Book I

The Descent to the Piraeus

I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, both to say a prayer to the goddess and because I wanted to see how they would conduct the festival, since they were holding it for the first time. Now the procession the locals put on struck me as beautiful, but the one the Thracians conducted seemed no less fitting. Once we had said our prayers and watched the spectacle, we set off back toward the city. Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, spotted us from a distance as we were heading home, and told his boy to run and ask us to wait for him. The boy caught hold of my cloak from behind and said, Polemarchus asks you to wait. I turned around and asked where he himself was. He's coming up behind you, the boy said; just wait. All right, we'll wait, Glaucon said.

A little later Polemarchus arrived, along with Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and a few others, apparently coming from the procession.

Polemarchus said, Socrates, you two look to me as though you had set off for the city, meaning to be gone.

Your guess isn't a bad one, I said.

Do you see, he said, how many of us there are?

How could I not?

Then, he said, either you prove stronger than we are, or you stay right here.

Well then, I said, isn't there still one thing left — that we persuade you it's right to let us go?

But could you persuade us, he said, if we refuse to listen?

Not a chance, Glaucon said.

Then make your plans on the basis that we won't be listening.

Adeimantus said, Do you two not even know that there's going to be a torch race on horseback this evening, in honor of the goddess?

On horseback? I said — that's a new one. Will they carry torches and pass them to each other as they race on horseback? Or how do you mean?

Just so, Polemarchus said. And besides, they're going to hold an all-night vigil worth seeing; we'll get up after dinner and go watch it. We'll also meet lots of the young men there, and we'll talk with them. So stay and don't do otherwise.

Cephalus on Old Age

And Glaucon said, it seems we must stay.

Well, if you think so, I said, that is what we must do.

So we went to Polemarchus's house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, Polemarchus's brothers, and also Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Charmantides of Paeania, and Cleitophon son of Aristonymus; and Polemarchus's father Cephalus was there too. And he seemed to me quite old now — it had been a long time since I had last seen him. He was sitting, crowned with a wreath, on a sort of cushioned stool, for he had just finished a sacrifice in the courtyard. So we sat down beside him, since there were some stools set out there in a circle.

As soon as Cephalus saw me, he greeted me and said, Socrates, you don't come down to see us in the Piraeus very often. Yet you should. If I still had the strength to make the walk to town easily, there would be no need for you to come here — we would come to you instead; but as it is, you must come here more often. You may be sure that, for me, the more the other pleasures of the body wither away, the more the desires and pleasures of conversation grow. So do not do otherwise — keep company with these young men, and come around to us often, as to friends who are truly your own.

Indeed, I said, Cephalus, I really do enjoy talking with the very old, for it seems to me we ought to learn from them, as from people who have already traveled a road that we too will perhaps have to travel, what sort of road it is — rough and hard, or easy and smooth. And in particular I would gladly hear from you how it looks to you, now that you have reached the time of life the poets call the threshold of old age — whether it is a hard stretch of life, or how you yourself would describe it.

By Zeus, Socrates, he said, I will tell you just how it looks to me. A number of us who are about the same age often meet together, keeping up the old saying — and most of us, when we get together, complain, missing the pleasures of our youth and remembering sex, drinking, feasting, and all the other things that go along with them, and they take it hard, as if they had been robbed of something great, and as if they had lived well then but are not even living now. Some also grieve over the disrespect old age brings from their own families, and on that account they go on and on about all the troubles old age has caused them. But it seems to me, Socrates, that they are not blaming the real cause. For if old age itself were the cause, I too would have felt exactly the same, on account of my age alone, and so would everyone else who has reached this time of life. But as it is, I have met others who do not feel this way — and in particular I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles, "Sophocles, how do things stand with you where sex is concerned? Are you still able to have intercourse with a woman?" And he replied, "Hush, man — I was only too glad to escape it, like escaping from a raving, savage master." I thought he had put it well then, and I think so no less now. For with respect to such things there comes, in old age, a great peace and freedom — once the desires stop straining and slacken off, it is exactly as Sophocles said: one is rid of a great many masters, and mad ones at that. But of these matters, and of one's dealings with one's own family too, there is a single cause — not old age, Socrates, but a person's character. For if people are orderly and easygoing, old age too is only moderately burdensome; but if not, then both old age and youth turn out hard for that kind of person, Socrates.

And I, admiring him for saying this and wanting him to go on talking, pressed him further and said, Cephalus, I think most people, when you say this, do not accept it, but suppose that you bear old age easily not because of your character but because you possess a great deal of property — for the rich, they say, have many consolations.

Wealth, and Justice as Telling the Truth and Paying Debts

What you say is true, he said; for they do not accept it. And there is something in what they say, though not as much as they think; but Themistocles's retort is a good one — when the man from Seriphus was abusing him and saying that he was well regarded not on his own account but because of his city, he replied that neither would he himself have become famous had he been a Seriphian, nor would that man, had he been an Athenian. And for those who are not rich and find old age hard to bear, the same account holds good — that a decent man would not bear old age altogether easily along with poverty, nor would an indecent man, however rich, ever be at ease with himself.

And tell me, Cephalus, I said, of what you now possess, did you inherit most of it, or did you add to it yourself?

What would I have added to it, Socrates? he said. I have turned out to be a middling money-maker, somewhere between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather, who shared my name, inherited about as much property as I now have and made it many times over; but my father Lysanias made it even smaller than it is now; and I am content if I leave to these sons of mine not less than I inherited, but a little more.

That is why I asked, I said, because you seemed to me not to be very fond of money — and this is generally true of those who have not made it themselves, while those who have made it are twice as attached to it as everyone else. For just as poets love their own poems, and fathers love their children, so too those who have made money take it seriously as their own achievement, and value it for its use besides, just as everyone else does. So they are hard company to keep, too, since they are willing to praise nothing but wealth.

What you say is true, he said.

Very true, I said. But tell me this much more — what do you think is the greatest good you have gained from possessing great wealth?

That, he said, is something I might not persuade many people of, were I to say it. For you may be sure, Socrates, he said, that when a man draws near to thinking he will die, fear and worry come over him about matters that never troubled him before. For the stories told about the underworld, that whoever has done wrong here must pay the penalty there — stories he laughed at until then — now twist his soul with the fear that they might be true; and he himself — whether from the weakness of old age, or perhaps because, being now nearer to what lies there, he sees a little more of it — grows full of suspicion and dread, and starts reckoning up and examining whether he has wronged anyone. So the man who finds many wrongs of his own in his life, waking often out of sleep as children do, is filled with fear and lives with a bad hope; but the man who is conscious of no injustice in himself has a sweet hope always at his side, and a good nurse for old age, as Pindar too says. For he put this gracefully indeed, Socrates — that for whoever leads his life justly and in reverence of the gods, hope is sweet, and tends his heart, a nurse for his old age, keeping him company — hope, which beyond everything else steers the ever-turning mind of mortals. So he puts it well — remarkably well indeed. It is with this in view that I count the possession of money most valuable, not for every man, but for the decent and orderly one. For not deceiving or lying to anyone, even unwillingly, and not having to go off there in fear because one owes some sacrifice to a god or money to a man — to this the possession of money contributes a great deal. It has many other uses besides; but weighing one thing against another, I myself would count wealth most useful, for this purpose at least, to a man of sense, Socrates.

Beautifully put, Cephalus, I said. But as for this very thing, justice — shall we simply say it is nothing more than telling the truth and giving back whatever one has taken from another, or are even these very actions sometimes done justly and sometimes unjustly? For instance, take a case like this: everyone would surely agree that if a man took weapons from a friend who was at the time of sound mind, and that friend later went mad and demanded them back, one ought not to give such things back, and the one who did give them back would not be acting justly — nor, again, would a man be acting justly who was willing to tell the whole truth to someone in that condition.

You are right, he said.

Then this is not the definition of justice — to tell the truth and give back whatever one has taken.

It certainly is not, Socrates, said Polemarchus, breaking in — if indeed we are to trust Simonides at all.

And indeed, said Cephalus, I hand the argument over to you both; for I must now attend to the sacred rites.

Then am I not, said Polemarchus, the heir at least to what is yours?

Certainly, he said, laughing, and at once went off to the sacred rites.

Simonides: Justice as a Craft, and What It Is Good For

Tell me, then, I said, you who have inherited the argument — what do you say Simonides means when he speaks rightly about justice?

That giving back to each what is owed is just, he said; in saying this he seems to me to speak well.

But indeed, I said, it is not easy to distrust Simonides — he is a wise and inspired man — yet what he actually means by this, you perhaps know, Polemarchus, while I do not; for clearly he does not mean what we were just saying, that whatever a man has deposited should be given back to him when he asks for it out of his mind. And yet surely what he deposited is something owed — is it not?

Yes.

And it is not to be given back at all, at a time when the one asking for it is out of his mind?

True, he said.

Then it seems Simonides means something other than this when he says that giving back what is owed is just.

Something else indeed, by Zeus, he said; for he thinks that friends owe it to friends to do them some good and no harm.

I understand, I said — that whoever gives back gold deposited with him is not giving back what is owed, if the giving back and the taking turn out harmful, though giver and receiver are friends — is that not how you say Simonides means it?

Certainly.

What then? Should one give back to enemies whatever happens to be owed?

Certainly, he said — whatever is indeed owed to them; and what is owed, I suppose, from an enemy to an enemy, and what is fitting, is some harm.

Simonides, then, it seems, I said, spoke in riddles, poet that he is, about what justice is. For it seems he had in mind that justice is giving to each what is fitting, and this he called what is owed.

But what do you think? So he asked.

By Zeus, I said, suppose then someone had asked him — Simonides, to whom, and giving what that is owed and fitting, is a craft called medicine? What do you think he would have answered us?

Clearly, he said — the craft that gives to bodies drugs, food, and drink.

And to whom, and giving what that is owed and fitting, is a craft called cookery?

The craft that gives seasonings to dishes.

Well then; to whom, and giving what, would a craft be called justice?

If indeed, he said, we must follow what was said before, Socrates — the craft that gives benefits to friends and harms to enemies.

So he means that doing good to friends and harm to enemies is justice?

So it seems to me.

Then who is most capable of doing good to friends who are sick, and harm to enemies, with regard to disease and health?

The doctor.

And who, for those sailing, with regard to the danger of the sea?

The captain.

And the just man? In what activity, and with a view to what task, is he most capable of helping friends and harming enemies?

In making war and fighting as an ally, it seems to me.

Very well; but to those who are not sick, my dear Polemarchus, the doctor is useless.

True.

And to those not sailing, the captain.

Yes.

Then is the just man also useless to those not at war?

That does not seem quite right to me.

So justice is useful even in peace?

Useful.

And so is farming — or not?

Yes.

For getting produce?

Yes.

And shoemaking too?

Yes.

For getting shoes, I suppose you would say?

Certainly.

What then? For the need or getting of what would you say justice is useful in peace?

For contracts, Socrates.

And by contracts do you mean partnerships, or something else?

Partnerships, certainly.

Is the just man, then, a good and useful partner for a game of draughts, or the draughts-player?

The draughts-player.

But for laying bricks and stones, is the just man a more useful and better partner than the builder?

Not at all.

Then for what partnership is the just man a better partner than the builder and the lyre-player, just as the lyre-player is better than the just man for playing notes?

For money, it seems to me.

Except perhaps, Polemarchus, for the use of money — when one needs to join in buying or selling a horse; then, I think, it is rather the horseman. Is that not so?

It appears so.

And indeed when it is a ship, the shipwright or the captain?

So it seems.

Then when is the just man more useful than the others for a joint use of silver or gold?

When it needs to be deposited and kept safe, Socrates.

Then you mean when there is no need to use it at all, but only to have it lying there?

Certainly.

So when silver is useless, then justice is useful for it?

So it seems.

And when a pruning-hook needs guarding, justice is useful, both jointly and privately; but when it needs using, it is the vine-dresser's craft?

It appears so.

And will you say that with a shield and a lyre too, when they need guarding and no use at all, justice is useful, but when they need using, it is the soldier's craft and the musician's?

It must be so.

And so with everything else as well, is justice useless when each thing is in use, but useful when it is not?

So it seems.

Then justice, my friend, could hardly be a very serious thing, if it turns out to be useful only for useless things. But let us look at this. Is it not true that whoever is cleverest at striking a blow in a fight, whether boxing or any other kind, is also cleverest at guarding against one?

Certainly.

And whoever is clever at guarding against disease — is he not also cleverest at inflicting it without being noticed?

So it seems to me.

The Guardian Who Is Also a Thief

But surely the same man is also a good guardian of an army — the one who is able to steal the enemy's plans and their other operations as well?

Certainly.

So whoever is a clever guardian of a thing is also a clever thief of it.

So it seems.

If then the just man is clever at guarding money, he is also clever at stealing it.

That, at any rate, he said, is what the argument suggests.

So the just man has turned out, it seems, to be some sort of thief, and you are likely to have picked this up from Homer; for he too is fond of Odysseus's grandfather on his mother's side, Autolycus, and says that he surpassed all men in thieving and the swearing of oaths. So it seems that, according to you and to Homer and to Simonides alike, justice is a kind of thievery, though for the benefit of friends and the harm of enemies. Wasn't that what you were saying?

No, by Zeus, he said, I no longer know what I was saying; but this much still seems right to me — that justice benefits friends and harms enemies.

But do you mean by friends those who seem to each person to be good, or those who really are, even if they don't seem so — and enemies in the same way?

It's natural, he said, to love those one considers good, and hate those one considers bad.

But don't people make mistakes about this, so that many seem good to them who are not, and many the opposite?

They do make mistakes.

Then for these people the good are enemies, and the bad are friends?

Certainly.

But is it nevertheless just for them, in that case, to benefit the wicked and harm the good?

It appears so.

But surely the good are just, and the sort not to do wrong?

True.

Then by your account it is just to treat badly those who do no wrong.

Not at all, Socrates, he said; that argument seems to me a bad one.

Then is it just, I said, to harm the unjust and benefit the just?

That looks better than the other one.

Then, Polemarchus, it will follow for many people — everyone who has misjudged others — that it is just to harm their friends, since to them their friends are wicked, and to benefit their enemies, since to them their enemies are good; and so we shall be saying the very opposite of what we said Simonides meant.

Yes indeed, he said, that is exactly how it works out. But let us change our position; for it looks as though we set down wrongly who the friend is and who the enemy.

Set them down how, Polemarchus?

That the one who seems good is a friend.

Then how, I said, should we change it now?

The one who both seems good and is good is a friend, he said; but the one who seems good but is not, only seems to be a friend, and is not one. And the same holds for an enemy.

So on this account, it seems, the good man will be a friend, and the wicked man an enemy.

Yes.

So you are telling us to add something to what we said at first, when we said it was just to treat a friend well and an enemy badly; and now, on top of that, we are to say that it is just to treat a friend well when he is good, and to harm an enemy when he is bad?

Yes, certainly, he said; that seems to me the right way to put it.

Is it then, I said, the mark of a just man to harm any human being at all?

Certainly, he said; the wicked, at least, and one's enemies, must be harmed.

And when horses are harmed, do they become better or worse?

Worse.

Worse with respect to the virtue of dogs, or of horses?

Of horses.

And when dogs are harmed, don't they become worse with respect to the virtue of dogs, and not of horses?

Necessarily.

And shall we not say the same of human beings, my friend — that when they are harmed, they become worse with respect to human virtue?

Yes, certainly.

But is justice not a human virtue?

That too must be granted.

Then it follows, my friend, that human beings who are harmed necessarily become more unjust.

So it seems.

Well then, can musicians make people unmusical by music?

Impossible.

Or can horsemen make people bad riders by horsemanship?

No, they cannot.

Then can the just, by justice, make people unjust? Or, in short, can the good, by virtue, make people bad?

No, that is impossible.

For it is not the function of heat, I take it, to cool, but of its opposite.

Yes.

Nor of dryness to moisten, but of its opposite.

Certainly.

Nor is it the function of the good to harm, but of its opposite.

So it appears.

And the just man is good?

Certainly.

So it is not the function of the just man, Polemarchus, to harm anyone — not a friend, not anyone else — but of his opposite, the unjust man.

You seem to me to be entirely right, Socrates, he said.

So if someone says that justice is giving to each what is owed, and means by this that harm is owed to enemies by the just man, and benefit to friends, then whoever said this was not wise. For he was not telling the truth; nowhere has it appeared to us that harming anyone is just.

I agree, he said.

Then you and I, I said, will fight side by side, if anyone claims that Simonides said it, or Bias, or Pittacus, or any other of the wise and blessed men.

I, at any rate, he said, am ready to join in the fight.

But do you know, I said, whose saying I believe this is — that it is just to benefit friends and harm enemies?

Whose? So he asked.

I think it belongs to Periander, or Perdiccas, or Xerxes, or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich man who thought himself powerful.

Very true, he said.

Well then, I said; since it has turned out that this is not what justice is, nor the just, what else might one say it is?

Thrasymachus Breaks In

Thrasymachus, though he had often tried to break in and seize hold of the argument while we were in the middle of our discussion, was each time held back by the people sitting near him, who wanted to hear the argument out; but when we paused and I had said this, he could no longer keep still, but gathered himself together like a wild beast and hurled himself at us as if to tear us apart.

Polemarchus and I were frightened and thrown into a panic; but he broke in among us and said, What foolish talk has had hold of you two for so long, Socrates? And why do you keep playing the fool with each other, giving way to one another like this? But if you truly want to know what justice is, don't just ask questions, and don't go chasing the glory of refuting whoever answers — you know perfectly well it's easier to ask than to answer — but answer yourself, and say what you claim justice is. And mind you don't tell me it is the obligatory, or the beneficial, or the profitable, or the gainful, or the advantageous — say plainly and exactly what you mean, since I won't accept it if you spout such drivel.

Hearing this, I was thunderstruck, and looking at him I was afraid, and I think that if I had not caught sight of him before he saw me, I would have been struck dumb. But as it was, just when he was beginning to turn savage at the argument, I caught sight of him first, so that I was able to answer him, and I said, trembling a little, Thrasymachus, don't be harsh with us; if he and I are making some mistake in our inquiry into the argument, be assured that we are going wrong unwillingly. Don't imagine that if we were searching for gold, we would ever willingly give way to each other in the search and ruin our chance of finding it, but that when we're searching for justice, a thing worth far more than piles of gold, we're being so foolish as to yield to one another like this, and not doing everything we can to bring it to light. You may think that, my friend, if you like. But I think we simply cannot; so it's surely far more reasonable that we should be pitied by you clever people than treated harshly.

And when he heard this, he gave a very sardonic laugh and said, By Heracles, this is that habitual irony of Socrates — I knew it, and I told these men beforehand that you would refuse to answer, and would play the ironist, and do anything at all rather than answer, if anyone asked you something.

You are a clever man, Thrasymachus, I said, so you knew very well that if you asked someone what twelve is, and in asking told him in advance — "Now, sir, don't you tell me that twelve is twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, since I won't accept it if you talk such nonsense" — it would be obvious to you, I think, that no one could answer a person who asks in that way. But what if he had said to you, "Thrasymachus, what do you mean? Am I not to answer any of what you forbade? Or, my remarkable friend, am I not to say it even if one of them happens to be true, but must say something else, other than the truth? Or what do you mean?" What would you have said to him in reply to that?

Well, he said — as though this were anything like that.

There's nothing to stop it being so, I said; and even if it isn't really similar, but seems so to the person being asked, do you think he'll be any less likely to answer what appears true to him, whether we forbid it or not?

So are you going to do the same thing, then, he said, and answer with one of the things I forbade?

I wouldn't be surprised, I said, if that is how it seemed to me once I had looked into it.

Well then, he said, what if I showed another answer about justice, different from all of these, and better than they are? What penalty do you think you deserve?

What else, I said, than what's fitting for the one who doesn't know? And surely it's fitting to learn from the one who knows; so that's the penalty I think I deserve.

How charming you are, he said, but besides learning, you must pay money too.

Certainly, once I have some, I said.

But there is money, said Glaucon. So speak, Thrasymachus, for the sake of the money — we'll all contribute it for Socrates.

I'm sure you will, he said, so that Socrates can pull his usual trick — not answer himself, but seize on the argument when someone else answers, and refute it.

How could anyone answer, my excellent fellow, I said, when in the first place he does not know and does not even claim to know, and then, even if he does think something, he has been forbidden by no ordinary man to say anything of what he thinks? No, it's far more fitting that you should speak instead, since you do claim to know and to have something to say. So don't do otherwise — do me the favor of answering, and don't grudge teaching Glaucon here, and the rest of us.

When I had said this, Glaucon and the others begged him not to do otherwise. Thrasymachus was plainly eager to speak, so that he could win approval, since he thought he had a splendid answer to give, but he kept up the pretense of insisting that I should be the one to answer. In the end he gave way, and then said, So this is Socrates's wisdom — he himself refuses to teach, but goes around learning from others, and doesn't even pay them thanks for it.

That I learn from others, I said, is true, Thrasymachus, but when you say I don't pay them thanks for it, you're wrong; I pay as much as I can. I can only pay in praise, since I have no money. But just how eagerly I do this, whenever someone seems to me to speak well, you'll find out very soon, as soon as you answer — for I think you're going to speak well.

Justice Is the Advantage of the Stronger

Listen, then, he said. For I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger. Well, why don't you praise me? But you won't be willing to.

Only if I first learn what you mean, I said; for as yet I don't know. You say that the advantage of the stronger is just. And whatever do you mean by this, Thrasymachus? Surely you do not mean something like this: that if Pulydamas the pancratiast is stronger than we are, and beef is advantageous to his body, then this food is both advantageous and just for us too, the weaker.

You're disgusting, Socrates, he said, and you take hold of the argument in whatever way will do it the most damage.

Not at all, my good man, I said; but tell me more clearly what you mean.

Don't you know, he said, that among cities some are ruled by tyranny, some by democracy, and some by aristocracy?

How could I not?

So it's this that has power in each city — the ruling element?

Certainly.

Now each government establishes laws for its own advantage — a democracy makes democratic laws, a tyranny makes tyrannical ones, and the others do likewise; and once they have established them, they declare this — what is to their own advantage — to be just for their subjects, and they punish anyone who oversteps it as a lawbreaker and a wrongdoer. This, then, my excellent fellow, is what I mean when I say that the same thing is just in every city — the advantage of the established government; and since it is this that holds power, it follows for anyone who reasons correctly that the same thing is just everywhere: the advantage of the stronger.

Now, I said, I understand what you mean; but whether it's true or not, I'll try to find out. So then, Thrasymachus, you too have answered that the advantageous is just — although you forbade me to give that very answer — but now, it seems, there's this addition: the advantage of the stronger.

A small addition, perhaps, he said.

It's not yet clear whether it's even a large one; but it is clear that this must be examined — whether what you say is true. Since I too agree that justice is something advantageous, while you add something and say that it is the advantage of the stronger — which I don't know to be so — we must examine it.

Examine it, he said.

That's what I'll do, I said. And tell me: don't you also say that it's just to obey the rulers?

I do.

And are the rulers in each city infallible, or are they the sort who can also make mistakes?

Surely, he said, they're the sort who can also make mistakes.

So when they set about making laws, don't they make some correctly, and some not correctly?

I suppose so.

And is making laws correctly just this — making them advantageous to themselves — and making them incorrectly, disadvantageous? Or what do you mean?

Just so.

And whatever they establish must be done by the ruled, and that is what is just?

How could it not be?

Then according to your account, it's just not only to do what is advantageous to the stronger, but also the opposite — what is not advantageous.

What do you mean? So he asked.

I think I'm just saying what you say; but let's look at it more carefully. Hasn't it been agreed that the rulers, in giving orders to the ruled to do certain things, sometimes miss what is best for themselves, and yet that it's just for the ruled to do whatever the rulers order? Hasn't this been agreed?

I suppose it has, he said.

Consider then, I said, that you've also agreed that it's just to do what's disadvantageous to the rulers and to the stronger, whenever the rulers unintentionally order what's bad for themselves, while you say it's just for the ruled to do what those rulers ordered — doesn't it then necessarily follow, wisest Thrasymachus, that it works out exactly this way: that it's just to do the opposite of what you say? For surely what's disadvantageous to the stronger is just what the weaker are ordered to do.

Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, Polemarchus said, quite plainly.

Only if you testify on his behalf, said Cleitophon, cutting in.

And what need is there, he said, of a witness? For Thrasymachus himself agrees that the rulers sometimes order what's bad for themselves, and that it's just for the ruled to do it.

That's because Thrasymachus laid it down, Polemarchus, that doing what's commanded by the rulers is just.

But he also laid it down, Cleitophon, that the advantage of the stronger is just. And having laid down both of these, he then agreed that the stronger sometimes order the weaker and the ruled to do what's disadvantageous to themselves. And from these admissions, the advantage of the stronger would be no more just than the disadvantage.

But, said Cleitophon, what he meant by the advantage of the stronger was whatever the stronger believes to be advantageous to himself — that's what the weaker must do, and that's what he took to be just.

But that's not how it was said, said Polemarchus.

It makes no difference, Polemarchus, I said; but if that's how Thrasymachus means it now, let's accept it from him that way. So tell me, Thrasymachus: was this what you meant to call justice — the advantage of the stronger as it seems to the stronger, whether it's really advantageous or not? Shall we say that's what you mean?

Not at all, he said; do you think I call the man who's making a mistake stronger at the moment he's making it?

I did, I said; I thought you meant this when you agreed that the rulers aren't infallible but also make mistakes.

The Craftsman in the Precise Sense

You're a quibbler in argument, Socrates, he said; for instance, do you call a doctor who makes a mistake with his patients a doctor in respect of that very mistake? Or do you call the reckoner, when he blunders in a calculation, a reckoner in respect of that very blunder, at the moment he blunders? But I think that's just how we speak of it in words — that the doctor erred, and the reckoner erred, and the schoolmaster; whereas each of these, I think, insofar as he is that which we call him, never errs at all; so that, by the precise account — since you're the one insisting on precision — none of the craftsmen ever errs. For the one who errs errs through a failure of knowledge, in which respect he is not a craftsman; so that no craftsman or wise man or ruler ever errs at the time he is ruling, even though everyone would say that the doctor erred and the ruler erred. So take it that I too answered you just now in that spirit; but the most precise statement happens to be this: that the ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, does not err, and, not erring, lays down what is best for himself, and this the one ruled must carry out. So what I said from the beginning is what I call just — to do what is to the advantage of the stronger.

Well then, I said, Thrasymachus — do you think I'm quibbling?

Very much so, he said.

Do you think I asked what I asked out of malice, meaning to play you foul in argument?

I'm quite sure of it, he said. And it will do you no good at all — for you won't escape my notice playing foul, and, once caught, you won't be able to force your way through by argument.

Nor would I even attempt it, my good man, I said. But so that nothing of that kind happens between us again, make clear which way you mean the ruler and the stronger — the one so called in a loose manner of speaking, or the one in the precise sense you were just now describing, whose advantage, since he is the stronger, it will be just for the weaker to serve.

The one who is a ruler in the most precise sense, he said. Against that, play foul and quibble if you can — I ask no quarter of you — but you'll never manage it.

Do you think me so mad, I said, as to attempt to shave a lion and play the quibbler with Thrasymachus?

You did attempt it just now, at any rate, he said, and that though you are a nobody.

Enough of that sort of thing, I said. But tell me — the doctor in the precise sense, the one you were just now describing, is he a moneymaker, or one who cares for the sick? And speak of the one who is really a doctor.

One who cares for the sick, he said.

And what of the ship's captain? Is the true captain a ruler of sailors, or a sailor himself?

A ruler of sailors.

This, I think, should not be reckoned against him — that he sails in the ship — nor should he be called a sailor for that; for it's not in virtue of sailing that he's called a captain, but in virtue of his craft and his rule over the sailors.

True, he said.

So is there something advantageous to each of these?

Certainly.

And isn't craft, I said, by nature directed at this — at seeking out and providing what is advantageous to each?

At that, he said.

Is there, then, some advantage for each craft itself, other than being as complete as possible?

What do you mean by that question?

Like this, I said: if you were to ask me whether it's enough for a body to be a body, or whether it needs something further, I'd say that it certainly does need something. That's why the craft of medicine has now been discovered — because the body is deficient and it isn't enough for it to be merely such as it is. It was to supply the body with what is advantageous to it that this craft was devised. Do I seem to you to be right in putting it this way, I said, or not?

Right, he said.

What then? Is medicine itself deficient, or does some other craft too stand in need of some virtue of its own — as eyes need sight and ears hearing, and for that reason need some craft over them to consider and supply what is advantageous to them — is there, then, some deficiency present in the craft itself, and does each craft need another craft to consider its advantage, and does the craft doing the considering in turn need yet another such craft, and is this without end? Or will it consider its own advantage by itself? Or does it need neither itself nor another craft to consider what is advantageous with a view to its own deficiency — since no deficiency or fault is present in any craft at all, nor is it fitting for a craft to seek the advantage of anything other than that of which it is the craft, while the craft itself, being correct, is unharmed and undamaged, so long as each one is precisely and wholly what it is? And consider it by that precise account — is it so, or otherwise?

So it appears, he said.

Then medicine, I said, does not consider the advantage of medicine, but of the body.

Yes, he said.

Nor does horsemanship consider the advantage of horsemanship, but of horses; nor does any other craft consider its own advantage — for it has no need of that — but that of the thing of which it is the craft.

So it appears, he said.

But surely, Thrasymachus, the crafts rule and hold power over that of which they are the crafts.

He agreed to this, though only with great reluctance.

Then no knowledge at all considers or enjoins the advantage of the stronger, but that of the weaker and the one ruled by it.

He agreed to this too in the end, though he tried to fight it on the way — and since he had agreed, is it not true, I said, that no doctor either, insofar as he is a doctor, considers or enjoins the advantage of the doctor, but that of the patient? For it has been agreed that the precise doctor is a ruler of bodies, not a moneymaker. Or has that not been agreed?

He agreed.

And is not the true captain too a ruler of sailors, rather than a sailor?

It has been agreed.

Then a captain and ruler of that kind will not consider or prescribe the advantage of the captain, but that of the sailor and the one ruled.

He agreed, reluctantly.

So too, Thrasymachus, I said, no one else in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins his own advantage, but that of the one he rules and for whom he practices his craft, keeping his eye fixed on that person and on what is advantageous and fitting for him, and it is with this in view that he says everything he says and does everything he does.

Thrasymachus' Speech: The Shepherd and the Flock

So when we had come this far in the argument, and it was plain to everyone that the account of justice had swung right around into its opposite, Thrasymachus, instead of answering, said, Tell me, Socrates, do you have a nurse?

What do you mean? I said — shouldn't you be answering rather than asking things like that?

Because she lets you go about sniveling, he said, and doesn't wipe your nose when you need it — you, who thanks to her don't even know a sheep from a shepherd.

Why exactly? I said.

Because you think that shepherds and cowherds look to the good of the sheep or the cattle, and that in fattening them and caring for them they have anything in view but the good of their masters and their own; and you suppose, too, that the rulers in cities — those who truly rule — regard their subjects in some other light than one regards sheep, and that night and day they have anything in mind but where their own profit is to come from. And you are so far off, concerning the just and justice and the unjust and injustice, that you do not know that justice and the just are really someone else's good — the advantage of the stronger, that is, of the ruler — while for the one who obeys and serves it is a harm that is properly his own, whereas injustice is the opposite, and rules over those who are truly naive and just, and the ruled do what serves the advantage of that stronger party, and by serving him they make him happy, but themselves not in the least. You must consider it this way, Socrates, you utter innocent: the just man everywhere comes off with less than the unjust. First, in their contracts with one another, wherever such a man enters into partnership with such another, you would nowhere find, when the partnership is dissolved, the just man coming away with more than the unjust, but with less; then in their dealings with the city, whenever there are levies, the just man contributes more from an equal estate and the unjust man less, and whenever there are distributions, the one gains nothing and the other gains a great deal. Indeed, whenever each of them holds some office, the just man, even if he suffers no other penalty, finds his household affairs the worse for neglect, while he gains nothing from the public purse because he is just, and besides this he becomes hateful to his relatives and acquaintances when he is unwilling to serve them against justice; whereas for the unjust man everything is the opposite of this. I mean, the man I was just now speaking of, the one able to get the greater share on a grand scale — consider him, then, if you want to judge how much more it profits a person privately to be unjust rather than just. You will learn this most easily of all if you turn to the most complete injustice, the kind that makes the man who commits it happiest of all, and those who suffer it — who would themselves be unwilling to commit it — most wretched of all. This is tyranny, which does not take what belongs to others little by little, by stealth and by force, but wholesale — sacred property and profane, private and public alike; and when someone, in any one part of this, commits injustice and does not go undetected, he is punished and bears the greatest reproach (for those who do wrong in these particular ways are called temple-robbers, kidnappers, burglars, swindlers, and thieves), but when someone, besides the citizens' possessions, has enslaved and subjugated the citizens themselves too, instead of these shameful names he is called happy and blessed, not only by his fellow citizens but by everyone else who learns that he has committed injustice entire — for those who reproach injustice do so not because they are afraid of doing injustice but because they are afraid of suffering it. So it is, Socrates, that injustice, when it comes on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterful than justice; and, just as I said from the start, the just turns out to be the advantage of the stronger, while the unjust is what is profitable and to one's own advantage.

Whom Rule Serves, and Why the Decent Rule Reluctantly

Having said this, Thrasymachus meant to leave, like a bathman who had drenched our ears with a sudden, copious flood of speech; but the people present did not let him go — they made him stay and give an account of what he had said. And I too, for my part, begged him earnestly and said: My dear Thrasymachus, what sort of argument is this that you mean to hurl at us and then leave, before teaching us properly, or learning for yourself, whether things stand this way or some other? Or do you think you are undertaking to settle some small matter — the way a whole life is to be led, the course by which each of us would live to the greatest profit?

Why, said Thrasymachus, do you think I believe it is any different?

You seem so, I said — seem, at any rate, to care nothing for us, and to give no thought to whether we shall live worse or better for our ignorance of what you claim to know. But, my good fellow, do take the trouble to show it to us as well — surely it will do you no harm to confer this benefit on so many of us — for I will tell you my own view: that I am not convinced, nor do I think, that injustice is more profitable than justice, not even if one lets it alone and does not prevent it from doing what it wishes. But, my good fellow, let him be unjust, and let him be able to do injustice either by escaping notice or by fighting it out openly — still he does not persuade me that it is more profitable than justice. Perhaps, then, someone else among us feels this too, and not only I; so persuade us adequately, my good man, that we are wrong to prize justice more than injustice.

And how, he said, shall I persuade you? For if you are not persuaded by what I just said, what more shall I do for you? Or shall I carry the argument and thrust it into your soul?

By Zeus, I said, don't you do any such thing; but first, stand by whatever you say, or if you change your position, change it openly and do not deceive us. But now you see, Thrasymachus — for let us look again at what came before — that although you began by defining the true doctor with precision, you no longer thought you had to keep to the true shepherd afterward with the same precision, but you think that, insofar as he is a shepherd, he fattens the sheep not with a view to what is best for the sheep, but — as though he were some banqueter about to feast — with a view to good cheer, or again with a view to selling them, like a moneymaker rather than a shepherd. But the shepherd's craft, surely, cares for nothing but the thing it is set over, and how to provide what is best for that — since its own needs, all that it takes for it to be at its best, are surely provided for well enough, so long as it falls short in nothing of being the shepherd's craft; and so I, for my part, thought we were bound to agree just now that every kind of rule, insofar as it is rule, seeks what is best for nothing other than the thing ruled and cared for, in public office and in private alike. But do you think that the rulers in our cities — the true rulers — rule willingly?

No, by Zeus, he said — I know it for a fact.

What then, I said, Thrasymachus? Do you not notice, concerning the other offices, that no one is willing to rule of his own accord, but they demand pay, on the ground that the benefit from ruling will come not to themselves but to those ruled? For tell me this much: do we not say that each of the crafts is different from the others in just this, in having a different power? And, my good man, do not answer contrary to your real opinion, so that we may actually get somewhere.

It is different in just that, he said.

Then does not each of these provide us with some benefit of its own, and not a common one — medicine health, for instance, and the captain's craft safety in sailing, and the rest likewise?

Certainly.

Then does not wage-earning provide wages? For that is its own power; or do you call medicine and the captain's craft one and the same? Or, if you are willing to define things precisely, as you proposed, will you call the captain's craft medicine any the more, just because someone at the helm grows healthy because sailing on the sea does him good?

Certainly not, he said.

Nor, I imagine, wage-earning, if someone stays healthy while earning wages.

Certainly not.

What then? Would you call medicine the craft of wage-earning, if someone earns wages while healing?

No, he said.

Then did we not agree that the benefit of each craft is its own, peculiar to it?

Granted, he said.

Then whatever benefit all craftsmen enjoy in common, it is clear that they get it by making additional use of some one and the same thing.

So it seems, he said.

And we say that the benefit craftsmen get by earning wages comes to them from this additional practice of the craft of wage-earning.

He agreed, reluctantly.

Then this benefit — the receiving of wages — does not come to each from his own craft; but, if we must examine the matter precisely, medicine produces health, while wage-earning produces wages, and building produces a house, while the wage-earning that accompanies it produces wages, and all the others likewise: each of them performs its own work and benefits that for which it is appointed. But if no wage accrues to it besides, is there anything the craftsman is benefited by from the craft itself?

It does not appear so, he said.

Then does he not still confer a benefit, whenever he works for nothing?

I think he does.

Then this, Thrasymachus, is now clear: that no craft or rule provides what is beneficial to itself, but, as we said long ago, it provides and prescribes what is beneficial to that which is ruled, looking to the advantage of the weaker, and not that of the stronger. For these reasons, then, dear Thrasymachus, I was just now saying that no one is willing to rule of his own accord and take in hand the troubles of others to set them right, but instead demands wages, because the one who means to practice his craft well never does or prescribes what is best for himself, when he prescribes according to the craft, but rather what is best for the one ruled; and it is for these reasons, it seems, that there must be wages available for those who are to be willing to rule — either money or honor, or a penalty if they do not rule.

What do you mean by this, Socrates? Glaucon said: I recognize the two wages you mean, well enough — but I did not understand what penalty you are speaking of, or how you meant it as a kind of wage.

Then you do not understand, I said, the wage of the best men, through which the most decent rule, whenever they are willing to rule. Or do you not know that being fond of honor and fond of money is called, and is, a reproach?

I do, he said.

For these reasons, then, I said, the good are willing to rule neither for money nor for honor; for they do not wish to be called hirelings by openly taking pay for ruling, nor thieves by secretly taking it from their office. Nor again for the sake of honor; for they are not lovers of honor. So there must be compulsion and a penalty upon them, if they are going to be willing to rule at all — which is presumably why it has come to be considered shameful to go after ruling willingly, instead of waiting to be compelled — and the greatest of these penalties is being ruled by someone worse than oneself, if a man himself is unwilling to rule; and it is fear of this, it seems to me, that makes decent men rule, when they do rule, and then they go to their ruling not as though going to something good, nor as expecting to fare well in it, but as to something necessary, and because they have no one better than, or even equal to, themselves to whom they can hand it over. For if a city of good men should come to be, it is likely that men would fight to avoid ruling, just as they now fight to rule, and there it would become clear that a true ruler by nature does not seek his own advantage but that of the one ruled; so that everyone who knew this would rather choose to be benefited by another than to take on the trouble of benefiting another. This much, then, I for my part in no way concede to Thrasymachus, that the just is the advantage of the stronger. But this we shall examine again another time; what Thrasymachus is now saying seems to me a far greater matter — that the life of the unjust is better than that of the just. Which of the two, then, I said, Glaucon, do you choose? And which do you think is spoken more truly?

I, for my part, hold that the life of the just is more profitable.

Is Injustice Virtue and Wisdom?

Did you hear, I said, how many good things Thrasymachus just now ran through on behalf of the unjust man?

I heard, he said, but I am not convinced.

Do you want us, then, to persuade him, if we can somehow find a way, that what he says is not true?

How could I not want to? So he said.

If, then, I said, we set ourselves against him and match speech with speech, listing all the good things that belong to being just, and then he makes another speech, and we another, we will have to count up the good things and measure how many each of us claims in each speech, and at that point we will need some judges to decide between us; but if we instead examine the matter as we were just doing, reasoning our way toward agreement with each other, we will ourselves be both judges and advocates at once.

Certainly, he said.

Whichever way pleases you, then, I said.

That way, he said.

Come now, Thrasymachus, I said, answer us from the beginning. Do you say that complete injustice is more profitable than complete justice?

Certainly I do say so, he said, and I have stated my reasons.

Come then, what do you say about the following point regarding them? Do you call the one virtue, and the other vice?

How could I not?

Justice, then, is virtue, and injustice vice?

That's likely, he said, my sweet fellow, since I do say that injustice is profitable and justice is not.

But what then?

The opposite, he said.

Is justice vice, then?

No, but a very noble kind of naivety.

So you call injustice malice?

No, but good judgment, he said.

Do the unjust seem to you, Thrasymachus, to be both prudent and good?

Those, he said, who are completely capable of injustice — the ones able to bring whole cities and peoples under their own power; but you perhaps think I mean the men who cut purses. Such things are profitable too, he said, provided they go unnoticed; but they are not worth mentioning next to what I was just talking about.

As for that, I said, I am not unaware of what you mean, but I was astonished at this: that you place injustice on the side of virtue and wisdom, and justice among their opposites.

But that is exactly how I place it.

This, I said, is a harder position now, my friend, and it is no longer easy to know what to say to it. For if you had claimed that injustice is profitable, but still admitted, as some others do, that it is a vice or shameful, we would have had something to say, arguing on the basis of ordinary belief; but as it is, you clearly mean to say that it is both admirable and strong, and you will attach to it all the other qualities that we were attaching to the just man, since you have dared to place it within virtue and wisdom.

You guess quite rightly, he said.

But still, I said, one must not shrink from pursuing the argument through to the end and examining it, so long as I take you to be saying what you really think. For it seems to me, Thrasymachus, that right now you are genuinely not joking, but saying what you believe to be true.

What difference does it make to you, he said, whether I believe it or not, instead of refuting the argument itself?

None, I said. But try to answer me this as well: does it seem to you that the just man would want to have more than another just man?

Not at all, he said; otherwise he would not be as charming and naive as he now is.

What about this? Than a just action?

Not than that either, he said.

But would he think it fitting to outdo an unjust man, and consider that just, or would he not think so?

He would think so, he said, and think it fitting, but he would not be able to.

But that is not what I am asking, I said, but whether the just man does not think it fitting, nor wants, to have more than a just man, but does want more than an unjust one?

Yes, that is how it is, he said.

But what about the unjust man? Does he think it fitting to outdo the just man, and the just action?

How could he not? He said — is he not the one who thinks it fitting to have more than everyone?

So the unjust man will also outdo an unjust person and an unjust action, and will strive to take the most for himself out of everything?

That is so.

Let us put it this way, I said: the just man does not outdo his like, but does outdo his unlike, while the unjust man outdoes both his like and his unlike?

You have put it excellently, he said.

And the unjust man, I said, is prudent and good, while the just man is neither?

That too is well put, he said.

So then, I said, the unjust man is also like the prudent and the good, while the just man is not like them?

How could he not, he said, being such a man himself, resemble such men, while the other, not being such, does not resemble them?

Good. Each of them, then, is the same sort as those he resembles?

But what else would you expect? So he said.

Well then, Thrasymachus: do you speak of one man as musical, and another as unmusical?

I do.

Which of the two is prudent, and which imprudent?

The musical man, surely, is prudent, and the unmusical man imprudent.

And is he not good in whatever respect he is prudent, and bad in whatever respect he is imprudent?

Yes.

And what about the medical man? Is it not the same?

The same.

Does it seem to you, then, my excellent fellow, that a musical man tuning a lyre would want to outdo another musical man in the tightening and loosening of the strings, or think it fitting to have more than he does?

Not to me.

What about this? Than an unmusical one?

That is necessary, he said.

And what about the medical man? In eating or drinking, would he want to outdo a medical man in anything — whether the man himself or the matter at hand?

Certainly not.

But one who is not medical?

Yes.

Now consider, regarding every kind of knowledge and lack of knowledge, whether it seems to you that any person with knowledge at all would want to choose to do or say more than another person with knowledge, rather than the same as his like in the same action.

Perhaps, he said, this at least must be so.

And what about the one without knowledge? Would he not outdo the one who knows just as much as the one who does not?

Perhaps.

And the one with knowledge is wise?

I say so.

And the wise man is good?

I say so.

The good and wise man, then, will not want to outdo his like, but only the unlike and the opposite.

So it seems, he said.

But the bad and ignorant man will want to outdo both his like and his opposite.

So it appears.

So then, Thrasymachus, I said, our unjust man outdoes both his unlike and his like? Or is that not what you were saying?

I was, he said.

And the just man will not outdo his like, but will outdo his unlike?

Yes.

The just man, then, I said, resembles the wise and good, and the unjust man resembles the bad and ignorant.

Probably.

But surely we agreed that each is such as the one he resembles.

We did agree.

The just man, then, has been shown to be good and wise, and the unjust man ignorant and bad.

Thrasymachus, then, agreed to all of this — not as smoothly as I now recount it, but dragged into it and only with difficulty, sweating an astonishing amount, since it was summer besides (and it was then, for the first time, that I saw Thrasymachus blush) — and once we had agreed together that justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice vice and ignorance, well then, I said, let this stand so for us; and we also said that injustice is strong. Or do you not remember, Thrasymachus?

Injustice Breeds Faction

I remember, he said; but even what you're saying now doesn't please me, and I have things to say about it. So if I said them, I know well that you'd say I was making a speech. So either let me say as much as I want, or, if you'd rather ask questions, ask them; and I'll do for you what people do for old women telling their tales — I'll murmur along, nodding yes and shaking my head no.

Not against your own opinion, I said.

Then it will have to be as pleases you, he said, since you won't let me speak. And yet what else do you want?

Nothing, by Zeus, I said; but if that's what you're going to do, do it — I'll ask the questions.

Ask away, then.

This, then, is what I'm asking, the same thing as just now, so that we can go on and examine the argument in order — what justice actually turns out to be in relation to injustice. For it was said, I believe, that injustice is more capable and stronger than justice; but now, I said, if justice is wisdom and virtue, I think it will easily turn out to be stronger than injustice as well, since injustice is ignorance — no one could fail to see that any longer — though that's not at all the simple way I want to examine it, Thrasymachus, but rather like this: would you say that a city can be unjust, and that it tries to enslave other cities unjustly and has enslaved them, and holds many in subjection under itself, having reduced them to slavery?

How could it not? So he said. And the city that is best at it will do this most of all, being the most completely unjust.

I understand, I said, that this was your point. But here's what I'm considering about it: does the city that becomes more powerful than another city have this power apart from justice, or is it under some necessity to have it together with justice?

If it's as you were just saying, he said — justice being wisdom — then together with justice; but if it's as I was saying, together with injustice.

I admire that very much, I said, Thrasymachus, that you're not just nodding and shaking your head, but answering very well too.

That's because I'm doing you a favor, he said.

And a good favor it is; but do me this favor too, and tell me: do you think that a city, or an army, or a band of robbers, or thieves, or any other group that sets out together on some unjust venture, would be able to accomplish anything, if its members acted unjustly toward one another?

Certainly not, he said.

And what if they didn't act unjustly? Wouldn't they be more able to?

Very much so.

For injustice, Thrasymachus, produces faction, and hatred, and fighting among people, I take it, while justice produces unity of mind and friendship — isn't that so?

Let it be so, he said, so that I won't be at odds with you.

Good of you to do that, my excellent fellow. But tell me this: if it's the function of injustice to produce hatred wherever it's present, then when it arises among free people and slaves alike, won't it make them hate one another and be factious and unable to act together with one another?

Very much so.

And what if it arises between two people? Won't they be at odds, and hate each other, and become enemies both to one another and to the just?

They will, he said.

And if, my remarkable friend, injustice arises in a single person, will it really lose its own power, or will it have it no less?

Let it have it no less, he said.

So doesn't it appear to have some such power as this: that whatever it arises in — whether some city, or a family, or an army, or anything else whatever — it first makes that thing unable to act together with itself, because of being factious and at odds, and further makes it an enemy both to itself and to everything opposed to it, including the just? Isn't that so?

Very much so.

And in a single person too, I imagine, being present in him, it will produce these very same effects it's naturally suited to produce: first it will make him unable to act, being factious and at odds with himself, and then an enemy both to himself and to the just — isn't that so?

Yes.

And the gods too are just, my friend, aren't they?

Let it be so, he said.

Then the unjust person will be an enemy to the gods too, Thrasymachus, while the just person will be their friend.

Feast on your argument, he said, and don't be shy about it; I certainly won't oppose you, so as not to make enemies of this company here.

Come then, I said, and finish out the rest of my feast for me by answering just as you are now. That the just appear wiser and better and more capable of acting, while the unjust are not even able to act together with one another — indeed, when we say that some people, being unjust, have ever forcefully accomplished anything together in common, we are not speaking entirely truly, for they would not have kept their hands off one another if they were thoroughly unjust, but clearly there was some justice in them, which kept them from wronging one another as well as those they were jointly moving against, and it was through that justice that they accomplished what they did accomplish, though they set out on their unjust deeds only half-corrupted by injustice, since those who are utterly wicked and completely unjust are also completely unable to act — this, then, is how I understand things to stand, and not as you first laid it down; but whether the just also live better than the unjust and are happier, which is what we proposed to examine afterward, still needs to be examined. Well, they do appear so even now, at least as it seems to me, from what we've said; all the same, it must still be examined better. For our argument is not about just any chance matter, but about the way one ought to live.

The Work of the Soul, and an Inconclusive End

Consider it, then, he said.

I am considering it, I said. Now tell me: do you think a horse has some function?

I do.

Then would you take this to be the function both of a horse and of anything else — whatever one can do only with that thing, or do best with it?

I don't understand, he said.

Well, put it this way: is there anything else you could see with, besides eyes?

Certainly not.

And what about this? Could you hear with anything other than ears?

Not at all.

Then [might] we not rightly say that these are their functions?

Certainly.

And what about this? Could you cut a vine-shoot with a knife, or with a chisel, or with many other tools?

Of course.

But not as well, I think, with any of those as with a pruning-hook made for that very purpose.

True.

Then shall we not set this down as its function?

We shall indeed.

Now I think you'll understand better what I was asking just now, when I was inquiring whether the function of a thing is not what it alone can do, or does better than anything else.

Well, he said, I do understand, and it seems to me that this is indeed the function of each thing.

Very well, I said. Then don't you also think there is a virtue for each thing that has some function assigned to it? Let's go back to the same examples again: do eyes, we say, have some function?

There is one.

Then is there also a virtue of eyes?

There's a virtue too.

And what of this? Did ears have some function?

Yes.

And a virtue as well?

A virtue too.

And what about all the other things? Isn't it the same with them?

It is.

Now hold on: could eyes ever perform their own function well if they lacked their proper virtue, and had vice instead of virtue?

How could they? So he said — I take it you mean blindness instead of sight.

Whatever their virtue turns out to be, I said — that's not what I'm asking yet, but rather whether the things that do the work will do their own function well by their proper virtue, and badly by vice.

What you say is true, he said.

Then won't ears, too, deprived of their own virtue, perform their own function badly?

Certainly.

Shall we then set down all the other things under the same account?

I think so.

Come now, after this consider the following. There is a function of the soul that you couldn't accomplish with anything else that exists — something like this: taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, and everything of that sort — is there anything other than the soul to which we could rightly assign these and say they belong to it alone?

To nothing else.

And what about living, in turn? Shall we not say that it is the function of the soul?

Most certainly, he said.

Then don't we also say there is some virtue of the soul?

We do.

Then will the soul ever perform its own functions well, Thrasymachus, if deprived of its proper virtue, or is that impossible?

Impossible.

Then a bad soul must necessarily rule and take care of things badly, while a good soul does all these things well.

It's necessary.

Then didn't we agree that the virtue of the soul is justice, and its vice injustice?

We did agree to that.

Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man badly.

So it appears, he said, according to your argument.

But surely the one who lives well is blessed and happy, and the one who doesn't is the opposite.

Of course.

Then the just man is happy, and the unjust man is wretched.

Let it be so, he said.

But surely being wretched is not profitable, while being happy is.

Of course.

Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice.

Well then, Socrates, he said, let this be your banquet at the festival of Bendis.

Thanks to you indeed, I said, Thrasymachus, since you've grown gentle with me and given up being harsh. Yet I haven't feasted well — that's my own fault, not yours; but just like gluttons who snatch a taste of each new dish as it's carried past, before they've properly enjoyed the one before, I seem to have done the same thing myself: before finding what we set out to examine at the start, namely what justice actually is, I let that go and rushed on to consider whether it is vice and ignorance, or wisdom and virtue, and then, when a further argument came up afterward — that injustice is more profitable than justice — I couldn't keep myself from abandoning that question for this one, so that the upshot of the whole discussion, for me, is that I now know nothing; for since I don't know what justice is, I'm scarcely going to know whether it is in fact some kind of virtue or not, or whether the person who has it is unhappy or happy.

Book II

Glaucon Renews the Argument: Three Kinds of Good

Now when I had said this, I thought I was done with the argument; but that was, it seems, only a prelude. For Glaucon, as it happens, is always the most courageous of men in every matter, and on that occasion too he would not accept Thrasymachus's withdrawal, but said: Socrates, do you want merely to seem to have persuaded us, or truly to persuade us, that it is in every way better to be just than unjust?

Truly, I said, I would choose that, if it were up to me.

Then you are not doing what you want, he said. Tell me this: does it seem to you that there is a good of this sort — one we would want to have not because we desire its consequences, but because we welcome it for its own sake, such as feeling joy, and all the pleasures that are harmless, and because of which nothing else comes about in the time that follows, beyond the enjoyment of having them?

Yes, I said, it seems to me that there is such a good.

What of this? Is there a good that we cherish both for its own sake and for what comes from it — such as thinking, seeing, and being healthy? For we welcome things like these, I suppose, on both counts.

Yes, I said.

And do you see a third kind of good as well, he said, which includes exercising, being treated when sick, the practice of medicine itself, and the other ways of making money? We would call these things burdensome, yet beneficial to us; and we would not choose to have them for their own sake, but for the sake of the wages and whatever else comes from them.

Yes, I said, this too is a third kind. But why do you ask?

In which of these, he said, do you place justice?

I myself think, I said, in the finest kind — the one that anyone who is to be happy must love both for itself and for what comes from it.

That is not, however, he said, what most people think; rather, they place it in the burdensome kind, the sort that must be pursued for the sake of wages and the good standing that a reputation brings, but must be avoided for its own sake as being harsh.

I know, I said, that this is how it seems, and that Thrasymachus has long been finding fault with justice on this ground, and praising injustice instead; but I, it seems, am somewhat slow to learn.

Come then, he said, hear me out as well, and see whether you still think the same. For Thrasymachus seems to me to have been charmed by you, like a snake, sooner than he should have been; but the proof about each of the two has not yet come out to my satisfaction — I want to hear what each of them is, and what power it has, by itself, when present in the soul, and to let the wages and their consequences go. So this is what I will do, if it suits you too: I will take up Thrasymachus's argument again — first I will state what people say justice is and where it comes from, second that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as something necessary rather than good, and third that they have good reason to act so, since the life of the unjust is, as they say, far better than that of the just. Since to me, at least, Socrates, that does not seem so at all — yet I am at a loss, my ears worn out from listening to Thrasymachus and countless others, for I have never yet heard from anyone the argument on behalf of justice, that it is better than injustice, in the way that I want to hear it — I want to hear it praised in and of itself — and I think I could learn this best of all from you. That is why I will strain every nerve to speak in praise of the unjust life, and once I have spoken, I will show you the manner in which I want, in turn, to hear you as well, blaming injustice and praising justice. But see whether what I say suits you.

More than anything, I said — for what topic would a sensible person rather speak and hear about, again and again, than this?

The Origin of Justice as a Compact, and the Ring of Gyges

Excellently put, he said; and listen now to what I said I would speak of first — what justice is, and where it has come from.

For they say that to do wrong is by nature good and to suffer wrong is bad, but that the badness of suffering wrong outweighs the goodness of doing it, so that when men wrong one another and are wronged in turn, and taste of both, those who cannot escape the one and seize the other find it profitable to make a compact with one another neither to do wrong nor to suffer it; and from this they began to set up laws and agreements among themselves, and to call what the law commanded lawful and just; and this, they say, is the becoming and being of justice, a thing between the best case — doing wrong and paying no penalty for it — and the worst — suffering wrong with no power to get redress; and the just, lying in the middle between the two, is cherished not as a good, but as something honored out of an inability to do wrong — since a man who had the power to do it, a true man, would never make a compact with anyone, neither to do wrong nor to suffer it; he would be mad to. So then, Socrates, this is the nature of justice, and this is its character, and these the things it naturally grows from — or so the argument runs.

We would see most clearly that even those who practice justice do so unwillingly, from an inability to do wrong, if we carried out this experiment in thought — give each of them license to do whatever he wants, the just man and the unjust alike, and then follow along and watch where each one's desire leads him. So we would catch the just man red-handed, converging on the very same goal as the unjust man, because of that desire for more which every nature is inclined to pursue as good, but which law forcibly diverts toward honoring equality. The license I am speaking of would be at its fullest if they came to have such power as they say once came to the ancestor of [Gyges] the Lydian. He was a shepherd, working for hire under the ruler of Lydia at the time, and when heavy rain and an earthquake struck, the ground split open at a certain place, and a chasm formed where he was pasturing his flock. Seeing it, he marveled, and climbed down, and there among the other wonders the storytellers speak of he saw a bronze horse, hollow, fitted with little windows, through which he stooped and looked in and saw a corpse that seemed more than human in size, wearing nothing else, but on its hand a gold ring — he slipped it off and climbed back out. Now when the shepherds held their customary gathering, at which they would report to the king each month about the flocks, he came too, wearing the ring; and as he sat there among the others, he happened to turn the bezel of the ring around toward himself, to the inside of his hand, and when this happened, he became invisible to those sitting beside him, and they fell to talking as though he had gone. He was amazed, and feeling for the ring again, he turned the bezel back outward, and as he turned it, he became visible once more. Realizing this, he tested the ring to see whether it truly had this power, and found that this was exactly what happened: turning the bezel inward made him unseen, and outward, seen again; and as soon as he grasped this, he at once contrived to become one of the messengers who went up to the king, and once there, seduced the king's wife, and with her plotted against the king, killed him, and so seized the throne. So if there were two such rings, and the just man put one on and the unjust man the other, no one, it seems, would prove so adamant as to stand firm in justice and bring himself to keep away from what belongs to others and not lay a hand on it — with it in his power to take without fear whatever he liked, even from the marketplace, and to go into houses and lie with whomever he wanted, and to kill or set free from bonds whomever he wished, and to do everything else among men as though he were a god. Acting this way, he would do nothing different from the other, but both would end up traveling the same road. And yet someone might say this is strong proof that no one is just by choice, but only under compulsion, on the ground that justice is no private good — since wherever each man thinks he will be able to do wrong, he does it. For every man believes that injustice pays him far better, privately, than justice does — and believes truly, as the one making this argument will say — since if someone got hold of such power and never wished to do wrong, and never touched what belonged to others, he would seem, to those who learned of it, most wretched and most foolish, even though they would praise him in one another's presence, deceiving each other out of fear of being wronged themselves. So much, then, for that.

Two Portraits: The Perfectly Unjust and the Perfectly Just Man

Now, as for the judgment itself about the life of the men we are speaking of — if we set the most just man and the most unjust man apart from one another, we will be able to judge correctly; otherwise, we will not. What, then, is this separation? This — let us take nothing away, either from the unjust man's injustice or from the just man's justice, but set each of them, in full, into his own pursuit. First, then, let the unjust man act as skilled craftsmen do — a master pilot or doctor, say, perceives what is impossible in his craft and what is possible, undertakes the one while leaving the other alone, and further, if he does happen to slip somewhere, is able to set it right — so let the unjust man too, in pursuing his wrongdoings correctly, escape notice, if he is to be unjust in the extreme. The one who is caught must be reckoned a poor hand at it; for the extreme of injustice is to seem just without being so. We must, then, grant the completely unjust man the most complete injustice, and not take anything away, but allow that, while doing the greatest wrongs, he has secured for himself the greatest possible reputation for justice — that if he does happen to slip in something, he is able to set it right; that he is a good enough speaker to win people over if any of his wrongdoing comes to light; and that he can use force wherever force is needed, through courage and strength, and through his supply of friends and wealth. Having made him such, let us in turn set the just man beside him in our discussion — a simple, noble man who, in Aeschylus's phrase, wishes not to seem but to be good. The seeming, then, must be taken away. For if he is thought to be just, he will have honors and gifts because he is thought to be such a man; then it would be unclear whether he is such a man for the sake of justice, or for the sake of the gifts and honors. He must, then, be stripped of everything except justice, and made the very opposite of the man before him — while doing no wrong, let him have the reputation of being unjust in the extreme, so that his justice may be tested by his not softening under ill repute and what comes from it; instead let him go unchanged until death, seeming unjust throughout his life while in fact being just, so that both men, having each come to the furthest extreme — one of justice, the other of injustice — may be judged as to which of the two is happier.

Goodness, my dear Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you scour each of the two men clean, like a statue, for the judging.

As best I can, he said. Now that the two of them are such, I think it is no longer difficult to go on in our account and describe what sort of life awaits each of them. It must be said, then — and even if it is said somewhat crudely, do not suppose it is I who say it, Socrates, but those who praise injustice ahead of justice. They will say this: that the just man, disposed in this way, will be whipped, racked on the wheel, bound in chains, have his eyes burned out, and finally, after suffering every evil, be impaled, and will come to know that one must wish not to be just but to seem so. So the saying of Aeschylus, it turns out, would be far more rightly spoken of the unjust man. For in truth they will say that the unjust man, since he pursues a business that holds fast to truth and does not live with an eye to reputation, wishes not to seem unjust but to be so, reaping a deep furrow through his mind, from which prudent counsels spring, first ruling in the city because he is thought to be just, then marrying from wherever he wishes and giving his daughters in marriage to whomever he wishes, entering into contracts and partnerships with whomever he likes, and besides all this, profiting by feeling no distaste at doing wrong; then, going into contests both private and public, coming out ahead and getting the better of his enemies, and by getting the better of them growing rich and benefiting his friends and harming his enemies, offering sacrifices to the gods and dedicating offerings amply and splendidly, and serving the gods — and whichever men he wishes — far better than the just man does, so that it is more fitting, in all likelihood, that he rather than the just man be dear to the gods. So they say, Socrates, that life is arranged better for the unjust man than for the just, both by gods and by men.

Adeimantus: What Fathers and Poets Praise

When Glaucon had said this, I for my part had it in mind to say something in reply, but his brother Adeimantus said, You surely do not think, Socrates, that enough has been said about the argument?

Why, what else is there? I said.

The very point that most needed making has not been made, he replied.

Well then, I said, as the saying goes, let brother stand by brother — so you too, if he is leaving anything out, come to his aid. And yet what he has said is enough to throw me to the ground and leave me unable to come to justice's aid.

And he said, You are talking nonsense — but listen to this as well. For we must also go through the opposite arguments to the ones he gave — the ones that praise justice and censure injustice — so that what I take Glaucon to want may become clearer. Fathers, too, tell their sons, and so does everyone who has someone in his care, that one must be just — not praising justice itself but the good reputation that comes from it, so that the person who is thought to be just may gain from that reputation offices and marriages and everything else Glaucon just went through, all coming from being well-regarded for being just. But these people carry the business of reputations further still. For by bringing in the good reputation that comes from the gods, they have no end of good things to say — the things they claim the gods give to the pious; just as the noble Hesiod and Homer say — the one that the gods make oaks bear acorns at their tops for the just, and bees in their middles, and that the wool-bearing sheep, he says, are weighed down with fleece, and much else besides, of the same kind. The other poet says much the same — for he speaks of someone as … or of a faultless king, one who fears the gods and upholds just judgments, so the dark earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees hang heavy with fruit, and the flocks bring forth their young unfailingly, and the sea yields fish. Musaeus and his son grant the just, from the gods, goods still headier than these — for leading them down to Hades in their account, and laying them on couches, and setting up a banquet of the pious, crowned with garlands, they have them spend all the rest of time already drunk, taking everlasting drunkenness to be virtue's finest reward. Others stretch the rewards from the gods out even longer than these — for they say that children's children, and a whole line descending after, are left behind to the man who is pious and true to his oaths. With this and other such things they praise justice — as for the unholy and unjust, on the other hand, they bury them in a kind of mud in Hades and force them to carry water in a sieve, and while they are still living they bring them into ill repute as well — the very punishments Glaucon recounted for the just man who is thought unjust — these are what they say about the unjust, and they have nothing else to add. So much, then, for the praise and the blame given to each.

Besides this, Socrates, consider another kind of talk about justice and injustice, spoken both privately and by the poets. For with one voice they all chant that moderation and justice are fine, yet hard and toilsome, while licentiousness and injustice are pleasant and easy to get, shameful only by opinion and by law — they say that unjust acts pay better than just ones, for the most part, and they are quite ready to call the wicked happy and to honor them, both in public and in private, if they are rich or hold some other kind of power, while dishonoring and looking down on anyone who happens to be weak or poor, even while admitting that such people are better than the others. Of all these claims, the ones about the gods and virtue are the most astonishing — that the gods themselves assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite lot to their opposites. Begging priests and seers go to the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a power, procured from the gods through sacrifices and incantations, to heal with pleasures and festivities any wrongdoing committed by that person or by his ancestors, and that if someone wishes to harm an enemy, for a small fee he will injure the just and the unjust alike, by certain spells and bindings, since they persuade the gods, as they say, to serve them. For all these claims they bring in poets as witnesses, some on the subject of vice, granting that it comes easily, as: Wickedness can be taken up even in droves with ease — smooth is the road, and it lies very near; but before virtue the gods have set the sweat of toil and some road that is long and rough and steep; while others call Homer to witness that the gods can be led astray by men, since he too said— the gods themselves can be entreated as well, and with sacrifices and gentle vows, with libation and with savor, men turn them aside by entreaty, whenever someone oversteps and errs. They also produce a whole din of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring of the Moon and the Muses, as they say, and perform rites according to them, persuading not only private people but whole cities that there are indeed releases and purifications from wrongdoing, through sacrifices and pleasurable games, both for those still alive and for those who have died — rites they call initiations, which free us from the evils of the other world, while terrible things await those who have not sacrificed.

All this, he said, dear Socrates — all these many things said about virtue and vice, and the honor men and gods hold them in — what do we suppose it does to the souls of the young who hear it, those of good natural parts, able to light on everything that is said, as a bird might, and reckon up from it what sort of person one should be, and what path to take, to get through life in the best way possible? For, reasoning from what is likely, he might well say to himself, in Pindar's words, that very question — shall I climb the higher wall by justice, or by crooked deceit, and fence myself round and live my life that way? For what people say is that if I am just but do not also seem so, there is no benefit in it for me, only plain hardship and loss, while for the unjust man who has secured himself a reputation for justice, a marvelous life is said to be in store. Well then, since seeming, as the wise make clear to me, overpowers even truth itself and is the master of happiness, I must turn wholly to that — I must draw round myself, as a front porch and a facade, a mere outline-sketch of virtue, and trail behind me the fox of that most cunning Archilochus, wily and full of shifts. But, someone will say, it is not easy always to escape notice while being bad. Well, we will reply, nothing that is great is easy either — but still, if we mean to be happy, this is the path we must take, following where the tracks of the argument lead. For the sake of escaping notice, we will form secret societies and clubs, and there are teachers of persuasion who impart the wisdom of public speaking and of the courts, with which we will win some things by persuasion and take others by force, so as to get the advantage and not pay the penalty. But then it is impossible either to escape the gods' notice or to force them. Well then, if they do not exist, or if they have no concern at all for human affairs, why should we concern ourselves with escaping notice either? But if they do exist and do care, we know or have heard of them from nowhere else but the laws and the poets who traced out their lineages, and these very same sources say that the gods are of a kind to be led astray, won over by sacrifices, gentle vows, and votive offerings — and we must trust these sources on both counts, or on neither. If then we must trust them, we should do wrong and sacrifice out of the proceeds of our wrongdoing. For if we are just, we will only go unpunished by the gods, while pushing away the profits that come from injustice; but if we are unjust, we will make our profit, and by entreating them as we overstep and err, we will win them over and come away unpunished. Ah, but in Hades we will pay the penalty for whatever wrongs we commit here, either we ourselves or our children's children. But, my friend, our reasoner will say, the initiation rites in turn have great power, and so do the gods who release us, as the greatest cities say, and the children of the gods who became poets and prophets of the gods, and who reveal that these things are so.

On what reasoning, then, would we still choose justice over the greatest injustice, when, if we acquire that injustice along with a counterfeit air of decency, we will fare according to our wishes both with gods and with men, in life and in death, as the argument of the many and of the eminent alike puts it? So from everything that has been said, what device is left, Socrates, for anyone with some power of soul, or of wealth, or of body, or of birth, to be willing to honor justice, rather than laugh when he hears it praised? For indeed, if anyone can show that what we have said is false, and has come to know well enough that justice is best, he surely has a great deal of forgiveness for the unjust, and feels no anger at them, but knows that unless someone, by a divine nature, is disgusted by doing wrong, or has gained knowledge and so holds back from it, no one else is just of his own will — rather, people condemn wrongdoing out of cowardice, or old age, or some other weakness, simply because they are unable to do it. And that this is so is plain — for the first of these people to come into power is the first to do wrong, to whatever extent he is able. And the cause of all this is nothing other than the very thing this whole argument — both his and mine — started from, in speaking to you, Socrates: that, my remarkable friend, of all of you who claim to be praisers of justice, starting from the heroes of old, all whose words have come down to us, down to the people of today, no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice for anything other than the reputations, honors, and gifts that come from them, while what each of the two itself does, by its own power, dwelling in the soul of the one who has it and escaping the notice of gods and men alike, no one has ever adequately worked through, in poetry or in private discourse, to show that the one is the greatest of all the evils a soul holds within itself, and justice the greatest good. For if this had been said by all of you from the beginning, and you had persuaded us from childhood on, we would not now be guarding one another against wrongdoing, but each of us would be his own best guard, afraid that in doing wrong he would be living with the greatest evil as his housemate.

This, Socrates, and perhaps even more than this, is what Thrasymachus or someone else might say on behalf of justice and injustice, turning their respective powers inside out in a crude way, or so it seems to me at least. But I — for I have no need to hide anything from you — speak as forcefully as I can, because I am eager to hear the opposite from you. So do not merely show us in your argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but show what each of them does, in its own right, to the one who has it, that makes the one bad and the other good — and take away their reputations, just as Glaucon urged. For if you do not take away the true reputations from both sides, and instead add the false ones, we will say that you are praising, not justice, but the seeming of it, and censuring, not being unjust, but seeming so, and that you are urging us to escape notice while being unjust, and agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is really someone else's good, the advantage of the stronger, and that injustice is advantageous and profitable to oneself, but disadvantageous to the weaker. Since, then, you agreed that justice is among the greatest goods — the sort worth acquiring both for the sake of what comes from them and, far more, for their own sake, such as seeing, hearing, being wise, and indeed being healthy, and whatever other goods are fruitful by their own nature and not merely by reputation — praise this very thing in justice, how it, by itself, benefits the one who has it, while injustice harms him, and leave rewards and reputations for others to praise, since I would accept it from others when they praise justice and blame injustice in that way, extolling and abusing the reputations and rewards attached to them, but not from you, unless you yourself bid me to, because you have spent your whole life examining nothing else but this. So do not merely show us in your argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but also what each of them does, in its own right, to the one who has it — whether or not it escapes the notice of gods and men — that makes the one good and the other bad.

The City as the Soul Writ Large

And when I heard this, I had always admired the character of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but just then I was quite delighted and said that Glaucon's admirer had not composed the opening of his elegiac verses about you badly, sons of that famous man, when, after your fine showing in the fight at Megara, he wrote— Sons of Ariston, godlike stock of a famous man— This seems to me well said, my friends; for something quite divine must have happened to you, if, with such powers of speech on its behalf, you are still not persuaded that injustice is better than justice. You seem to me not really convinced — I judge this from the rest of your character, since going by the arguments alone I would distrust you — but my trust in you keeps growing, and so does my bewilderment about what to do with you. For I have no idea how to give help — I think myself incapable of it, and my proof is that you did not accept what I said against Thrasymachus, when I thought I was showing that justice is better than injustice — yet neither do I know how to refuse to help; for I am afraid it would not even be pious, when present while justice is being maligned, to give up and not defend her while I am still breathing and able to speak. So it is best that I help her as I am able.

So Glaucon and the others begged me in every way to help and not to drop the argument, but to search out thoroughly what each of the two really is, and where the truth lies about their benefit. So I said what occurred to me: that the inquiry we were undertaking was no trivial matter but called for sharp eyesight, or so it seemed to me. Since we are not clever, then, I think, I said, we should make our search for it the way we would if someone had ordered men whose sight was not sharp to read small letters from a distance, and then one of them noticed that the same letters stood written somewhere else as well, larger and on a larger surface — it would seem a godsend, I think, to read those first and only then examine the smaller ones, to see whether they really are the same.

Certainly, said Adeimantus; but what do you see of that sort, Socrates, in our inquiry about the just?

I will tell you, I said. We say that justice belongs to a single man, and also, I suppose, to a whole city?

Certainly, he said.

Then is a city not bigger than a single man?

Bigger, he said.

Perhaps, then, there would be more justice in the bigger thing, and it would be easier to make out. So if you are willing, let us first look for what kind of thing it is in cities, and then examine it in the same way in each single man, looking for the resemblance of the greater in the form of the lesser.

Well, that seems to me a good way to put it, he said.

Then, I said, if in our discussion we were to watch a city coming into being, would we also see its justice and its injustice coming into being?

Perhaps, he said.

Then, once it has come into being, is there hope of seeing what we are looking for more easily?