Before BOOK V.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Plato and Benjamin Jowett
Impossible.
No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his father and mother, or to fail in his religious duties?
No one.
B And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled?
Exactly so.
Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other?
Not I, indeed.
We have realized the hope entertained in the first construction of the State. Then our dream has been realized; and the suspicion which we entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, Cthat some divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has now been verified?
Yes, certainly.
And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own business, and not another’s, was a shadow of justice, and for that reason it was of use?
Clearly.
The three principles harmonize in one. But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but Dwith the inward, which is the true self and concernment of 137 man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,—he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; The harmony of human life.and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals—when he has bound all these together, and is no longer Emany, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, 444and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.
You have said the exact truth, Socrates.
Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we should not be telling a falsehood?
Most certainly not.
May we say so, then?
Let us say so.
And now, I said, injustice has to be considered.
Clearly.
BInjustice the opposite of justice. Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles—a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,—what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice?
Exactly so.
C And if the nature of justice and injustice be known, then the meaning of acting unjustly and being unjust, or, again, of acting justly, will also be perfectly clear?
What do you mean? he said.
Analogy of body and soul. Why, I said, they are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body. 138
How so? he said.
Why, I said, that which is healthy causes health, and that which is unhealthy causes disease.
Yes.
D And just actions cause justice, and unjust actions cause injustice?
That is certain.
Health : disease :: justice : injustice. And the creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body; and the creation of disease is the production of a state of things at variance with this natural order?
True.
And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order?
Exactly so, he said.
Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the Esoul, and vice the disease and weakness and deformity of the same?
True.
And do not good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice?
Assuredly.
445The old question, whether the just or the unjust is the happier, has become ridiculous. Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed?
In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is Bstill worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described?
Yes, I said, the question is, as you say, ridiculous. Still, 139 as we are near the spot at which we may see the truth in the clearest manner with our own eyes, let us not faint by the way.