The Guardians' Way of Life: Nothing of Their Own

Not in the least, he said — not these men themselves; but perhaps their sons, and those who come after, and the rest of mankind in later ages.

But even this, I said, would be a good thing, tending to make them care more for the city and for one another — for I think I roughly understand what you mean.

Well, this will go wherever the report may carry it; but let us arm these earthborn men and lead them forth, with their rulers going in front. And when they arrive, let them look out over the city for the best place to make camp, from which they could best hold in check anyone within who was unwilling to obey the laws, and ward off anyone from without, if an enemy should come against the flock like a wolf; and once they have made camp and offered the sacrifices that are due, let them prepare their beds. Or how else?

Just so, he said.

Beds, then, of the sort that would keep out the winter cold and be adequate for the summer heat?

How could they not be? For you seem to me to be speaking of dwellings, he said.

Yes, I said, dwellings fit for soldiers, but not for money-makers.

And how, he said, do you mean this differs from that?

I will try to tell you, I said. For surely it is the most terrible and shameful thing of all for shepherds to raise dogs as helpers for their flocks of such a kind, and in such a fashion, that through indiscipline or hunger or some other bad habit the dogs themselves should turn to doing harm to the sheep, and become like wolves instead of dogs.

Terrible, he said — how could it not be?

Must we not guard in every way against our auxiliaries treating the citizens in any such way — since they are the stronger — and so coming to resemble savage masters instead of friendly allies?

We must guard against it, he said.

Would they not be furnished with the greatest safeguard, if they are truly well educated?

But surely they are, he said.

And I said: this point is not worth insisting on too strongly, dear Glaucon — but what we said just now is worth insisting on, that they need to receive the right education, whatever that may be, if they are going to have the most important thing for being gentle both to themselves and to those under their guard.

And rightly so, he said.

Besides this education, then, anyone with sense would say that their dwellings and the rest of their property must be furnished for them in such a way as neither to stop them from being the best guardians they can be, nor to incite them to do wrong to the rest of the citizens.

And he will say so truly.

Consider, then, I said, whether they must live and dwell in some such way as this, if they are going to be guardians of that kind: first, that no one should possess any private property at all, unless it is altogether necessary; next, that no one should have any dwelling or storeroom of the sort that not everyone who wishes may enter; that as for provisions — whatever moderate and brave men who are athletes of war require — they should agree on an amount and receive it from the other citizens as wages for their guardianship, enough that there is neither anything left over at the end of the year nor anything lacking; that they should go to common meals and live together as if they were encamped; and that as for gold and silver, they should be told that they always have the divine kind in their souls as a gift from the gods, and need nothing more of the human kind, and that it is not holy to defile the possession of that kind by mixing it with the possession of mortal gold, since many unholy things have come about because of the currency ordinary people use, while theirs remains undefiled; but that they alone among the people of the city are not permitted to handle or touch gold and silver, nor to come under the same roof with it, nor to wear it as an ornament, nor to drink from silver or gold. And living in this way they would be safe themselves and would keep the city safe; but whenever they acquire private land and houses and money of their own, they will become householders and farmers instead of guardians, and hostile masters instead of allies of the other citizens, and hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life fearing the enemies within far more, and more constantly, than those outside, and racing at that point already very close to their own ruin and that of the rest of the city as well. For all these reasons, then, I said, shall we say that the guardians must be provided for in this way as regards housing and everything else, and shall we lay this down as law, or not?

By all means, said Glaucon.

Book IV

Are the Guardians Happy? The Happiness of the Whole

And Adeimantus broke in: What then, Socrates, will you say in your defense, if someone claims that you are not making these men very happy at all, and this through their own doing — men to whom the city in truth belongs, while they get no good from the city, as others do, who own land and build fine, large houses, and acquire furnishings to suit them, and offer private sacrifices to the gods, and entertain guests, and indeed, as you were just now saying, possess gold and silver and everything that is thought needful for those who are going to be blessed? But plainly, one might say, they seem to sit in the city like hired auxiliaries, doing nothing but standing guard.

Yes, I said, and what is more, fed at a common table and not even receiving pay beyond their food, as the others do, so that not even if they wish to travel abroad on their own business will it be possible for them, nor to give money to mistresses, nor to spend it wherever else they might wish, in the way those who are thought to be happy spend it. You leave these and many other such things out of the charge.

Well, he said, let these too be added to the charge.

So what, you are asking, shall we say in our defense?

Yes.

By going along the same road, I said, we shall find, I think, what we ought to say. For we shall say that it would be no wonder if these men were happiest just as they are, but that in founding the city we are not looking to this, that some one class in it should be exceptionally happy, but that the whole city should be so as far as possible. For we thought that in such a city we would most find justice, and again in the worst-governed one injustice, and that by observing both we could judge the question we have long been seeking. Now then, as we suppose, we are molding the happy city, not marking off a few in it and setting them apart as such, but shaping the whole; and presently we shall examine the opposite kind of city. So then, just as if someone came up to us while we were painting a statue and found fault, saying that we do not apply the most beautiful colors to the most beautiful parts of the creature — for the eyes, the most beautiful part, are painted not with purple but with black — we would seem to answer him reasonably enough by saying: My good man, do not suppose that we ought to paint eyes so fine that they no longer look like eyes, nor the other parts either, but consider whether, by rendering to each its due, we make the whole beautiful; and so now too, do not force us to fasten on the guardians a happiness of that sort, which will make them anything rather than guardians. For we know how to dress the farmers in fine robes, deck them with gold, and bid them work the land for pleasure, and lay the potters down by the fire on their right side, drinking and feasting, their wheel set beside them, to make pottery whenever they please, and to make all the rest blessed in the same way, so that the whole city may be happy. But do not advise us in this way; for if we were to obey you, the farmer would no longer be a farmer, nor the potter a potter, nor would anyone else keep any of the roles out of which a city is made. But the case of the others matters less; for if cobblers turn out badly and are corrupted, and pretend to be what they are not, it is no terrible thing for the city, but when the guardians of the laws and of the city are not truly such but only seem to be, you see that they destroy the whole city root and branch, and, on the other hand, they alone hold the power to govern it well and make it happy. If then we are truly making guardians who do the least harm to the city, while he who says the other thing means some sort of happy farmers, feasting as if at a festival rather than living in a city, he would be talking about something other than a city. We must consider, then, whether it is with this in view that we are to appoint the guardians, so that the greatest possible happiness will come to be in them, or whether we must look rather to the city as a whole and watch for that happiness there, and must compel and persuade these auxiliaries and the guardians to do that other thing, so that they will be the best craftsmen of their own work, and all the others likewise, and so, with the whole city growing and being well founded, we must leave each class to partake of happiness in whatever way its nature allows.

Wealth, Poverty, and the Right Size of a City

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

Then, I said, will you think I am speaking reasonably about its counterpart too?

What exactly do you mean?

Consider in turn whether the following things ruin the other craftsmen too, so that they become bad as well.

What things do you mean?

Wealth, I said, and poverty.

How so?

Like this. Once a potter grows rich, do you think he will still want to attend to his craft?

Not at all, he said.

Will he not become more idle and careless than he was before?

Much more so.

So does he not become a worse potter?

That too, he said, by a great deal.

And what is more, unable through poverty to supply himself with tools or anything else his craft needs, he will produce poorer work and will teach his sons, or whoever else he teaches, to be worse craftsmen.

How could he not?

So under the influence of both, poverty and wealth, the works of the crafts grow worse, and so do the craftsmen themselves.

So it appears.

Then it seems we have found other things for the guardians, which must be guarded against in every way, so that these never slip unnoticed into the city.

What things are these?

Wealth, I said, and poverty — the one breeding luxury, idleness, and a taste for novelty, the other breeding meanness and wrongdoing, on top of that same taste for novelty.

Certainly, he said. But consider this too, Socrates: how our city will be able to wage war when it possesses no money — especially if it is forced to fight against a city that is both large and wealthy.

Clearly, I said, against one such city it will be harder, but against two it will be easier.

What do you mean? So he asked.

First of all, I said, if there is fighting to be done, will they not be fighting rich men while being themselves athletes of war?

Yes, that much is so, he said.

What then, I said, Adeimantus? Would it not seem to you that one boxer, prepared as well as possible for the task, could easily fight two men who are not boxers at all, but rich and fat?

Not at the same time, perhaps, he said.

Not even if he were free, I said, to give ground, and then, whenever the foremost man came at him, to turn and strike him, doing this again and again in the sun and the stifling heat? Would such a man not overpower even more opponents of that kind?

No doubt, he said, there would be nothing surprising in that.

But do you not think that the rich have more knowledge and experience of boxing than of warfare?

I do, he said.

So our athletes will probably fight easily against men twice or three times their own number.

I will grant you that, he said; for I think you are right.

What if we sent an embassy to another city and had it speak the truth, saying: "We ourselves make no use of gold or silver — we are not permitted to, though you are — so join the fighting on our side, and keep for yourselves what belongs to the others"? Do you think anyone who heard this would choose to fight against dogs, hard and lean, rather than, with the dogs as allies, fight against sheep, fat and soft?

It does not seem so to me. But, he said, if the wealth of all the other cities were gathered together into one city, watch that it not bring danger to the one that has no wealth.

You are fortunate, I said, to think that any city other than the kind we have been founding deserves to be called a city at all.

Why, what else should I call it? He said.

The others, I said, we must call by a grander name; for each of them is a great many cities, not a city — the sort of thing riddle-tellers say. Any one of them, whatever else it may be, is at least two cities at war with each other, one of the poor, the other of the rich; and within each of these there are very many more, and if you approach any of them as one, you will be entirely wrong, but if you approach it as many, and hand over the money, the power, or even the persons of one group to the other, you will always have many allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is governed with moderation, in the way we have just arranged, it will be the greatest city — not in reputation, I mean, but truly the greatest, even if it has only a thousand men to fight for it; for a single city that great you will not easily find, either among the Greeks or among the barbarians, though you will find many that seem to be, many times the size of that one. Or do you think otherwise?

What the Rulers Must Guard: Education as the One Great Thing

No, by Zeus, he said.

Then this, I said, would be the finest boundary for our rulers — how large the city must be made, and, once it has reached that size, how much territory it should mark off, letting the rest go.

What boundary? he asked.

I think, I said, this: let it grow up to the point where, as it grows, it is willing to remain one city, and no further.

And nicely put, too, he said.

Then this, in turn, is another command we shall lay on the guardians — to guard in every way that the city be neither small nor merely seem great, but be some one city, sufficient in size.

And perhaps, he said, it is a slight command we shall be laying on them.

And even slighter than that, I said, is this one, which we also mentioned earlier when we said it was necessary — if a poor child is born among the guardians, that he be sent off to the others, but if a worthy one is born among the others, that he be sent to the guardians. This was meant to show that the other citizens too, each one, must be directed toward that single task for which he is naturally fitted, so that each, practicing his own one thing, may become not many but one, and so the whole city too may grow to be one and not many.

Yes, he said, this one is a smaller matter than that.

It is not, my good Adeimantus, I said, as one might suppose, that the commands we are laying on them are many and great; all of them are slight, provided they guard the one great thing, as the saying has it — or rather, instead of great, the one sufficient thing.

What is this? So he asked.

Education, I said, and upbringing: for if men, being well educated, become reasonable, they will easily discern all these matters — and the others too, which we are now passing over: the possession of wives, marriages, and the begetting of children — namely, that according to the proverb, all these things must be made as far as possible common among friends.

That would come about most rightly, he said.

Moreover, I said, a constitution, once it has made a good start, goes on growing like a circle: for sound upbringing and education, when preserved, produce good natures, and in turn good natures, laying hold of such education, grow up even better than those before them, both for other things and for begetting, as also among the other animals.

Likely so, he said.

To put this briefly, then: the overseers of the city must hold fast to this — so that its corruption does not escape their notice, but that they guard it above all else, not innovating in gymnastic or in music against the established order, but guarding it as best they can — taking alarm whenever someone says that … men give more heed to that song which hovers newest among the singers, for fear that someone may suppose the poet means not new songs but a new manner of song, and may praise it. One must neither praise such a thing nor accept it. For one must be wary of changing to a new kind of music, as putting the whole at risk; nowhere are the modes of music moved without the greatest laws of the city being moved too, as Damon says, and I for one am persuaded.

Then count me too, said Adeimantus, among the persuaded.

So it seems, I said, the guardians must build their watch-post somewhere here, in music.

Lawlessness, at any rate, he said, easily slips in unnoticed.

Yes, I said, as if it were part of play, and as if it were doing no harm.

For indeed, he said, it does nothing else but settle in by degrees and quietly flow into people's characters and pursuits; and from there it issues, grown greater, into their dealings with one another; and from these dealings it goes on to the laws and constitutions, Socrates, with a great deal of insolence, until at last it overturns everything, private and public alike.

Well then, I said, is that how it is?

So it seems to me, he said.

Then, as we were saying from the beginning, I said, must not our children from the very start take part in more lawful play, since, if their play becomes lawless, and the children with it, it is impossible for law-abiding and serious men to grow up from them?

How could it be otherwise? So he said.

So then, whenever children, having begun their play well, receive good order through music, the opposite of what happened to those others follows them into everything and grows with them, setting right whatever in the city had gone wrong before.

True indeed, he said.

And so these people, I said, rediscover even the small things that pass for matters of custom — all of which those before them had let go.

Which ⟨ones⟩?

Things like these: the silence that is fitting for the young before their elders; how they take their places at table, and their rising to give way; care for parents; and haircuts, dress, and footwear, and the whole fashioning of the body, and all the other such things. Or do you not think so?

I do.

But to legislate about these things, I think, is naive; for such things neither come about nor would they last through being enacted in speech and writing.

How could they?

At any rate, Adeimantus, I said, it is likely that whichever way one's education sets out, what follows will be of the same kind. Or does not like always call forth like?

Of course.

And in the end, I think, we would say that it turns out to be one complete and full-grown result, either good or else the opposite.

Why not indeed? So he said.

For my part, then, I said, it is because of these things that I would no longer attempt to legislate about such matters.

Reasonably so, he said.

But what, in the name of the gods, I said, about these matters of the marketplace — the contracts that people make with one another there, and, if you like, contracts among craftsmen, and slander, and assault, and the filing of suits, and the appointment of jurors, and whatever dues, whether their collection or their assessment, are needed in the markets or the harbors, or, generally, any market-regulations or city-regulations or harbor-regulations or anything else of the kind — shall we dare to legislate anything about these?

No, he said, it is not fitting to dictate to men who are fine and good; most of these things, whatever needs to be enacted, they will easily discover for themselves.

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

And if not, he said, they will spend their lives always laying down and revising many such things, thinking they will hit upon the best.

You mean, I said, that such people will live like the sick, who, from lack of restraint, are unwilling to give up their bad regimen.

Quite so.

And indeed, they carry on quite charmingly; for being doctored, they accomplish nothing, except that they make their illnesses more complicated and worse, and are always hoping, if someone recommends a remedy, that by it they will become well.

Yes indeed, he said, such are the experiences of those who are sick in this way.

And what of this? I said: is not this charming in them too — that they regard as their worst enemy the man who tells them the truth, because, until he stops getting drunk and stuffing himself and indulging in sex and lazing about, neither drugs, nor cauterizing, nor surgery, nor incantations, nor amulets, nor anything else of that kind will do him any good?

Not very charming, he said, for there is no charm in being angry at one who speaks well.

You are not, it seems, I said, an admirer of such men.

No, by Zeus, indeed not.

Then neither will you praise a city, if, as we were just saying, it acts this way as a whole. Or do they not seem to you to be doing the very same thing as those cities which, being badly governed, proclaim to their citizens that no one is to disturb the established order of the city as a whole, on pain of death for whoever does so — while whoever most agreeably serves them as they govern in this way, and indulges them, fawning on them and anticipating their wishes, and is clever at satisfying them, this man will be accounted a good man, and wise in great matters, and will be honored by them?

Just the same thing, indeed, he said, they seem to me to be doing, and I do not praise it in the least.

But what, in turn, of those who are willing and eager to serve such cities? Do you not admire their courage and their easy readiness?

I do, he said, except for those who have been deceived by them, and think that in truth they are statesmen, because they are praised by the many.

What do you mean? Have you no sympathy, I said, for these men? Or do you think it possible for a man who does not know how to measure, when many other such men tell him that he is four cubits tall, not to believe this about himself?

No, not that, at least, he said.

Then do not be harsh with them; for such people are, I dare say, the most charming of all — legislating the sort of things we just went through, and revising them, always thinking they will find some final limit to the wrongdoing in contracts, and to the things I was just speaking of, unaware that they are, in truth, cutting at a Hydra.

The City Is Founded: Where Is Justice?

And indeed, he said, that is exactly what they do.

Well then, I said, concerning this kind of law and constitution I did not think the true lawgiver needed to trouble himself, in either a badly or a well-governed city — in the one because it is useless and achieves nothing more, in the other because some of these things anyone at all could discover, and others follow automatically from the practices already established.

What, then, he asked, would still be left to us of legislation?

And I said that nothing remained for us, but that to Apollo at Delphi belonged the greatest, finest, and first of the laws.

What sort of laws? So he asked.

The founding of temples, and sacrifices, and other forms of service to gods, spirits, and heroes; and, again, the tombs of the dead, and all that must be done in service to those below to keep them well-disposed toward us. For such things we ourselves do not understand, and in founding a city we will trust no one else, if we have any sense, nor will we employ any interpreter other than the ancestral one; for this god, seated [in the middle] of the earth upon the navel, is surely the ancestral interpreter of such matters for all mankind, and gives his guidance from there.

And you are quite right, he said; and so it must be done.

Well then, I said, the city would now be founded for you, son of Ariston; so examine within it, procuring sufficient light from somewhere — look yourself, and call in your brother too, and Polemarchus, and the rest — in case somehow we can see where justice might be, and where injustice, and how the two differ from each other, and which of them the man who means to be happy must possess, whether or not it escapes the notice of all gods and men.

You are talking nonsense, said Glaucon; for you promised to search for it, on the ground that it would be impious for you not to defend justice with all your power, in every way.

You remind me rightly, I said, and so it must indeed be done; but you must join in helping too.

Well, he said, we will do so.

I expect, then, I said, that we shall find it in this way. I believe our city, if indeed it has been rightly founded, is completely good.

It must be, he said.

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

Clearly.

Then whichever of these we find in it, will not the remainder be the one not yet found?

What else?

Just as, then, with some other set of four things, if we were looking for one of them in something or other, as soon as we recognized that one first, it would have been enough for us; but if we recognized the three others first, the thing sought would by that very fact have been recognized, for clearly it could be nothing other than what was left.

You are right, he said.

Then must we not search in the same way concerning these too, since they happen to be four?

Clearly.

And indeed it seems to me that wisdom is the first thing clearly visible in it; and something strange appears about it.

What? So he asked.

The city we have described seems to me to be truly wise; for it is well-advised, is it not?

Yes.

And indeed this very thing, good counsel, is clearly a kind of knowledge; for surely people do not counsel well through ignorance, but through knowledge.

Clearly.

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

How could there not be?

Is it, then, because of the knowledge of carpenters that the city should be called wise and well-advised?

Not at all on account of that, he said — that would make it skilled in carpentry.

Then it is not on account of the knowledge concerning wooden furnishings, deliberating how it might best be arranged, that a city is to be called wise.

No, indeed.

What about this? Is it the knowledge concerning things made of bronze, or any other such knowledge?

Not that one either, he said.

Nor on account of the knowledge of raising crops from the earth — that would make it skilled in farming.

So it seems to me.

But what of this? I said, is there some knowledge, residing in some of the citizens of the city we have just founded, by which one deliberates not about something within the city, but about the city as a whole — how it might best conduct itself, both toward itself and toward other cities?

There is indeed.

Which one, I said, and among whom?

This one, he said — guardianship — and it belongs to these rulers whom we just now called complete guardians.

On account of this knowledge, then, what do you call the city?

Well-advised, he said, and truly wise.

Which, then, I said, do you think there will be more of in our city — smiths, or these true guardians?

Far more smiths, he said.

Then, I said, of all the others also who are called something because they possess some knowledge, would these not be the fewest of all?

By far.

By its smallest class and part, then, and by the knowledge within it that presides and rules, a city founded according to nature would be wise as a whole; and this, as it seems, is by nature the smallest class that comes to be — the one to which it belongs to share in this knowledge, which alone of all the other kinds of knowledge must be called wisdom.

Courage as the Preservation of a Right Belief

What you say is entirely true, he said.

This then is one of our four, and I hardly know in what way we have found it — both the thing itself and where in the city it is situated.

At any rate it seems to me, he said, that it has been found well enough.

But surely it is not at all hard to see courage itself, and the part of the city in which it resides, on account of which the city is to be called courageous.

How so?

Who, I said, would call a city cowardly or courageous by looking to anything other than that part of it which fights in its defense and takes the field on its behalf?

Not a single person, he said, would look to anything else.

For I do not think, I said, that the rest of the people in it, whether cowardly or courageous, have the power to make it one way or the other.

No, they do not.

So a city is courageous by some part of itself, because it has in that part such a power as will preserve, through everything, the belief about what things are to be feared — that they are the same things, and of the same kind, that the lawgiver prescribed in education. Or is this not what you call courage?

I did not quite grasp what you said, he said, so say it again.

I mean, I said, that courage is a kind of preservation.

What kind of preservation?

The preservation of the belief that has come to be, by law and through education, about what things are to be feared and of what kind they are — and by preserving it through everything, I meant that a person keeps it safe in the midst of pains and pleasures and desires and fears, and does not cast it out. And I am willing to compare it, if you like, to something it seems to me to resemble.

Yes, I would like that.

Well then, do you know, I said, that dyers, when they wish to dye wool so that it will be purple, first select out of so many colors the one nature, that of white; then they prepare it beforehand, treating it with no little preparation so that it will take up the bloom as much as possible, and only then do they dye it. And whatever is dyed in this way becomes fast-dyed, and no washing, whether with soap or without, can strip the bloom from it — but whatever is not dyed this way, you know what happens, whether someone dyes other colors, or dyes these same ones without the prior treatment.

I know, he said, that they turn out both washed-out and ridiculous.

Suppose then, I said, that we too were doing something of this kind, so far as we were able, when we selected our soldiers and educated them in music and gymnastic — suppose we were contriving nothing else than that they should be won over and take in our laws as finely as possible, like a dye, so that their belief about what is to be feared, and about everything else, would become fast-dyed, because the nature and the nurture they had were suited to it, and so that these soaps, terribly effective at washing things out, should not wash their dye away — pleasure, which is more potent at doing this than any bleaching-soda and lye, and pain and fear and desire, more potent than any other soap. This power then, and this preservation through everything of right and lawful belief about what is and is not to be feared, is what I call and take to be courage, unless you have something different to say.

I have nothing different to say, he said — for it seems to me that you regard the right belief about these same matters, when it comes about without education, the sort found in beasts and in slaves, as not fully lawful, and that you call it something other than courage.

What you say is entirely true, I said.

I accept, then, that this is courage.

Yes, do accept it, I said — as civic courage, at any rate — and you will be right to accept it; another time, if you like, we will go through it again in still finer detail. For it is not this we are seeking now, but justice — so for the purposes of that inquiry, I think, this is enough.

Well said, he said.

Two things, then, I said, still remain to be discerned in the city: moderation, and that for the sake of which we are seeking everything, justice.

Moderation as Agreement About Who Should Rule

Certainly.

How then might we find justice, so that we need trouble ourselves no further about moderation?

As for me, he said, I neither know, nor would I wish justice to appear first, if that means we are to look no further into moderation; but if you would do me a favor, look into this before that.

Well then, I said, I do wish to, if I am doing nothing unjust.

Look, then, he said.

It must be looked into, I said; and as far as one can see from here, it resembles a kind of concord and harmony more than the things before it.

How so?

Moderation, I said, is a kind of order, and a mastery of certain pleasures and desires, as people say when they declare someone master of himself — I do not know quite how — and other such things are spoken of as traces of it. Is that not so?

Most certainly, he said.

Now is not being master of oneself a ridiculous thing to say? For the one who is master of himself would presumably also be weaker than himself, and the one who is weaker would be master; for the same person is meant by all these terms.

Why not?

But, I said, this phrase seems to me to mean that within the man himself, in his soul, there is a better part and a worse; and whenever the better is by nature in control of the worse, this is called being master of himself — it is certainly meant as praise — but whenever, through bad upbringing or bad company, the better part, being the smaller, is overpowered by the greater mass of the worse, this condition is blamed as a reproach, and the one so disposed is called weaker than himself and unrestrained.

It does seem so, he said.

Look, then, I said, toward our new city, and you will find the one of these two present in it; for you will rightly say it is master of itself, if indeed that in which the better rules over the worse must be called moderate and master of itself.

I am looking, he said, and what you say is true.

And moreover, one would find the many and varied desires and pleasures and pains chiefly in children and women and household slaves, and, among those called free, in the great inferior mass of them.

Certainly.

Whereas the simple and measured desires, which are guided by reasoning together with intelligence and correct opinion, you will meet with only in a few — those best by nature and best raised.

True, he said.

Do you not see this present in your city as well, and the desires of the many and base there mastered by the desires and the practical wisdom found among the fewer and more decent?

I do, he said.

If then any city must be called master of its pleasures and desires and of itself, this one must be so addressed.

Absolutely, he said.

Is it not, then, also moderate in view of all this?

Very much so, he said.

Moreover, if in any other city the same opinion is held by the rulers and the ruled about who ought to rule, this too would be present in that city. Or do you not think so?

Very much so indeed, he said.

In which of the two classes of citizens, then, will you say moderation resides, when they are so disposed? In the rulers, or in the ruled?

In both, I suppose, he said.

Do you see, then, I said, that we were reasonably divining just now that moderation resembles a kind of harmony?

In what way?

Because, unlike courage and wisdom, each of which, residing in one part, made the city wise or courageous respectively, this virtue does not work that way, but is literally stretched through the whole, running through all the parts and making the weakest and the strongest and those in between all sing the same tune — whether by practical wisdom, if you like, or by strength, or by numbers, or by wealth, or by anything else of that kind — so that we would most correctly say that this concord is moderation: an agreement, in accordance with nature, between the worse and the better as to which of the two should rule, both in the city and in each individual.

Justice: Doing One's Own

I quite agree, he said.

Well then, I said — the three things have now been made out for us in the city, or so it would seem at any rate; but the remaining form, on account of which a city might still have a share of virtue — whatever could that be? For clearly this is justice.

Clearly.

So then, Glaucon, we must now post ourselves in a ring, like huntsmen around a thicket, and keep our minds on it, so that justice does not slip away somewhere and vanish out of sight. For clearly it is somewhere around here — so keep watch, and be eager to catch sight of it, in case you should happen to see it before I do and can tell me.

Would that I could, he said. But rather, if you make use of me as a follower, one able to see what is pointed out, you will be making quite reasonable use of me.

Follow, then, I said, after praying along with me.

I will do that, he said; only lead the way.

And indeed, I said, the place appears hard to travel and full of shadow; it is dark, at any rate, and difficult to search out. But all the same we must go on.

We must indeed, he said.

And catching sight of something, I said: Aha, aha, Glaucon — we seem to have some kind of track, and I think it will not altogether get away from us.

Good news, he said.

Truly, I said, our condition has been a foolish one.

What sort of thing?

It seems, my good man, that all this while it has been rolling about at our feet from the very start, and we simply did not see it — we were quite ridiculous, like people who sometimes go looking for the very thing they are holding in their hands, and we, instead of looking at it, kept gazing off somewhere in the distance, which is perhaps just why it escaped our notice.

How, he said, do you mean that?

In this way, I said — it seems to me that all along, both speaking of it and hearing of it, we failed to understand ourselves, namely that we were in a manner already saying it.

That is a long preamble, he said, for someone eager to hear it.

Well, I said, listen and see whether there is anything in what I say. For what we laid down from the beginning as something that must be done throughout, when we were founding the city — this, as it seems to me, is justice, or at any rate justice is some kind of it. We laid it down, I think, and said many times, if you remember, that each single person ought to practice one of the occupations connected with the city, the one for which his nature was best fitted.

We did say that.

And indeed, that doing one's own and not meddling is justice — this too we have heard said by many others, and have often said ourselves.

We have indeed said it.

This, then, my friend, I said, when it comes about in a certain way, is likely to be justice: the doing of one's own. Do you know from what I infer this?

No, but tell me, he said.

It seems to me, I said, that what remains in the city, of the things we have examined — moderation, courage, and practical wisdom — is this: whatever gave all of those the power to come into being, and, once they had come into being, preserves them for as long as it is present. And yet we said that justice would be whatever was left over from those, if we found the three.

Yes, that must be so, he said.

But indeed, I said, if we had to judge which of these, once present, would do the most to make our city good, it would be hard to decide whether it is the like-mindedness of rulers and ruled, or the preservation, among the soldiers, of a lawful opinion about what is to be feared and what is not — whatever such things really are — or the practical wisdom and watchfulness present in the rulers, or whether what makes it good above all is this, present alike in child and woman, slave and free, craftsman, ruler, and ruled: that each person, being one, was doing his own and not meddling.

Hard to decide, he said — how could it not be?

So it seems, then, that the power by which each person in the city does his own is a match, for the city's virtue, for its wisdom and its moderation and its courage.

Very much so, he said.

Then would you not set down as justice whatever is a match for these in the virtue of the city?

Quite so.

Consider it this way too, and see whether it will seem so — will you assign to the rulers in the city the task of judging lawsuits?

What else?

And will they judge, aiming at anything more than this — that each person should neither hold what belongs to another nor be deprived of what is his own?

No, but at this.

As being just?

Yes.

So in this way too, then, it might be agreed that the having and doing of what is one's own and belongs to oneself is justice.

That is so.

See now whether you agree with what I think. If a carpenter undertakes to do the work of a shoemaker, or a shoemaker that of a carpenter, or they exchange with one another their tools or their honors, or the same man undertakes to do both, with everything else interchanged in this way, does it seem to you that this would do any great harm to a city?

Not really, he said.

But whenever, I think, a man who is a craftsman, or by nature some other sort of money-maker, is then puffed up by wealth or numbers or strength or something else of that kind and undertakes to pass into the class of the warrior, or when someone among the warriors passes into the class of counsellor and guardian though unworthy of it, and these exchange with one another their tools and their honors, or when the same man undertakes to do all these things at once — then, I think, you too believe that this exchange and meddling among them is ruin for the city.

Yes, absolutely.

So then, meddling and exchange among the three classes, passing into one another, is the greatest harm to the city, and would most correctly be called, above all, wrongdoing.

Entirely so.

And will you not say that the greatest wrongdoing against one's own city is injustice?

How could it not be?

This, then, is injustice. But let us put it again this way: when the money-making, auxiliary, and guardian classes each do their own in the city, that — being the opposite of the other — would be justice, and would make the city just?

Turning to the Soul: Is It One or Many?

It seems to me to be so and not otherwise, he said.

Let us not yet assert this too firmly, I said, but if this form, applied to each individual man, is agreed to be justice there as well, we shall concede it at once — for what else could we say? But if not, we shall then look into something else. Now let us carry through the examination we had in mind: that if we tried to study it first in something larger that possesses justice ⟨rather⟩ than there in the individual, we might more easily catch sight of what it is like in one man. And it seemed to us that this was the city, and so we founded it to be as good as we could make it, well aware that in a good city at least justice would be found. So let us carry back to the individual what appeared to us there, and if it is confirmed, well and good; but if something different shows up in the one, we shall go back again to the city and test it there, and perhaps, by examining the two side by side and rubbing them together, we might make justice flash out as if from fire-sticks, and once it has come to light we shall fix it firmly in our own minds.

That is the right approach, he said, and that is how we must proceed.

Now then, I said, is a thing that one would call by the same name, when it is larger and when it is smaller, unlike in that respect in which it is called the same, or alike?

Alike, he said.

Then a just man, so far as the form of justice itself is concerned, will not differ at all from a just city, but will be alike.

Alike, he said.

But the city, we agreed, was just when the three kinds of natures in it each did its own work, and moderate, courageous, and wise, in turn, through certain other affections and dispositions belonging to those same classes.

True, he said.

Then we shall claim the same for the individual too, my friend: that having these same forms in his own soul, he rightly deserves, because of the same affections as theirs, the same names as the city.

That is altogether necessary, he said.

Here again, my good man, I said, we have stumbled into a trifling question about the soul — whether it has these three forms in it or not.

It does not seem to me trifling at all, he said, for perhaps, Socrates, the saying is true that fine things are difficult.

So it appears, I said. And be well assured, Glaucon, that my opinion is this: we shall never grasp this with exactness by the kind of methods we are now using in our arguments — for the road that leads to it is another, longer and fuller one — but perhaps adequately enough, given what we have already said and considered.

Well, is that not enough to be content with? So he said — for me, at any rate, it would do well enough for the present.

But it will fully satisfy me too, I said.

Do not give up, then, he said, but keep looking.

Is it not then, I said, a great necessity for us to agree that the same forms and dispositions that are in the city are present also in each of us? For surely they cannot have gotten there from anywhere else. For it would be absurd to suppose that the spirited element in cities has come from anywhere but the private individuals who bear that reputation — such as those around Thrace and Scythia and practically the whole region to the north — or that love of learning, which one would most readily charge to our own region, or love of money, which one would say belongs above all to the Phoenicians and the Egyptians, has come from anywhere else.

Quite so, he said.

This, then, is so, I said, and there is nothing hard about seeing it.

Certainly not.

But here now is the difficult question: whether we do each of these things with this same part, or, there being three parts, with a different one for each — learning with one, feeling anger with another of the parts within us, and desiring, in turn, with some third part, the pleasures connected with nourishment and procreation and all that is akin to them — or whether we act with the whole soul in each of these cases whenever we set out to do them. These are the things that will be hard to define in a way that does justice to the argument.

The Principle of Opposites: Reason and Appetite

So it seems to me too, he said.

Let us then try to define them this way, whether they are the same as one another or different.

How?

Clearly the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same respect and in relation to the same thing at the same time, so that if we ever find this happening in them, we will know that it was not one thing but more than one.

Very well.

Consider, then, what I mean.

Speak on, he said.

Is it possible, I said, for the same thing to stand still and be in motion at the same time in the same respect?

In no way.

Let us then agree still more precisely, so that we do not fall into dispute as we go on. For if someone were to say of a man standing still, but moving his hands and his head, that the same man both stands still and moves at the same time, I do not think we would consider it right to speak that way, but rather that part of him stands still and part moves. Is that not so?

Just so.

Then if the man who said this were to be wittier still, refining the point by saying that spinning tops — whole ones — both stand still and move at the same time, whenever they fix the peg in one spot and turn around it, or that anything else going around in a circle in the same place does the same, we would not accept it, on the ground that such things are not then at rest and in motion in the same respect of themselves; rather we would say that they have a straight element and a curved element in them, and that with respect to the straight they stand still — for they do not lean in any direction — while with respect to the curved they move in a circle, and that when, as it turns, the straight axis leans to the right or to the left or forward or back, then there [is] no standing still for it at all.

And rightly so, he said.

Then none of these sayings will astonish us, nor persuade us any more that a thing that is the same could ever undergo or be or do opposites at the same time in the same respect in relation to the same thing.

Not me, at any rate, he said.

Still, I said, so that we are not forced to draw this out by going through every such dispute and establishing that it is not true, let us assume that this is so and proceed on that basis, agreeing that if it should ever appear otherwise, everything that follows from it for us will be undone.

We must do that, he said.

Then ⟨would⟩ you set nodding assent against shaking the head, and reaching to take something against refusing it, and drawing something toward oneself against pushing it away — all such pairs — among things that are opposites of one another, whether as things done or things undergone? For it will make no difference here.

Opposites, he said.

What then? I said — thirst and hunger, and desires as a whole, and again wishing and wanting, would you not put all these somewhere among those forms just now mentioned? For instance, will you not say that the soul of one who desires always either reaches out for the thing it desires, or draws toward itself what it wishes to have come to be, or else, to the extent that it wants something provided for it, nods assent to this within itself, as though someone were asking it a question, straining after that thing's coming to be?

I would.

And what of this? Shall we not place unwillingness, and not wishing, and not desiring, under pushing away and driving off from oneself, and among all the opposites of those other things ?

How could we not?

Since this is so, shall we say that there is a form of desires, and that among these the clearest are the ones we call thirst and hunger?

We shall, he said.

One of drink, then, and the other of food?

Yes.

Then, to the extent that it is thirst, would it be, in the soul, a desire for anything more than that of which we say it is the desire — is thirst, say, thirst for hot drink or cold, for much or little, or in a word, for a drink of some particular kind? Or is it rather that if some heat attaches itself to the thirst, it will supply along with it a desire for something cold, and if coldness attaches itself, a desire for something hot? And if, because a great quantity is present, the thirst is great, will it supply a desire for a great quantity, and if it is slight, a desire for a small quantity? But thirst itself will never become a desire for anything other than that for which it is by nature a desire, namely drink itself, and hunger in turn a desire for food itself?

Yes, he said, each desire itself is a desire only for that particular thing which it is by nature a desire for; the desire for this kind or that kind is something added on.

Now let no one confound us, since we have not examined this carefully, by objecting that no one desires drink, but good drink, nor food, but good food. For everyone, they will say, desires good things; so if thirst is a desire, it must be a desire for something good, whether drink or whatever else it is a desire for, and likewise with the other desires.

Yes, he said, perhaps the one saying this would seem to have a point.

But surely, I said, of things that are the sort to be relative to something, those that are qualified in some way are relative to something qualified in that same way, as it seems to me, while those that are simply what they are, are relative only to a thing that is simply what it is.

I do not understand, he said.

Do you not understand, I said, that the greater is such as to be greater than something?

Certainly.

Greater than the lesser?

Yes.

And the much greater is greater than the much lesser. Is that not so?

Yes.

And what was once greater is greater than what was once lesser, and what will be greater is greater than what will be lesser?

What else would it be? So he said.

And more, then, in relation to less, and double in relation to half, and all such pairs, and again heavier in relation to lighter, and faster in relation to slower, and further still, hot in relation to cold, and everything like these — is it not the same in all these cases?

Certainly it is.

And what about matters concerning knowledge? Is it not the same way? Knowledge itself is knowledge of a subject of learning itself, or of whatever else we must posit as the object of knowledge, while a particular kind of knowledge, qualified in some way, is knowledge of something qualified in some way and of some particular thing. I mean something like this: was it not because a knowledge of house-construction came into being that it differed from the other branches of knowledge, so that it came to be called the craft of building?

What else?

Is it not by its being of a particular kind, one shared by none of the others?

Yes.

Then, since it was of something qualified in a particular way, did it not itself become qualified in a particular way? And so too the other crafts and branches of knowledge?

That is how it is.

This, then, I said, is what you should take me to have meant back then, if indeed you now understand it — that whatever is of such a nature as to be relative to something is, in itself, relative only to a thing that is itself alone, while what is qualified in some way is relative to something qualified in some way. And I do not mean that things turn out to be of the same kind as that to which they are relative — as though, say, the knowledge of the healthy and the diseased is itself healthy and diseased, or the knowledge of bad things and good things is itself bad and good; rather, since knowledge did not become knowledge of the very thing of which it is knowledge, but of something qualified in a particular way — and this was the healthy and the diseased — it too came to be qualified in a particular way, and this is what caused it to no longer be called simply knowledge, but, once that particular quality was added, medicine.

I understand, he said, and it seems to me to be so.

And thirst, I said — will you not place it among these, as being, in respect of what it itself is, a thirst of something? And it is, presumably, thirst of—

I do, he said — of drink, at least.

Then thirst for a drink of a particular kind is a particular kind of thirst, but thirst itself is by nature a thirst neither for much nor for little, neither for good nor for bad, nor in a word for a drink of any particular kind, but simply for drink itself?

Absolutely.

Then the soul of the thirsty person, insofar as it thirsts, wants nothing other than to drink, and reaches for this, and is set in motion toward this.

Clearly so.

Then if something ever pulls it back when it is thirsty, would there not be something else in it, different from the very thing that thirsts and drives it, like an animal, toward drinking? For surely, we say, the very same thing ⟨would⟩ never do opposite things to itself, by the same part of itself, in the same respect, at the same time.

No, it would not.

Just as, I think, in the case of the archer, it is not correct to say that his hands at the same time push the bow away and draw it toward him, but rather that one hand is the one pushing it away, and the other is the one drawing it toward him.

The Spirited Part

Quite so, he said.

Shall we say, then, that there are people who, though thirsty, are sometimes unwilling to drink?

Indeed, he said, many people, and often.

What then, I said, would one say about this? Is it not that there is in their soul the thing that bids them drink, and also the thing that forbids them to drink, which is something else and overpowers the thing that bids?

That is my view too, he said.

Is it not the case, then, that the thing forbidding such things arises, whenever it does arise, from reasoning, while the things that lead and drag us come about through feelings and disorders?

It appears so.

Then it is not without reason, I said, that we shall claim these are two distinct things, different from one another — calling the part with which the soul reasons the rational part, and the part with which it loves and hungers and thirsts and is agitated over the other desires the irrational and appetitive part, companion of certain fillings and pleasures.

No — we would rightly hold that view, he said.

Let these two forms, then, I said, be marked off for us as present in the soul; but as for the thing belonging to spirit, by which we feel anger, is it a third, or would it share its nature with one of these two?

Perhaps, he said, with the other one, the appetitive.

But, I said, I once heard something, and I trust it: that Leontius, son of Aglaion, coming up from the Piraeus along the outside of the north wall, noticed corpses lying beside the public executioner, and at once he desired to look, but at the same time felt disgust and turned himself away, and for a while he struggled with himself and covered his eyes — but overpowered at last by the desire, he tore his eyes wide open, ran up to the corpses, and cried, "There you are, you wretched men — take your fill of the beautiful sight."

I too have heard it, he said.

Well, this story, I said, shows that anger sometimes wars against the desires, as one thing against another.

It does show that, he said.

Then do we not also notice, I said, in many other places, whenever desires use force on someone contrary to reason, that he reproaches himself and grows angry at the thing within him doing the forcing, and that, as though two parties were at odds, his spirit becomes an ally of his reason in such a case? But I think you would say that you have never noticed such a thing happening in yourself — spirit making common cause with the desires when reason has decided that one ought not to resist them — nor, I think, in anyone else either.

No, by Zeus, he said.

What then, I said, about when someone thinks he is acting unjustly? Is it not the case that the nobler he is, the less he is able to feel anger — even while hungering and suffering cold and enduring anything else of that kind — at someone he believes to be treating him justly, and that, as I say, his spirit is unwilling to be roused against that person?

True, he said.

But what about when someone believes he is being wronged? In that case does he not seethe and grow harsh and fight on the side of what seems just, and, enduring hunger and cold and everything else of that kind, hold out and prevail, and not give up his noble efforts, until either he succeeds or dies, or is called back and calmed, like a dog by a shepherd, by the reason within him?

Quite so, he said; it does resemble what you are describing — and indeed in our city we set the auxiliaries, like dogs, obedient to the rulers, who are like shepherds of the city.

You understand well, I said, what I want to say. But do you also notice this besides?

What is that?

That the opposite of what appeared to us just now is turning out to be true about the spirited part. For at that time we thought it was something appetitive, but now we say it is far from that — rather, in the conflict within the soul, it much more takes up arms on the side of the rational part.

Quite so, he said.

Is it, then, something distinct from this too — from the rational part — or is it some form of the rational, so that there are not three but two forms in the soul, the rational and the appetitive? Or, just as in the city three classes held it together — the money-making, the auxiliary, and the deliberative — so too in the soul is this spirited part a third thing, by nature an ally of the rational part, unless it is corrupted by bad upbringing?

It must be a third, he said.

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

But it is not hard to show, he said; one can see this even in children — that they are full of spirit right from birth, while as for reason, some, it seems to me, never come to share in it at all, and most only quite late.

By Zeus, yes, I said, well put. And one could see in animals too what you say, that it is so. And besides this, what we said above [there], I believe, will also be confirmed by that verse of Homer's — He struck his chest and rebuked his heart with these words; for here Homer has plainly represented the part that had reasoned about the better and the worse as rebuking the part that was raging without reason — the one rebuking the other.

The Virtues in the Soul, and Justice as Health

Quite so, he said; you are right.

So then, I said, we have swum through this much with difficulty, and it has been fairly agreed between us that the same kinds are present both in the city and in the soul of each individual, and equal in number.

That is so.

Then is it not already necessary that, just as the city was wise, and by virtue of what, so the individual too is wise, and by virtue of the same thing?

What else?

And that by which, and the way in which, a private individual is courageous — is it not by that, and in that way, that a city too is courageous, and are not both of them alike in all other respects concerning virtue?

Necessarily.

And a man too, Glaucon, we shall say, I think, is just in the very same way in which the city was just.

And this too follows of complete necessity.

But surely we have not forgotten this — that the city was just because each of its three kinds was doing its own work within it.

I do not think we have forgotten it, he said.

Then we must remember that each of us too, whoever it is in whom each of the parts within him does its own work, will be just, and will be doing his own.

Yes indeed, he said, we must remember it.

Then does it not belong to the rational part to rule, since it is wise and has forethought on behalf of the whole soul, and to the spirited part to be its subject and ally?

Certainly.

Then is it not, as we were saying, a blending of music and gymnastic that will make them concordant, tightening and nourishing the one with fine words and studies, and relaxing the other, soothing and taming it with harmony and rhythm?

Quite so, he said.

And these two, thus reared, and having truly learned and been trained in their own tasks, will take charge of the appetitive part — which is indeed the largest part of the soul in each of us, and by nature the most insatiable for money — and will watch over it, lest, by being filled with the so-called pleasures of the body and becoming great and strong, it should no longer do its own work, but should attempt to enslave and rule over the parts to which it does not belong by its kind, and should overturn the whole life of them all.

Certainly, he said.

Then would not these two, I said, also guard best of all against enemies from outside, on behalf of the whole soul and body — the one deliberating, the other fighting in front, [and] following its ruler and, by its courage, carrying out what has been deliberated?

That is so.

And it is by this part, I think, that we call each and every one of us courageous, whenever his spirited part preserves, through pains and through pleasures, what has been declared by reason to be fearful or not.

Rightly so, he said.

And he is wise, in turn, by that small part which ruled within him and issued these declarations, since it too has within itself the knowledge of what is beneficial for each part and for the whole community formed by all three together.

Certainly.

What then? Is he not moderate by the friendship and concord of these same parts, whenever the ruling part and the two ruled parts agree that the rational part ought to rule, and do not raise faction against it?

Moderation, he said, is indeed nothing other than this, both for the city and for the individual.

But surely a man will also be just by that very thing, which we have so often mentioned, and in that same way.

It is quite necessary.

What then? I said — does it grow at all blurred for us, so that justice seems to be something other than what it appeared to be in the city?

It does not seem so to me, he said.

For in this way, I said, we could fully confirm the point, if anything within our soul still has doubts, by bringing forward commonplace examples to it.

What sort of examples?

For instance, if we had to reach agreement concerning that city, and the man born and raised in a manner similar to it, as to whether such a man, on receiving a deposit of gold or silver, would be likely to withhold it — who do you suppose would think that this man would do such a thing, rather than those who are not of that kind?

No one would, he said.

Then would not this man also be free of temple robberies and thefts and betrayals, whether of friends in private or of cities in public?

Free of them.

And moreover, he would in no way whatever be untrustworthy, either with regard to oaths or to other agreements.

How could he be?

Adulteries, neglect of parents, and failure to worship the gods belong to anyone else rather than to a man of this kind.

To anyone else indeed, he said.

Then is not the cause of all this that each of the parts within him does its own work, both with regard to ruling and being ruled?

This, and nothing else.

Do you still look for justice to be anything other than this power, which produces men and cities of this kind?

By Zeus, he said, I do not.

Then our dream has been perfectly fulfilled for us — the one we said we suspected, that right from the beginning, as we were founding the city, we were probably, by the guidance of some god, setting foot upon some starting point and outline of justice.

Absolutely.

And that, then, Glaucon — which is also why it does good — turns out to have been only an image of justice: that the man naturally suited for shoemaking should rightly practice shoemaking and do nothing else, and the man suited for carpentry should practice carpentry, and so on for the rest.

So it appears.

But the truth, as it seems, was that justice was something of this sort, concerned not with a man's outward doing of his own, but with the inward doing, truly concerning himself and what belongs to him, not allowing the parts within him each to do the work of another, nor allowing the kinds in the soul to meddle with one another, but rather, having truly set his own affairs in good order, and having ruled himself, and set himself in order, and become a friend to himself, and having fitted the three parts together, quite literally like three defining notes of a harmony — the lowest, the highest, and the middle — and whatever others there happen to be between them, having bound all these together, and having become entirely one out of many, moderate and harmonized, only then does he act, if he acts at all, whether about the acquisition of money, or the care of the body, or something political, or private contracts — in all these holding and naming a just and fine action whichever preserves and helps produce this condition, and calling the knowledge that oversees this action wisdom, and calling an unjust action whichever always destroys this condition, and naming ignorance the opinion that in turn oversees that action.

That is altogether true, Socrates, he said.

Well then, I said — if we were to say that we have found the just man, the just city, and justice itself, that is, what it actually is within them, I do not think we would seem to be altogether lying.

By Zeus, no indeed, he said.

Shall we say so, then?

Let us say so.

So be it, then, I said — for after this, I think, we must examine injustice.

Clearly.

Then must not injustice, in turn, given that there are these three parts, be a kind of civil strife among them, and a meddling and doing of another's work, and a rebellion of some part against the whole of the soul, so that it might rule within it though it has no right to, being of such a nature that it is fitting for it to be a slave, while the other, being of the ruling kind, ought not to be enslaved? Something of this kind, I think, we shall say — that this turmoil and wandering astray among them is injustice, and lack of restraint, and cowardice, and ignorance, and, in a word, vice entire.

Just that, he said.

Then, I said, doing unjust things, and acting unjustly, and, in turn, doing just things — are not all these already clearly evident, if injustice and justice themselves are?

How so?

Because, I said, they turn out to be no different from what is healthy and diseased — as those are in the body, so these are in the soul.

In what way? He said.

Healthy things, surely, produce health, while diseased things produce disease.

Yes.

Then does not doing just things produce justice, while doing unjust things produces injustice?

Necessarily.

And to produce health is to establish the parts in the body according to nature, so that they rule and are ruled by one another, while to produce disease is to establish them contrary to nature, so that one rules and is ruled by another.

Yes, it is so.

Then, in turn, I said, is it not that to produce justice is to establish the parts in the soul according to nature, so that they rule and are ruled by one another, while to produce injustice is to establish them contrary to nature, so that one rules and is ruled by another?

Quite so, he said.

Virtue, then, as it seems, would be a kind of health, beauty, and good condition of the soul, while vice would be disease, ugliness, and weakness.

So it is.

Then do not fine practices also lead to the acquisition of virtue, and shameful ones to that of vice?

Necessarily.

What remains for us now, then, as it seems, is to examine whether it is more profitable, in turn, to do just things and practice fine ones and be just, whether or not one goes unnoticed in being such, or to do unjust things and be unjust, provided one does not pay the penalty and is not made better by being punished.

But, Socrates, he said, this inquiry now seems to me to be growing ridiculous, if, when the nature of the body is being destroyed, life is thought not to be worth living, even with every kind of food and drink and all wealth and all power, yet when the very nature of that by which we live is being disturbed and destroyed, life will nonetheless be worth living, provided only that a person does whatever he wishes, except the one thing by which he would be rid of vice and injustice, and would acquire justice and virtue, since each of these has now been shown to be just as we have described them.

It is ridiculous, I said — but nevertheless, since we have come this far, we must not grow weary before seeing as clearly as possible that this is indeed so.

Least of all things, by Zeus, he said, should we grow weary.

Come here, then, I said, so that you may also see how many forms vice has, as it seems to me — ones that are indeed worth beholding.

I am following, he said — only speak.

Well then, I said, as though from a lookout point, now that we have climbed this far in the argument, it appears to me that there is one form of virtue, but countless forms of vice, four of which, among them, are worth mentioning.

What do you mean? He said.

There are likely to be as many kinds of soul, I said, as there are kinds of constitution that have distinct forms.

How many, then?

Five kinds of constitution, I said, and five of soul.

Tell me, he said, what they are.

I say, I replied, that this one, which we have already gone through, would be one kind of constitution, and it might also be named in two ways — for if a single man of outstanding quality should arise among the rulers, it would be called kingship, but if several such men should arise, aristocracy.

True, he said.

This, then, I said, I call one form — for neither several men, nor a single one, arising among the rulers, would disturb any of the laws of the city worth mentioning, if they had made use of the upbringing and education we have described.

No, that is not likely, he said.

Book V

Polemarchus Interrupts: The Community of Women and Children

Such a city, then, and such a constitution I call good and right, and the man who is like it — but the others, if this one is right, I call bad and mistaken, both in the government of cities and in the framing of a private person's character of soul, since they fall under four kinds of badness.

What are these, then? He asked.

And I was going on to describe the constitutions that came next, as they each seemed to me to pass over out of one another — but Polemarchus (he was sitting a little farther off than Adeimantus) reached out his hand, took hold of his cloak from above at the shoulder, drew him toward himself, and, leaning forward, bent over and said something, of which we caught nothing else but this: shall we let him off, then, he said, or what are we to do?

Not in the least, said Adeimantus, already speaking up loudly.

And I asked, What exactly is it that you are not letting go?

You, he said.

Why exactly, I said, is that?

You seem to us, he said, to be shirking — stealing a whole kind of thing out of the argument, and not the smallest one, so that you would not have to go through it, and thinking you could slip it past us by treating it lightly, as if it were obvious to everyone that, when it comes to women and children, friends hold everything in common.

And is it not correct, I said, Adeimantus?

Yes, he said. But this rightness, like everything else, needs some account of what the manner of the community is; for there could be many kinds of it. So do not leave out which manner you mean; for we have long been waiting, thinking that somewhere you would mention the begetting of children — how they will be begotten — and, once born, how they will be raised, and this whole community of women and children that you speak of; for we think it matters a great deal — indeed everything — to the constitution, whether it comes about rightly or not. So now, since you are taking up another constitution before adequately settling these matters, we have resolved on this — which you heard — that you are not to be released until you have gone through all of it, just as you did the rest.

Count me too, then, said Glaucon, as a partner in this vote.

Have no doubt of it, said Thrasymachus — consider this settled by all of us, Socrates.

What a thing you have done, I said, by taking hold of me. What a discussion you are stirring up all over again, as if from the beginning, about the constitution — one I, for my part, was glad to think I had already finished, content if someone would let it stand as accepted, just as it was then stated. By now calling me back to these things, you do not know what a swarm of arguments you are rousing — one I saw and let go at the time, for fear it should cause a great deal of trouble.

What? Thrasymachus said — do you think these men have come here now to smelt gold, rather than to listen to arguments?

Yes, I said, to a moderate amount of them, at least.

But the proper measure for listening to arguments like these, Socrates, said Glaucon, is a whole lifetime, at least for men of sense. But never mind our part; as for what we are asking, do not by any means grow weary of setting it out in whatever way seems best to you — what the community of children and women will be for us, the guardians, and the rearing of them while they are still young, that is, the begetting and the education that takes place in the time between, which indeed seems to be the most laborious part. So try to say in what manner it must come about.

It is not easy, my fortunate friend, I said, to go through it; for it holds many grounds for disbelief — even more than the things we went through before. For it would be doubted that such things are even possible, and, even if they were to come about as fully as could be, that they would be best — on that score too there will be disbelief. That, then, is why there is some hesitation about even touching on them, for fear the account should seem to be no more than a wish, my dear friend.

Do not hesitate at all, he said — those who are going to listen are neither unreasonable, nor distrustful, nor ill-disposed.

And I said, My good man, is it perhaps because you want to encourage me that you say this?

I do, he said.

Then you are doing exactly the opposite, I said. For if I trusted myself to know what I am saying, the encouragement would be well placed; for among sensible people and friends, to speak the truth about the greatest and dearest matters, when one knows it, is safe and emboldening, whereas to make one's arguments while doubting and still searching, which is indeed what I am doing, is fearful and precarious — not that I fear incurring laughter, for that at least would be childish — but that, having slipped from the truth, I may drag down not only myself but my friends along with me, and come to grief in the very matters where one ought least of all to slip. But I bow down to Adrasteia, Glaucon, on account of what I am about to say; for I believe it a lesser wrong to become, unwillingly, the killer of someone than to become a deceiver about fine and good and just customs. So it is better to run this risk among enemies than among friends, and that is why you do well to encourage me.

And Glaucon, laughing, said, But Socrates, if we come to any harm from the argument, we acquit you, as one acquitted of murder, and declare you clean and no deceiver of us. So take courage and speak.

Well, but even so, I said, the one who is acquitted there is also counted clean, as the law says — and presumably, if there, then here too.

Speak, then, he said, on that account at least.

Then I must now say, I said, in reverse order, what perhaps ought to have been said then in its proper place; but perhaps it would be right to do it this way — once the drama of the men has been played out fully, to go through in turn that of the women, especially since you challenge me to it.

First Wave: The Nature and Education of Women

For people who are by nature and by education such as we have described, there is, in my opinion, no other correct possession and use of children and women than the one that follows the same impulse with which we first set out; and we undertook, I believe, in our discussion, to establish the men as guardians of a herd.

Yes.

Let us follow along, then, assigning a similar breeding and rearing, and let us consider whether that is fitting for us or not.

How? He said.

Like this. Do we think the females of the guardian dogs should join in guarding whatever the males guard, and hunt together with them, and do everything else in common, or should the females stay at home indoors as incapable, because of bearing and rearing the puppies, while the males labor and have all the care of the flocks?

Everything in common, he said, except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger.

Is it possible, then, I said, to use some animal for the same tasks, if you do not give it the same rearing and education?

It is not possible.

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

Yes.

Now to the men, at least, music and gymnastic were given.

Yes.

Then these two crafts, and the things that concern war, must be given to the women as well, and used in the same way.

That is likely, from what you say, he said.

Perhaps, I said, measured against custom, much of what is now being said would appear ridiculous, if it is to be carried out as it is being described.

Very much so, he said.

What, I said, do you see as the most ridiculous of these things? Or is it clear that it is the women exercising naked in the wrestling schools with the men, not only the young ones, but even the older ones already, just like the old men in the gymnasiums, when, wrinkled and not pleasant to look at, they nonetheless love their exercise?

By Zeus, he said; it would indeed appear ridiculous, at least as things now stand.

Then, I said, since we have set out to speak, we must not fear the jibes of the wits — however many and of whatever kind they would make about such a change taking place, both concerning the gymnasiums and concerning music, and not least concerning the bearing of arms and the riding of horses.

You are right, he said.

But since we have begun to speak, we must go forward to the rough part of the law, begging these people not to do their own work but to be serious, and reminding them that it is not long since it seemed shameful and ridiculous to the Greeks, as it still does to most of the barbarians now, for men to be seen naked, and that when the Cretans first began the practice of gymnasiums, and then the Spartans, it was open to the wits of that time to make comedy of all these things. Or do you not think so?

I do.

But when, I believe, it appeared to those who practiced it that stripping was better than covering up all such things, then what looked ridiculous to the eyes faded away before what reason showed to be best; and this showed too that a man is foolish who thinks anything ridiculous other than the bad, and who, trying to raise a laugh, fixes his eyes on some sight as ridiculous other than that of the foolish and the bad, and who is in earnest about the beautiful with a target set up for himself other than that of the good.

Certainly, he said.

Must we not, then, first come to agreement about this concerning them, whether it is possible or not, and allow a dispute to anyone, playful or serious, who wishes to dispute it: whether the female human nature is capable of sharing with the male sex in all its works, or in none at all, or in some but not others, and to which of these the business of war belongs? Would not someone who began most finely in this way also, in all likelihood, end most finely?

Very much so, he said.

Do you want us, then, I said, to argue against ourselves on behalf of the other side, so that the case for that position is not besieged with no one to defend it?

Nothing prevents it, he said.

Let us then say on their behalf: Socrates and Glaucon, there is no need for others to dispute against you; for you yourselves, at the beginning of the founding of the city you were settling, agreed that each single person must do the one work that is his own according to nature.

We did agree, I believe; how could we not?

Is there any way, then, that a woman does not differ very greatly from a man in nature?

How could she not differ?

Then is it not fitting to assign a different work to each of the two, the work that accords with his or her own nature?

Of course.

How, then, are you not now making a mistake and contradicting yourselves, when you claim, in turn, that the men and the women must do the same things, though they have natures set apart as widely as can be? Will you have anything to say in your defense against this, my remarkable friend?

Offhand, he said, it is not at all easy; but I will need you, and I do need you now, to interpret the argument on our behalf, whatever it is.

These, Glaucon, I said, and many other such things, are what I long foresaw and feared, and why I hesitated to touch the law concerning the possession and rearing of women and children.

No, by Zeus, he said; for it does not seem an easy matter.

No, it is not, I said. But the matter stands like this: whether one falls into a small swimming pool or into the middle of the largest sea, one swims none the less.

Certainly.

Then we too must swim and try to save ourselves out of the argument, hoping either for some dolphin to take us up or for some other rescue against all odds.

So it seems, he said.

Come then, I said, let us see if we can find the way out somehow. For we agree that a different nature must pursue a different occupation, and that the nature of woman and of man is different; yet we now say that natures which are different must pursue the same occupations. Is this the charge brought against us?

Precisely so.

Truly noble, Glaucon, I said, is the power of the craft of contradiction.

Why is that?

Because, I said, it seems to me that many fall into it even unwillingly, and think they are not disputing for victory but conversing, owing to their inability to examine what is said by dividing it according to forms, so that they chase after the contradiction of what was said by going on the word alone, using contentiousness rather than dialectic with one another.

That does indeed happen to many people, he said; but surely this does not apply to us at present, does it?

It certainly does, I said; at any rate we run the risk of touching on contradiction unwillingly.

How so?

The point that a nature which is ⟨not⟩ the same must not receive the same occupations we have pursued quite bravely and contentiously, going by the mere word, but we have not examined at all what form of the other and the same nature we were then defining, or to what it was directed, when we assigned different occupations to a different nature but the same occupations to the same.

No, indeed, he said, we did not examine it.

So then, I said, it is open to us, it seems, to ask ourselves whether the bald and the long-haired have the same nature and not the opposite, and, once we agree that it is the opposite, then, if the bald are cobblers, not to allow the long-haired to be, and if the long-haired are, not to allow the others.

That would be ridiculous, he said.

Is it ridiculous, I said, for any reason other than that at that time we were not setting down the same and the different nature in every sense, but were keeping in view only that form of difference and likeness which bears on the occupations themselves? For example, we said that a medical man and a medical woman, [being] such in soul, have the same nature; or do you not think so?

I do.

But a medical man and a carpenter, a different one?

Certainly.

Then, I said, if the class of men and the class of women appear to differ with respect to some craft or other occupation, we shall say that this must be assigned to each accordingly; but if they appear to differ only in this respect, that the female bears young while the male begets, we shall say that it has not yet been shown any the more that a woman differs from a man with respect to what we are speaking of, and we shall still suppose that our guardians and their women must pursue the same occupations.

And rightly so, he said.

Then after this do we not require the one who argues the opposite to teach us this very thing: for what craft, or what occupation among those concerned with the founding of a city, the nature of a woman and of a man is not the same but different?

That is only fair.

Perhaps, then, just as you yourself said a little earlier, someone else too might say that it is not easy to answer adequately on the spot, but that it is not at all difficult after due consideration.

He might well say so.

Do you want us, then, to ask the one who makes such objections to follow along with us, in case we can somehow show him that there is no occupation belonging to a woman in particular with regard to the management of a city?

Certainly.

Come then, we shall say to him, answer: did you not mean, when you spoke this way, that one person is well suited to something and another poorly suited, in that the one learns something easily, the other with difficulty? And that the one, from brief instruction, is highly inventive in what he learned, while the other, even after much instruction and practice, cannot even retain what he learned? And that in the one the body adequately serves the mind, while in the other it works against it? Are there any marks other than these by which you defined the person well suited for each pursuit and the one not suited?

No one, he said, will name any others.

Do you know, then, of any practice among human beings in which the class of men does not have all these advantages over the class of women? Or should we go on at length, speaking of weaving, and of the care of cakes and boiled dishes, in which the female class is thought to amount to something, and in which it is most ridiculous of all when it is bested?

You speak the truth, he said, that the one class is, so to speak, far outdone by the other in nearly everything. Many women, however, are better than many men at many things; but on the whole it is as you say.

There is, then, my friend, no occupation of those who manage a city that belongs to a woman because she is a woman, nor to a man because he is a man, but the natures are alike scattered among both creatures, and by nature a woman shares in all occupations, and a man in all, though in all of them a woman is weaker than a man.

Certainly.

Shall we, then, assign everything to men, and nothing to women?

How could we?

But there is, I believe, as we shall say, a woman skilled in medicine, and one who is not, and one skilled in music, and one unmusical by nature.

Of course.

[And] is there not also one skilled in gymnastic, and one skilled in war, while another is unwarlike and does not love exercise?

I think there is.

What about this? One who loves wisdom, and one who hates it? And one who is spirited, while another lacks spirit?

These too.

There is, then, also a woman fit to be a guardian, and one who is not. Or was it not just such a nature that we selected also for the men who are to be guardians?

Just such a one, indeed.

The nature of woman and of man, then, is the same with regard to guarding the city, except in so far as the one is weaker and the other stronger.

So it appears.

Then such women must be selected to live with such men and to guard alongside them, since they are capable and akin to them in nature.

Certainly.

And must not the same occupations be assigned to the same natures?

The same.

We have come round, then, back to our earlier position, and we agree that it is not against nature to assign music and gymnastic to the women of the guardians.

Certainly.

We were not, then, legislating anything impossible or like a mere wish, since we were laying down the law according to nature; rather, it is what is now done contrary to this that happens, it seems, more against nature.

So it seems.

Now was not our inquiry whether what we were saying was possible and best?

It was.

And has it not been agreed that it is possible?

Yes.

And must it not now, after this, be agreed that it is best?

Clearly.

Then, at least with a view to a woman's becoming fit to be a guardian, we shall not have one education making men for us and a different one making women, especially since it takes up the same nature to begin with?

Not a different one.

What, then, is your opinion concerning something of this sort?

Concerning what?

Whether you suppose, in your own mind, that one man is better and another worse; or do you consider them all alike?

Not at all.

In the city we were founding, then, do you think our guardians, having received the education we described, will have turned out better men, or the cobblers, trained in the cobbler's craft?

You ask a ridiculous question, he said.

I understand, I said. What of this? Are these not the best of all the other citizens?

By far.

What of this? Will these women not be the best of all the women?

This too, he said, by far.

Is there anything better for a city than for the best possible women and men to come to be in it?

There is not.

And will not music and gymnastic, when present as we have described, bring this about?

How could they not?

Then we were laying down not only a possible law for the city, but also the best one.

Just so.

The women of the guardians, then, must strip, since they will clothe themselves in virtue instead of garments, and must share in war and in the rest of the guarding of the city, and must do nothing else; but of these very duties the lighter parts must be given to the women rather than to the men, on account of the weakness of their sex. But the man who laughs at naked women exercising for the sake of what is best, plucking an unripe fruit of laughable wisdom, himself knows nothing, it seems, either of what he is laughing at or of what he is doing; for this is most finely said, and always will be: that the beneficial is beautiful, and the harmful is shameful.

Certainly.

Shall we say, then, that in speaking of the law concerning women we have escaped one wave, as it were, so that we are not completely swamped in laying down that our guardians, men and women alike, must pursue everything in common, but that the argument somehow agrees with itself that what it prescribes is both possible and beneficial?

Second Wave: Wives and Children in Common

Indeed, he said, that is no small wave you are escaping.

You will say it is not a big one, I said, once you see what comes next.

Say it, then, and let me see, he said.

Following on this, I said, and on the earlier ones too, there is, I believe, this law.

What law?

These women, all of them, are to belong in common to all these men, and none is to live privately with any one of them; and the children, in turn, are to be held in common as well, with no parent to know which child is his own, and no child its parent.

This, he said, is far more incredible than the last — both as to whether it is possible and as to whether it is beneficial.

I do not think, I said, that there would be dispute, at least about the benefit — that it is not the greatest good for the women to be held in common and the children in common, if indeed that is possible — but I think the greatest dispute would be about whether it is possible or not.

About both, he said, there would certainly be plenty of dispute.

You are building up quite a case against me, I said — and I had hoped to escape at least one part of it, thinking that if it seemed beneficial to you, all that would remain for me was the question of whether it is possible or not.

But you did not get away with running off, he said — give an account of both.

I must submit to trial, I said. Grant me this much, though : let me have my holiday, the way idle people are in the habit of feasting their minds by themselves, when they walk along alone. For people like that, before working out how what they desire will come about, set that question aside, so as not to wear themselves out deliberating over what is possible and what is not, and, positing that what they want already exists, go on at once to arrange the rest, and delight in running through all they will do once it has happened, making an idle soul idler still. Well, I too am already growing soft, and I want to put off that question — in what way these things are possible — and look into it later; for now, if you will allow me, I shall assume they are possible and consider how the rulers will arrange them once they come about, and how, once carried out, they would be more advantageous than anything else for both the city and the guardians. I shall try to examine these matters with you first, and those others afterward, if indeed you allow it.

Well, I allow it, he said — go ahead and examine it.

I think, then, I said, that if the rulers are to be worthy of that name, and their auxiliaries likewise, the latter will be willing to do what is ordered, and the former will do the ordering — themselves obeying the laws in some matters, and imitating them in others, wherever we leave things to their own discretion.

Likely enough, he said.

You, then, as their lawgiver, I said, will select the women just as you selected the men, and hand them over matched as closely as possible in nature; and since they share houses and common meals, with no one possessing anything of that kind privately, they will be together, and being mingled together both in their exercises and in the rest of their upbringing, they will, I think, be driven by an innate necessity toward union with one another. Or do you not think what I am saying is a matter of necessity?

Not geometrical necessities, he said, but erotic ones, which are likely to be sharper than the others at persuading and drawing along the mass of people.

Very much so, I said. But after this, Glaucon, mating with one another in disorder, or doing anything else of that kind, is neither sanctioned in a city of happy people, nor will the rulers allow it.

No, for it is not just, he said.

Clearly, then, after this we will make the marriages sacred, as far as possible; and the most beneficial marriages would be the sacred ones.

Absolutely.

How, then, will they be most beneficial? Tell me this, Glaucon: I see in your house both hunting dogs and a good many pedigree gamecocks — have you, in Zeus's name, ever paid attention to their mating and breeding?

Paid attention to what? He asked.

In the first place, among these very animals, pedigreed as they are, are not some of them the best, and do they not turn out to be so?

There are.

Do you, then, breed from all of them alike, or are you eager to breed above all from the best?

From the best.

What else? From the youngest, or the oldest, or above all from those in their prime?

From those in their prime.

And if breeding is not done that way, do you think the stock of birds and of dogs will be much worse?

I do, he said.

And what do you think about horses, I said, and the other animals? Is it any different with them?

That would be strange, he said.

Good heavens, I said, my dear friend, how badly we need our rulers to be of the highest quality, if the same really holds for the human race too.

Well, it does hold, he said — but why do you say so?

Because they must, I said, make considerable use of drugs. And even a rather inferior doctor, I suppose, we think good enough for bodies that do not need drugs but are willing to submit to a regimen — but whenever it is necessary to administer drugs as well, we know that a bolder doctor is required.

True — but what are you getting at?

At this, I said: it seems our rulers will need to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of those they rule. And we said, I believe, that all such things are useful in the guise of a drug.

And rightly so, he said.

It is in marriages and childbearing, then, that this right use seems to arise not least of all.

How so?

Well, I said, from what we have agreed, the best men must mate with the best women as often as possible, and the worst with the worst the opposite way; and the offspring of the former must be reared, and those of the latter not, if the flock is to be of the highest quality — and all this must happen without anyone noticing except the rulers themselves, if the herd of guardians is in turn to be as free from faction as possible.

Quite right, he said.

The Regulation of Births

So then, certain festivals must be established by law, at which we shall bring together the brides and the bridegrooms, and sacrifices, and hymns to be composed by our poets, fitting to the marriages that take place; and we shall put the number of marriages under the control of the rulers, so that they may preserve, as far as possible, the same number of men, having regard to wars and diseases and all such things, and so that our city may become neither too great nor too small, so far as that lies in our power.

Rightly, he said.

Then, I think, some ingenious lots must be devised, so that the base man may blame chance for each pairing rather than the rulers.

Very much so, he said.

And to the good among the young men, surely, whether in war or elsewhere, rewards and prizes must be given, and among them a more liberal license to sleep with the women, so that at the same time, under this pretext, as many of the children as possible may be begotten from such men.

Rightly.

Then also the officials appointed over these matters, receiving the offspring as they are continually born — whether those officials be men or women or both, since the offices, I suppose, are common to women and men alike —

Yes.

Taking the offspring of the good, I think, they will carry them off to the pen, to certain nurses who live apart in a section of the city; but the offspring of the inferior, and any of the others that happens to be born deformed, they will hide away in secrecy and obscurity, as is fitting.

If indeed the race of the guardians is to remain pure, he said.

Then will these same officials also take charge of feeding, bringing the mothers to the pen when their breasts are full, devising every contrivance so that none of them will recognize her own child, and providing other women who have milk, if the mothers themselves are not sufficient, and will they take care that these women nurse only for a moderate time, handing over the wakeful nights and the rest of the labor to wet-nurses and attendants?

You are describing, he said, a great deal of ease in child-bearing for the women of the guardians.

For that is fitting, I said. Let us go through next what we proposed. For we said that the offspring must be born from those in their prime.

True.

Then do you agree that twenty years is the moderate span of prime for a woman, and thirty for a man?

Which years do you mean? He asked.

A woman, I said, is to bear children for the city beginning at twenty and continuing until forty; and a man, once he has passed the sharpest point of his racing prime, is to beget children for the city from then on until the age of fifty-five.

At any rate, he said, for both of them that is the prime of body and of practical wisdom.

So then, whether it is someone older or younger than these ages who takes part in begetting children for the common stock, we shall declare the offense to be neither pious nor just, on the ground that he is fathering for the city a child who, if he escapes notice, will come to be not under the sacrifices nor under the prayers that the priestesses and priests and the whole city will offer at each marriage — that the offspring may always turn out better from the good and more useful from the useful — but in darkness, amid dreadful lack of self-restraint.

Rightly, he said.

And the same law, I said, applies if any of those still capable of begetting children touches one of the women of the proper age without a ruler having brought them together; for we shall say that he is bringing into the city a child that is bastard, unsanctioned, and unholy.

Quite rightly, he said.

And when, I suppose, the women and the men pass beyond the age for begetting children, we shall no doubt release them to be free to have intercourse with whomever they wish, except a daughter and a mother and the children of daughters and those above a mother, and the women likewise except a son and a father and their descendants downward and ascendants upward, and in permitting all this we shall charge them to be careful above all that not one conceived child, should any be conceived, is ever brought to light, and that if one does force its way through, they dispose of it on the understanding that there is to be no rearing for such a child.

That, at least, he said, is reasonably stated; but fathers and daughters, and the others you just mentioned, how will they recognize one another?

Not at all, I said; but from whatever day one of them becomes a bridegroom, then, in the tenth month after that day, or the seventh, whatever offspring are born he will call all of them — the males sons and the females daughters — and they in turn will call him father, and in this way their children's children will be called grandchildren, and those before them in turn will be called grandfathers and grandmothers, and all who are born in that period of time in which their mothers and fathers were begetting children will be called sisters and brothers, so that, as we were just saying, they will not touch one another. But the law will permit brothers and sisters to live together as spouses, if the lot falls that way and the Pythia further sanctions it.

All One Family: Kinship, Unity, and the Guardians' Happiness

Quite right, he said.

This, then, Glaucon, is the community of women and children for your city's guardians — this, and of this kind; but that it follows from the rest of the constitution, and is by far the best, we must next establish from the argument. Or how shall we proceed?

Yes, by Zeus, he said.

Is not this, then, the starting point of our agreement — that we ask ourselves what is the greatest good we can name for the ordering of a city, at which the lawgiver must aim in laying down the laws, and what is the greatest evil, and then examine whether what we have just described fits the footprint of the good and fails to fit that of the evil?

Most of all, he said.

Do we have, then, any greater evil for a city than that which tears it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?

We do not.

Then does not a community of pleasure and pain bind a city together, when, as far as possible, all the citizens alike rejoice and grieve over the same things coming to be and passing away?

Certainly, he said.

And is it not a private ownership of such feelings that dissolves it, when some are deeply pained and others greatly pleased at the same experiences befalling the city and those within it?

Why not?

Does this, then, arise from the fact that the citizens do not all utter, together and in the same way, such words as these in the city — mine and not mine? And the same about what belongs to another?

Quite so.

Then is not that city best governed in which the most people say this — mine and not mine — about the same thing in the same way?

Very much so.

And is it not the city that comes closest to being like one human being? For instance, whenever one of our fingers is struck, the whole community stretched throughout the body toward the soul, drawn into a single ordering under its ruling part, perceives this, and the whole feels the pain together with the part that suffers; and so we say that the man's finger hurts — and the same account holds for anything else belonging to the man, both for the pain of a part that suffers and for the pleasure of a part that finds relief?

Yes, the same, he said; and as for what you are asking, it is the best-governed city that dwells nearest to being of that kind.

Then I think, when any one of the citizens suffers anything, whether good or bad, such a city will say above all that the one suffering belongs to itself, and the whole of it will either rejoice together or grieve together.

That is necessary, he said — at least for one that is well governed.

It would be time, then, I said, for us to return to our own city, and examine in it the points on which the argument has agreed, to see whether it possesses them most fully, or some other city more so.

We must indeed, he said.

What then? In other cities too, presumably, there are rulers and a people; and are there also in this one?

There are.

Will all of these address one another as citizens?

How could they not?

But besides citizens, what does the people in the other cities call their rulers?

In most, masters; in the democratically governed ones, this very name, rulers.

And what about the people in our city? Besides citizens, what does it say the rulers are?

Saviors and helpers, he said.

And what do these call the people?

Paymasters and providers of their sustenance.

And what do the rulers in the other cities call their peoples?

Slaves, he said.

And what do the rulers call one another?

Fellow rulers, he said.

And ours?

Fellow guardians.

Can you say, then, of the rulers in the other cities, whether any of them can address one of his fellow rulers as one of his own, and another as a stranger?

Yes, and many.

Then does he not both think of and speak of the one who is his own as belonging to himself, and of the outsider as not belonging to him?

Just so.

And what about your guardians? Is there any of them who could think of or address one of his fellow guardians as a stranger?

Not at all, he said; for whomever he meets, he will think he is meeting either a brother, or a sister, or a father, or a mother, or a son, or a daughter, or the offspring or ancestors of these.

That is excellently said, I said, but tell me this too — will you make it law for them that only the names are their own, or that they must also perform all the actions in accordance with the names, toward their fathers, whatever the law requires concerning fathers, in the way of respect and care and the duty of children to be obedient to their parents, or else it will go worse for him, before both gods and men, on the ground that he is acting neither piously nor justly, if he does anything other than this? Will these be the sayings, or others, that all the citizens will chant straightway into the children's ears, concerning the fathers whom someone points out to them as theirs, and concerning their other kin?

These, he said; for it would be ridiculous if names of kinship were uttered only through the mouth, without deeds to match.

Then in this city, more than in any other, when someone fares well or badly, all will speak in unison the word we mentioned just now — that mine is faring well, or that mine is faring badly.

Very true again, he said.

Then did we not say that, along with this belief and this word, pleasures and pains follow in common?

And we said so rightly.

Then will not our citizens share above all in the very thing they will call mine? And sharing in this, will they not in this way have the greatest community of pain and pleasure?

Very much so.

Is not the cause of this, then, in addition to the rest of our arrangement, the community of women and children among the guardians?

Yes, above all, he said.

But we agreed that this was the greatest good for a city, comparing a well-governed city to a body in how it relates to one of its own parts in respect of pain and pleasure.

And we agreed rightly, he said.

Then the community of children and women among our helpers has been shown to be the cause of the greatest good for the city.

Very much so, he said.

And indeed this agrees with what we said before too; for we said, I believe, that these must have neither private houses, nor land, nor any possession, but that, receiving sustenance from the rest as wages for their guarding, they must all spend it in common, if they are truly to be guardians.

Rightly, he said.

Is it not, then, as I say, that what was said before, together with what is now being said, makes them even more truly guardians, and prevents them from tearing the city apart by calling mine not the same thing but each a different thing — one man dragging off to his own house whatever he can acquire apart from the rest, another into his own, which is a different one, with a different wife and different children, producing pleasures and pains that are private because their objects are private, but rather, by a single belief about what belongs to them, all straining toward the same thing, being as far as possible alike in feeling pain and pleasure together?

Quite so, he said.

What then? Will not lawsuits and accusations against one another virtually vanish from among them, because they possess nothing private except the body, while everything else is held in common? Hence it follows that they will be free from faction, at least over everything that sets men at odds through the possession of money or of children and kin?

It is quite inevitable, he said, that they will be rid of them.

And moreover there could rightly be no lawsuits among them either for violence or for assault; for we shall say, I think, that it is honorable and just for age-mates to defend themselves against age-mates, laying it down as a necessity in the care of their bodies.

Rightly, he said.

For this law has this to be said for it too, I said — if anyone is ever angry at another, by satisfying his anger in that way he would be less likely to go on to greater faction.

Quite so.

The elder, indeed, will be charged with ruling and chastising all the younger.

Clearly.

And moreover, as is likely, a younger person will never attempt to use force against an elder, or to strike him, unless the rulers command it. Nor, I think, will he dishonor him in any other way; for two guardians are sufficient to restrain him — fear and reverence: reverence, which keeps him from laying hands on a parent, and fear, because the others will come to the aid of the one who suffers, some as his sons, others as his brothers, others as his fathers.

Yes, that is how it turns out, he said.

Then in every way, as a result of the laws, will the men live in peace with one another?

A great peace, certainly.

And indeed, with these men not engaged in faction among themselves, there is no danger that the rest of the city will ever be divided, either against them or against itself.

No, indeed not.

As for the very smallest of the evils, from which they would be freed, I hesitate even to mention them, because of their unseemliness — the flattery of the rich by the poor, and the difficulties and pains that men undergo in raising children and making money on account of the necessary sustenance of household servants, at one time borrowing, at another disowning debts, at another procuring funds by any means whatever and depositing them with their wives and servants, handing them over to be managed — and how much, my friend, and what sort of thing they suffer over these matters is plain enough, and ignoble, and not worth speaking of.

Yes, obvious, he said, even to a blind man.

So they will be free from all these things, and they will live a life more blessed than that most blessed life which Olympic victors live.

How so?

Those men are counted happy for only a small part of what belongs to these. For the victory of these men is finer, and their sustenance from the public is more complete. For the victory they win is the preservation of the whole city, and they and their children are crowned with sustenance and everything else that life requires, and they receive prizes from their own city while they live, and when they die they share in a burial worthy of them.

Yes, very fine ones, he said.

Do you remember, then, I said, that earlier some argument — I do not recall whose — rebuked us for not making the guardians happy, since, though it was open to them to have everything the citizens have, they would have nothing? And we, I believe, said that we would consider this later, if it should happen to come up, but that for now we would make the guardians guardians, and the city as happy as we could, rather than looking to one class within it and molding that alone to be happy?

I remember, he said.

What then? Now, does the life of our helpers, since it appears far finer and better than that of the Olympic victors, in any way appear inferior to the life of cobblers, or of other craftsmen, or of farmers?

It does not seem so to me, he said.

But indeed, what I said there it is right to say here too — that if the guardian sets about becoming happy in such a way that he is no longer even a guardian, and a life so moderate and secure, and, as we say, best, will not satisfy him, but a foolish and adolescent opinion about happiness falls upon him and drives him, through his power, to appropriate everything in the city for himself, he will come to know that Hesiod was truly wise in saying that the half is somehow more than the whole.

If he takes me as his counselor, he said, he will stick to this life.

Then do you agree, I said, with the community of the women with the men that we have gone through, concerning education, and children, and the guarding of the other citizens — that whether remaining in the city or going out to war, they must guard together and hunt together like dogs, and share in everything, in every way, as far as possible, and that by doing these things they will do what is best, and not act against the nature of the female in relation to the male, according to which the two of them are naturally fitted to share with one another?

The Guardians at War, and How Greeks Should Treat Greeks

I agree, he said.

Then is it not left, I said, to determine this — whether, just as with the other animals, this community can also come about among human beings, and if so, in what way it is possible?

You have anticipated me, he said, in saying what I was about to raise.

As for the matters of war, I think, I said, it is clear in what manner they will make war.

How so? He asked.

That they will campaign together, and moreover will take with them to the war those of their children who are old enough, so that, like the children of the other craftsmen, they may look on at the things they will have to practice themselves once they are grown; and besides looking on, they will help and serve in everything connected with the war, and wait on their fathers and mothers. Or have you not noticed how it is with the crafts — for instance the children of potters — how for a long time they serve and look on before they lay a hand to the potter's craft themselves?

Very much so.

Should those craftsmen, then, train their children more carefully by experience and observation of what belongs to their work than the guardians train theirs?

That would be ridiculous, he said.

But surely every animal fights with special ferocity when its own offspring are present.

That is so. But there is no small danger, Socrates, that if things go wrong, as often happens in war, they will lose their children along with themselves and leave the rest of the city unable to recover.

What you say is true, I said. But do you think, first of all, that we should arrange things so that they are never in danger at all?

Not at all.

What then? If they must run some risk, should it not be where success will make them better?

Clearly.

But do you think it makes only a small difference, and is not worth the risk, whether or not children who are going to be warriors as men watch the business of war?

No, it makes a difference, in view of what you are saying.

This, then, must be our starting point: to make the children spectators of war, but to contrive safety for them as well, and things will go well; is that not so?

Yes.

Then, I said, in the first place their fathers, as far as human beings can be, will not be ignorant but skilled in judging which campaigns are dangerous and which are not?

That is likely, he said.

So they will take them to some, and be cautious about others.

Rightly so.

And, I said, they will surely put in charge of them not the most inferior commanders, but those competent by experience and age to be both leaders and guides.

That is fitting.

But, we shall say, many things have happened to many people contrary to expectation.

Very much so.

Against such possibilities, my friend, we must give them wings while they are still children, so that, if need be, they can fly away and escape.

What do you mean? He asked.

We must, I said, set them on horses as early as possible, and once they have been taught to ride, take them on horseback to watch, mounted not on spirited or battle-eager horses, but on the swiftest and most manageable ones we can find. For in this way they will get the finest view of their own work, and, should there be need, will make their escape most safely by following their older guides.

You seem to me to be right, he said.

And what, I said, of the business of war? How should the soldiers behave toward one another and toward the enemy? Does what occurs to me seem right, or not?

Tell me, he said, what these are this time.

As for our own men, I said, must not one of them who deserts his post, or throws away his weapons, or does anything of that sort out of cowardice, be made into some kind of craftsman or farmer?

Certainly.

And must not one who is taken alive by the enemy be given as a gift to his captors, to do with their catch whatever they wish?

Quite so.

And as for the one who distinguishes himself and wins honor, do you not think that first, while still on campaign, he should be crowned by each of the young men and boys serving alongside him, one after another? Or not?

I do.

What then? Should he also have his hand clasped?

That too.

But this, I think, I said, you no longer agree with.

What is that?

That he should kiss and be kissed by each of them.

Most of all, he said — and I would add to the law, for as long as they are on this campaign, that no one is allowed to refuse a kiss to anyone who wants to kiss him, so that, if anyone happens to be in erotic love with someone, male or female, he may be more eager to carry off the prize for valor.

Well put, I said. For it has already been said that for the man who is good there will be more marriages ready than for the others, and more frequent choice of such partners than the rest have, so that as many children as possible may come from such a man.

Yes, we did say that, he said.

And indeed, according to Homer too, it is just to honor such men among the young who prove themselves good. For Homer said that Ajax, who had distinguished himself in war, was honored with long cuts of the chine, this being a fitting honor for a man who is in his prime and courageous, one from which, along with the honor, his strength would also increase.

Quite right, he said.

In this, then, I said, we shall follow Homer. For we too, at sacrifices and on all such occasions, will honor the good, in proportion to how good they show themselves, both with hymns and with the things we were just now speaking of, and besides these, with seats of honor and meat and full cups, so that in honoring them we may also train our good men and women.

Very well put, he said.

Very well — of those who die on campaign, whoever dies having won honor, shall we not say, first of all, that he belongs to the golden race?

Most of all.

But shall we not follow Hesiod in saying, whenever any of this race die, that indeed— they turn into holy spirits who dwell upon the earth, good beings, defenders against harm, guardians of speaking mortals?

We shall follow him, then.

So, having inquired of the god how we should lay to rest those who are daimonic and divine, and with what distinction, shall we lay them to rest in just that way he directs?

Why should we not?

And for all time to come, shall we tend and revere their tombs as we would those of daimonic beings? And shall we establish these same customs whenever anyone dies of old age or in some other way, among those judged to have been outstandingly good in life?

That is only just, he said.

What then? How will our soldiers behave toward the enemy?

In what respect?

First, regarding enslavement: does it seem just for Greeks to enslave Greek cities, or should we not permit it to anyone else either, so far as we can, and instead make it a habit to spare the Greek race, out of caution against enslavement at the hands of the barbarians?

Sparing them, he said, is altogether and entirely the better course.

Then should they themselves not own any Greek as a slave, and should they advise the other Greeks to do likewise?

Certainly, he said; in this way they would turn their attention more toward the barbarians, and keep their hands off one another.

What then? Is it right, I said, to strip the dead of anything except their weapons, once they have won the victory? Or does it not give cowards a pretext for not going up against the man still fighting, as though they were doing something necessary when they linger over the corpse, and have not many an army already been destroyed through plunder of this sort?

Very much so.

And does it not seem ignoble and greedy to plunder a corpse, and does it not show a womanish and petty mind to regard the body as the enemy, when the real enemy has flown off and left behind only the thing it fought with? Or do you think those who do this act any differently from dogs, which get angry at the stones thrown at them without touching the one who threw them?

Not in the least, he said.

So must we give up the plundering of corpses and the obstruction of their recovery for burial?

We certainly must give it up, he said, by Zeus.

Nor, surely, will we carry weapons off to dedicate at the temples, especially not weapons taken from Greeks, if we care at all about goodwill toward the rest of the Greeks; rather we will be afraid that bringing such things to a temple from our own kin might be a kind of pollution, unless the god says otherwise.

Quite right, he said.

What of the ravaging of Greek land and the burning of houses? What sort of thing will our soldiers do to the enemy in this regard, in your view?

I would gladly hear you declare your opinion, he said.

Well, I said, it seems to me that they should do neither of these things, but only take away the year's crop. And do you want me to tell you why?

Certainly.

It seems to me that, just as there are two names for these things, war and civil strife, so too there are two realities, resting on two different kinds of conflict. By the two, I mean on one hand what is one's own and akin, and on the other what is foreign and alien. So hostility toward what is one's own is called civil strife, and hostility toward what is foreign is called war.

And what you say, he said, is not at all off the mark.

Consider, then, whether this too is to the point in what I am saying. For I say that the Greek race is, in itself, its own kin and akin to itself, but is foreign and alien to the barbarian race.

Well put, he said.

Then we shall say that when Greeks fight barbarians and barbarians fight Greeks, they are at war and are enemies by nature, and this hostility must be called war; whereas when Greeks do such a thing to Greeks, they are friends by nature, but in such a case Greece is sick and torn by faction, and this sort of hostility must be called civil strife.

For my part, he said, I agree that we should think of it in this way.

Consider then, I said, that in what is now agreed to be civil strife, wherever something of this kind occurs and a city is divided, if each side ravages the other's fields and burns their houses, the strife is regarded as abominable and neither side as loving its own city — for they would never dare to ravage their own nurse and mother — but that the measured course is for the victors to take away the crops of the defeated, and to bear in mind that they will one day be reconciled and will not go on making war forever.

For this way of thinking, he said, is far gentler than the other.

What then? I asked — will not the city you are founding be a Greek city?

It must be, he said.

Then will they not also be good and gentle?

Very much so.

And will they not be lovers of Greece? Will they not regard Greece as their own, and share in the same sacred rites as the other Greeks?

Very much so indeed.

Then will they not regard a quarrel with Greeks, since it is with their own people, as civil strife, and refuse even to give it the name of war?

No, they will not.

And will they carry on their disputes as people who intend to be reconciled?

Certainly.

So they will discipline them with goodwill, punishing them not with a view to enslavement or destruction, since they are correctors, not enemies.

Just so, he said.

So, being Greeks, they will not ravage Greece, nor will they burn down dwellings, nor will they agree that in each city everyone is their enemy — men, women, and children alike — but only ever a few, those responsible for the conflict. And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to ravage their land, since most of them are friends, or to tear down their houses, but will carry the conflict only to the point where those responsible are compelled, by the suffering of those not responsible, to pay the penalty.

For my part, he said, I agree that our citizens should treat their opponents in this way; but toward the barbarians, as the Greeks now treat one another.

Shall we then lay down this law too for our guardians, that they neither ravage the land nor burn down houses?