, anyway,” he said.

“All the same,” I said, “so that we’re not forced to spend a long time going through all these objections and proving them false, let’s assume that this is so and move on—agreeing that if it ever turns out otherwise, everything we’ve concluded from it will be void.”

“Yes, that’s what we should do,” he said. 437b

“Then would you put nodding yes and shaking one’s head no, reaching out to take something and refusing it, drawing something toward oneself and pushing it away—all such things—among opposites, whether as things one does or things one undergoes? That won’t make any difference here.”

“Yes,” he said, “among opposites.”

“Well then,” I said, “thirst and hunger and the appetites in general, and again wishing and wanting—wouldn’t you put all these 437c somewhere among the kinds we just mentioned? For instance, won’t you say that the soul of someone with an appetite always either reaches out for what it has an appetite for, or draws toward itself what it wants to have; or again, insofar as it wishes something to be provided for it, nods yes to it, as if someone had asked, in its longing for it to come about?”

“I will.”

“And what about not wanting, not wishing and not having an appetite? Won’t we put these under pushing away and driving off from the soul, and among all the opposites of the others?” 437d

“Of course.”

“Since that’s so, shall we say that the appetites form a kind, and that the most conspicuous of them are what we call thirst and hunger?”

“We shall,” he said.

“One for drink, the other for food?”

“Yes.”

“Now insofar as it’s thirst, would it be an appetite in the soul for anything more than what we’ve said? For instance, is thirst thirst for hot drink or cold, or much or little—in a word, for some particular kind of drink? Or rather, if some heat is added to 437e the thirst, that would bring in an appetite for something cold as well, and if coldness, for something hot; and if the thirst is great because greatness is present, it will bring in the appetite for a lot, and if small, for a little? But thirst itself will never be an appetite for anything other than its natural object, drink itself—and hunger, likewise, for food?”

“Yes,” he said, “each appetite itself is only for its own natural object, and it’s what is added that makes it for this or that kind.”

“Then let no one catch us off our guard,” I said, “and throw us into confusion by saying that nobody has an appetite for drink but for good drink, and not for food but for good food—since everyone, after all, has an appetite for good things; so if thirst is an appetite, it would be for good drink, or good whatever it’s an appetite for, and the same with the others.”

“Well,” he said, “the person who says that might seem to have a point.”

“All the same,” I said, “among things that are such as to be relative to 438b something, those of a particular kind are relative to something of a particular kind, it seems to me, while those that are just themselves are relative only to things that are just themselves.”

“I don’t follow,” he said.

“Don’t you follow,” I said, “that the greater is such as to be greater than something?”

“Certainly.”

“Than the less?”

“Yes.”

“And the much greater than the much less, right?”

“Yes.”

“And the once greater than the once less, and what will be greater than what will be less?”

“What else?” he said. 438c

“And more in relation to fewer, double to half, and everything of that sort; and again heavier to lighter, faster to slower, and hot to cold as well, and everything like them—isn’t it the same with them?”

“Certainly.”

“And what about the kinds of knowledge? Isn’t it the same pattern? Knowledge itself is knowledge of learning itself, or of whatever it is we should take knowledge to be of; whereas a particular kind of knowledge 438d is of a particular kind of thing. I mean something like this. When there came to be a knowledge of making houses, didn’t it differ from the other kinds of knowledge, so that it was called housebuilding?”

“Of course.”

“Wasn’t that because it was of a particular kind, as none of the others was?”

“Yes.”

“And it became of a particular kind itself because it was of something of a particular kind? And the same goes for the other crafts and kinds of knowledge?”

“That’s so.”

“Then take this,” I said, “to be what I meant earlier, if you’ve understood it now: of things that are relative to something, those that are just themselves are relative only to things that are just themselves, while things of a particular kind are relative to things of a particular kind. 438e And I don’t mean that they’re of the same kind as the things they’re relative to—as if knowledge of what’s healthy and diseased were itself healthy and diseased, or knowledge of bad and good things were itself bad and good. I mean that when knowledge came to be not of the very thing knowledge is of, but of something of a particular kind—in this case the healthy and the diseased—it turned out to be of a particular kind itself; and that made it no longer be called simply knowledge but, with the particular kind added, medicine.”

“I understand,” he said, “and I think that’s so.”

“Then what about thirst?” I said. “Won’t you put it among the things that are what they are by being relative to something? Thirst is surely thirst for—”

“I will,” he said. “For drink.”

“So for a particular kind of drink there’s a particular kind of thirst; but thirst itself isn’t for much or little, or good or bad, or in a word for any particular kind, but thirst itself is naturally only for drink itself?”

“Absolutely.”

“So the soul of someone who is thirsty, insofar as it’s thirsty, wants nothing other 439b than to drink; that’s what it longs for and strives toward.”

“Clearly.”

“Then if something ever pulls it back when it’s thirsty, that would be something in it different from the thing that’s thirsty and drives it like a beast to drink? Because, we say, the same thing can’t do opposite things with the same part of itself, concerning the same thing, at the same time.”

“No, it can’t.”

“In the same way, I think, it isn’t right to say of an archer that his hands push the bow away and pull it toward him at the same time; rather, one hand pushes it away and the other draws it in.” 439c

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Now, shall we say that some people are sometimes thirsty and yet unwilling to drink?”

“Certainly,” he said, “many people, and often.”

“Then what should one say about them?” I said. “Isn’t it that there’s something in their soul urging them to drink and something forbidding them, something different that overpowers what’s urging them?”

“I think so,” he said.

“And doesn’t what forbids such things arise, when 439d it does arise, from reasoning, while what drives and drags them on comes through feelings and diseased states?”

“Evidently.”

“Then it won’t be unreasonable,” I said, “for us to claim that they are two, and different from each other, calling the part of the soul with which it reasons the reasoning part, and the part with which it loves and hungers and thirsts and is stirred up by the other appetites the unreasoning and appetitive part, companion of certain satisfactions and pleasures.” 439e

“No,” he said, “it would be quite reasonable for us to think so.”

“Well then,” I said, “let’s take it that these two forms present in the soul have been marked off. But what about spirit, the thing with which we get angry? Is it a third, or would it be of the same nature as one of these two?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “as one of them—the appetitive part.”

“Yes, it does,” he said.

“And in many other cases,” I said, “don’t we notice that when appetites 440b force someone against his reasoning, he reproaches himself and is angry at the thing in him that’s forcing him, and that, as if two factions were at war, the spirit of such a person becomes the ally of reason? But spirit making common cause with the appetites when reason has decided it mustn’t be opposed—I don’t think you’d say you had ever noticed that sort of thing happening in yourself, or, I imagine, in anyone else.”

“No, by Zeus,” he said. 440c

“And what about when someone thinks he’s in the wrong?” I said. “Isn’t it true that the nobler he is, the less able he is to be angry at suffering hunger or cold or anything else of the kind at the hands of someone he thinks is justly doing this to him—and his spirit, as I say, refuses to be roused against that person?”

“True,” he said.

“And what about when someone thinks he’s being wronged? Doesn’t he seethe and chafe in that case, and fight on the side of what seems just? And through hunger and cold and every suffering of that kind, 440d doesn’t he hold out and win, and not give up his noble efforts until he either succeeds, or dies, or is called back by the reason within him and calmed, like a dog by a shepherd?”

“It’s very like what you describe,” he said. “And in fact in our city we made the auxiliaries like dogs, obedient to the rulers, who are like the city’s shepherds.”

“You’ve understood very well what I mean,” I said. “But have you also taken note of this?” 440e

“What?”

“That what we’re now seeing about the spirited part is the opposite of what we thought just now. Then we supposed it was something appetitive; now we say it’s far from that, and that in the soul’s civil war it much rather takes up arms on the side of the reasoning part.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Then is it different from that as well, or a form of the reasoning part, so that there are two forms in the soul, not three—the reasoning and the appetitive? Or, just as three 441a classes held the city together—moneymaking, auxiliary and deliberative—is the spirited part a third thing in the soul too, by nature the auxiliary of the reasoning part, unless it’s corrupted by a bad upbringing?”

“It must be a third,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “provided it turns out to be something other than the reasoning part, as it turned out to be different from the appetitive.”

“But that’s not hard to show,” he said. “You can see it even in small children: they’re full of spirit right from birth, whereas some of them, it seems to me, never get a share of reason, 441b and most get one only late.”

“Yes, by Zeus,” I said, “well put. And you could also see in animals that what you say is so. Besides, the line of Homer that we quoted somewhere back there will bear witness: ‘He struck his breast and rebuked his heart with words.’ For here Homer has clearly represented 441c the part that has reasoned about better and worse as something different, rebuking the part that is unreasoningly angry.”

“You’re quite right,” he said.note

“So we’ve managed to swim through that, though barely,” I said, “and we’ve reached reasonable agreement that the same classes are present in the city and in the soul of each individual, and equal in number.”

“That’s so.”

“Then doesn’t it follow necessarily that the individual is wise in the same way, and by the same part, as the city was wise?”

“Of course.” 441d

“And that the city is courageous by the same part and in the same way as the individual is courageous, and that both stand alike in everything else that has to do with excellence?”

“Necessarily.”

“And so, Glaucon, I think we’ll say that a man is just in the same way that the city was just.”

“That too is entirely necessary.”

“But surely we haven’t forgotten that the city was just because each of the three classes in it did its own work.”

“I don’t think we’ve forgotten,” he said.

“Then we must remember that each of us, too, will be just and do his own work when each of the parts 441e within him does its own work.”

“Yes,” he said, “we must remember that.”

“So isn’t it fitting for the reasoning part to rule, since it’s wise and exercises foresight on behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to obey it and be its ally?”

“Certainly.”

“Then, as we were saying, won’t a blend of music and gymnastics bring them into harmony, tightening the one and 442a nourishing it with fine words and studies, and loosening the other, soothing it and taming it with harmony and rhythm?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“And once these two have been reared like this, and have truly learned their own work and been educated in it, they will be put in charge of the appetitive part—which is the largest part of the soul in each of us, and by nature the most insatiable for money. They will watch over it, so that it doesn’t get filled up with the so-called pleasures of the body, grow large and strong, and then 442b stop doing its own work, and instead try to enslave and rule over things its kind has no business ruling, and so overturn the whole life of all of them.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“And wouldn’t these two,” I said, “also do the finest job of guarding against enemies from outside, on behalf of the whole soul and body—the one by deliberating, the other by fighting in front of it, following the ruler and carrying out its decisions through its courage?”

“That’s right.”

“And I think we call each individual 442c courageous because of this part, when his spirited part preserves, through pains and pleasures alike, what reason has declared is to be feared and what is not.”

“Rightly,” he said.

“And wise because of that small part, the one that ruled in him and issued those declarations—the part which, for its own share, has within it the knowledge of what benefits each part and the whole community of all three.”

“Certainly.”

“And what about this: isn’t he moderate because of the friendship and concord of these same parts, when the ruling part and the two that are ruled 442d share the opinion that the reasoning part should rule, and don’t rebel against it?”

“Moderation, at any rate,” he said, “is nothing other than that, in a city and in an individual.”

“And he’ll be just, surely, in the way and by the means we keep describing.”

“He has to be.”

“Well then,” I said, “is our picture of justice getting blurred at all, so that it seems to be something other than what it turned out to be in the city?”

“Not to me, it doesn’t,” he said.

“Here’s how we could make completely sure,” I said, 442e “if anything in our soul still has doubts: by testing it against commonplace cases.”

“What sort of cases?”

“For instance, suppose we had to agree about that city, and about the man who resembles it by nature and upbringing, whether such a man, if entrusted with a deposit of gold or silver, would make off with it. Who do you think would suppose 443a that he would do it, rather than people who aren’t like him?”

“No one would,” he said.

“And wouldn’t he have nothing to do with temple robbery, theft and betrayal, whether of friends in private life or of cities in public life?”

“Nothing to do with them.”

“And he wouldn’t break faith in any way at all, either over oaths or over any other agreements.”

“How could he?”

“And adultery, neglect of parents, and failure to serve the gods are more typical of anyone else than of a man like this.”

“Of anyone at all,” he said. 443b

“And isn’t the cause of all this that each of the parts within him does its own work, in ruling and in being ruled?”

“That’s the cause, and nothing else.”

“Then are you still looking for justice to be anything other than this power, which produces men and cities like these?”

“No, by Zeus,” he said, “I’m not.”

“So our dream has come completely true—our suspicion, as we said, that right at the start of founding the city, 443c with some god’s help, we had probably hit upon a first principle and a kind of outline of justice.”

“Absolutely.”

“In fact, Glaucon, that principle—and this is why it was useful—was a kind of image of justice: that the man who is by nature a shoemaker should rightly make shoes and do nothing else, the carpenter do carpentry, and so on.”

“Evidently.”

“But the truth, it seems, is that justice was something like this, though not concerned with someone’s outward doing of his own work but with 443d the inward: with what truly concerns himself and what is his own. The just man doesn’t allow each part within him to do the work of another, or the kinds in his soul to meddle with one another. Instead he truly puts his own house in good order, rules himself, sets himself in order and becomes his own friend. He harmonizes the three parts exactly like the three fixed notes of a musical scale—highest, lowest and middle—and any others that happen to lie in between.

“What you say is entirely true, Socrates,” he said.

“Very well,” I said. “If we claimed to have found the just man, the just city, and what justice actually is in them, I don’t think we’d seem to be lying at all.”

“By Zeus, we certainly wouldn’t,” he said.

“Shall we claim it, then?”

“Let’s claim it.”

“So be it,” I said. “Next, I think, we have to examine injustice.”

“Clearly.” 444b

“Mustn’t it, in turn, be a kind of civil war among these three parts—meddling, doing what belongs to others, the rebellion of one part against the whole of the soul so that it can rule in it when that isn’t its place? For that part is by nature fit to be a slave, while the other, belonging to the ruling kind, is fit not to be a slave. Something like this, I think, is what we’ll say: that the turmoil and wandering of these parts is injustice, and licentiousness, and cowardice, and ignorance—in a word, badness of every kind.”

“That’s exactly it,” he said. 444c

“Then,” I said, “doing unjust things and doing wrong, and again doing just things—aren’t all these perfectly clear by now, if injustice and justice are?”

“How so?”

“Because,” I said, “they’re no different from healthy and unhealthy things: what those are in the body, these are in the soul.”

“In what way?” he said.

“Healthy things, I take it, produce health, and unhealthy things disease.”

“Yes.”

“And doesn’t doing just things produce justice, 444d and doing unjust things injustice?”

“Necessarily.”

“To produce health is to arrange the parts of the body so that they master and are mastered by one another in accordance with nature, while to produce disease is to arrange them so that one rules and another is ruled contrary to nature.”

“So it is.”

“Then again,” I said, “to produce justice is to arrange the parts of the soul so that they master and are mastered by one another in accordance with nature, and to produce injustice is to arrange them so that one rules and another is ruled contrary to nature?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Excellence, then, it seems, would be a kind of health, 444e beauty and good condition of the soul, and badness a disease, ugliness and weakness.”

“That’s so.”

“And don’t fine practices lead to the acquisition of excellence, and shameful ones to badness?”

“Necessarily.”

“So what remains for us to examine now, it seems, is 445a whether it pays to do just things, practice fine ones and be just, whether or not anyone knows you’re like that; or to do wrong and be unjust, provided you don’t pay the penalty and aren’t made better by being punished.”

“But Socrates,” he said, “to me the inquiry is starting to look ridiculous at this point. When the body’s nature is ruined, life doesn’t seem worth living, not even with every kind of food and drink and all the wealth and power in the world. Yet when the nature of the very thing we live by is thrown into turmoil and 445b ruined, is life going to be worth living—so long as a person can do whatever he likes, except the one thing that will rid him of badness and injustice and win him justice and excellence? That is, now that each of them has turned out to be the sort of thing we’ve described.”

“It is ridiculous,” I said. “But still, since we’ve come this far, we mustn’t grow weary before we see as clearly as we can that this is how things are.”

“By Zeus,” he said, “growing weary is the last thing we should do.” 445c

“Come along, then,” I said, “so that you can see how many forms badness has, as I see it—the ones, at least, that are worth looking at.”

“I’m following,” he said. “Just tell me.”

“Well,” I said, “now that we’ve climbed this high in the argument, I seem to see, as if from a lookout, that there is one form of excellence but countless forms of badness, and among them four worth mentioning.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“There are probably as many types of soul,” I said, “as there are types of constitution with distinct forms.”

“How many is that?” 445d

“Five types of constitution,” I said, “and five of soul.”

“Tell me which they are,” he said.

“I say,” I said, “that one type of constitution is the one we’ve described, though it could be called by two names: if one outstanding man arises among the rulers, it would be called kingship; if more than one, aristocracy.”

“True,” he said.

“So I count this as one form,” I said. “Whether 445e there were several such men or one, none of them would alter any of the city’s laws worth mentioning, if they had the upbringing and education we described.”

“Not likely,” he said.