The Republic, by Plato (heavily excerpted) Book II SOCRATES: A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a [farmer], another a builder, some one else a weaver shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? DIALOGUE PARTNER: When he has only one. there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city Then they will need a marketplace, and a money-token for purposes of exchange. In well-ordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy. This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not retailer the term which is applied to those who sit in the marketplace engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labor, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of their labor. Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else. 1
we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier [or guardian] should be And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him? Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching? and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? Certainly. A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. [the guardians] ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? That we may safely affirm. Undoubtedly. 2
Then we have found the desired natures [of the guardians]; and now that we have found them, how are [the guardians] to be reared and educated? shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mold the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. [Socrates accuses a famous storytellers of] a fault which is most serious the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. We cannot. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes, as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. there was that greatest of all lies in high places what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. 1 The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the gods. I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. 1 Hesiod was a poet who, like the better known Homer, wrote stories involving Greek heroes interacting with the Gods. These long, epic stories are called didactic (meaning instructional ), because they contain morals from which listeners are supposed to learn about how to behave. In Greek mythology, a group called the Titans were the ancestors of the Gods and the first rulers of the universe. Among these Titans, were Uranus [after whom the planet was named] and his son Cronus. Uranus imprisoned all of his children out of fear that they would challenge him. Cronus castrated his father and overthrew him, taking over as ruler. Later Cronus himself was overthrown by his own son, Zeus. Socrates doesn t want the guardians of his Republic to hear this particular story, because it provides examples of parents challenging the authority of their parents. Since preserving the structure of authority is of the utmost importance to Socrates, he believes young people should not hear of any examples of children challenging their parents especially not Gods challenging their parents, since the Gods are supposed to function as role models. 3
Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children; and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose for them in a similar spirit. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. There you are right, he replied; but if any one asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking how shall we answer him? the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. Certainly. That appears to me to be most true, he said. Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots, and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good; These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. 4
Book III if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him? And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible? Certainly not, he said. Impossible. Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile but rather to commend the world below 2, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors. And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men? They will go with the rest. we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, [so] that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like. persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, [the ruler] will punish [the liar] for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man s own loss and another s gain these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. 2 The world below refers to Hades, the ancient Greek version of Hell. Socrates does not want the guardians to hear examples of admirable men fearing the afterlife; he wants the guardians to learn not to show any fear of death at all. 5
human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a [farmer] to be a [farmer] and not a [judge] also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? Must we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects? There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. And they will have to be watched at every age, in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or cast off their sense of duty to the State. we must enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them, in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Those are the right men. Yes. 6
[THE MYTH OF THE METALS] How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? although I really know not how to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and [appendages] were manufactured; when they were completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. True, I replied, but there is more coming; I have only told you half. Citizens, (we shall say to them in our tale,) you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these [God] has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honor; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be [farmers] and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a [farmer] or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honor, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in the present generation, he replied; there is no way of accomplishing this; but their sons may be made to believe in the tale, and their sons sons, and posterity after them. I see the difficulty yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. 7
now let us consider what will be [the guardians ] way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against any one who has a mind to enter; provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviors of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and [farmers] instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, t hey will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and all other matters 8
Book IV Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practicing hospitality; moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard? even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and- by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we too can clothe our [farmers] in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the winecup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like; in this way we might make every class happy and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the [farmer[ will be no longer a [farmer], the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, is confined to cobblers; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviors and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work 9
in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practice one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted; now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one s own business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Then to do one s own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man s own, and belongs to him Think, now, and say whether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler, or a cobbler of a carpenter; and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties, or the same person to be doing the work of both, or whatever be the change; do you think that any great harm would result to the State? But when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader, having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers, or any like advantage, attempts to force his way into the class of warriors, or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians, for which he is unfitted, and either to take the implements or the duties of the other; or when one man is trader, legislator, and warrior all in one, then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the State. Seeing then, I said, that there are three distinct classes, any meddling of one with another, or the change of one into another, is the greatest harm to the State, and may be most justly termed evil-doing? And the greatest degree of evil-doing to one s own city would be termed by you injustice? This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. Yes, we said so. Not much. Most true. Certainly. 10
by reason of the smallest part or class, and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself [the guardian class], the whole State, being thus constituted according to nature, will be wise; and this, which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom, has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least. in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words temperance and self-mastery truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. Very true. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? ought not the rational principle, which is wise, and has the care of the whole soul, to rule, and the passionate or spirited principle to be the subject and ally? he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear?... him we call wise who has in him that little part [reason] which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Certainly, he replied. he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? 11
justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and the intermediate intervals when he has bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and cooperates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance. 12