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18 - The Republic - Plato · Logic Library

• Book five, Part two. I should like to ask you a question. What is it? Would you say that all men are equal in excellence? Or is one man better than another the latter? And in the commonwealth which we were founding, do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up in our model system to be more perfect men? Or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? What a ridiculous question you have answered me, I replied, well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens, by far the best? And will not their wives be the best women? Yes, by far the best. And can there be anything better for the interests of the state than that the men and women of a state should be as good as possible. There can be nothing better. And this is what the arts of music and gymnastic when present in such a manner as we have described, will accomplish. Certainly, then we have made an enactment not only possible, but in the highest degree beneficial to the state. True, then, let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defense of their country. Only in the distribution of labors the lighter are to be assigned to the women who are the weaker natures. But in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter, he is plucking a fruit of unripe wisdom, And he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at or what he is about. For that is, and ever will be the best of sayings, that the useful is the noble, and the hurtful is the base. Very true. Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped. The wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common. To the utility, and also to the possibility of this arrangement, the constancy of the argument with itself bears witness. Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped, Yes, I said, but a greater is coming. You will not think much of this when you see the next. Go On, let me see the law I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has proceeded is to the following effect, that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent. Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other, and the possibility, as well as the utility of such a law, are far more questionable. I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common. The possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied, Now, I meant that you should admit the utility, and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them. And then there would remain only the possibility. But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give it offense of both. Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favor. Let me feast my mind with a dream, as day dreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone, for before they have discovered any means of affecting their wishes. That is a matter which never troubles them. They would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities. But assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wishes come true. That is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now, I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to inquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the state and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavor with your help to consider the advantages of the measure, And hereafter the question of possibility I have no objection. Proceed First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other the guardians must themselves obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are entrusted to their care. That is right, he said, you, I said, who are their legislator. Having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them. They must be as far as possible, of like natures with them, and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own. They will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises, And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other. Necessity is not too strong a word, I think, yes, he said, Necessity not geometrical, but another sort of necessity, which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. True, I said, And this Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion in a city of the blessed. Licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid, Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. Then, clearly the next thing will be to make matrimonies sacred in the highest degree. And what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred exactly? And how can marriages be made most beneficial? That is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds, not a few. Now, I beseech you do tell me have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding in what particulars? Why in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? True? And do you breed from them all indifferently? Or do you take care to breed only from the best from the best? And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? I choose only those of ripe age. And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate, certainly, and the same of horses and animals in general. Undoubtedly, good heavens, my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species? Certainly the same principle holds. But why does this involve any particular skill? Because I said, our rulers will have often to practice upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough. But when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a man. That is quite true, he said, But to what are you alluding, I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects. We were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage, and we were very right. And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed. In the regulations of marriages and births. How so, why I said, the principle has been already laid down, that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom as possible, and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first rate condition. Now, these goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed breaking out into rebellion. Very true, had we not better appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be afford and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets. The number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population. There are many other things which they will have to consider, such is the effects of wars and diseases, and any similar agencies, in order, as far as this is possible, to prevent the state from becoming either too large or too small. Certainly, he replied, we shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, And then they will accuse their own ill luck, and not the rulers. To be sure, he said, and I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honors and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them their bravery will be a reason. And such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. True, and the proper officers, whether male or female, or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men. Yes, the proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter. But the offspring of the inferior or of the better, when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as they should be. Yes, he said that must be done. If the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognizes her own child, and other wet nurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long, and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children, why said I, And so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life. Very true? And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life and thirty in a man's Which years do you mean to include? A woman, I said, at twenty years of age, may begin to bear children to the state, and continue to bear them until forty. A man may begin at five and twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty five. Certainly, he said, both in men and women, those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigor. Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes a part in the public hymenals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing. The child of which he is the father, if he steals it into life, will have been conceived under auspices, very unlike the sacrifices in prayers which at each hymeneal, priestesses and priests the whole city will offer that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. Very true, he replied. And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers, for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the state, uncertified and unconsecrated. Very true, he replied. This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age. After that we will allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter, or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother. And women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light, and if any force away to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such an union cannot be maintained and arrange accordingly. That, so, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters and so on? They will never know. The way will be this, dating from the day of the Hymeneal. The bridegroom, who was then married, will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and tenth month afterwards his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren. And they will call the elder generation fathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together, will be called their brothers and sisters. And these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters. If the lot favors them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. Quite right, he replied, such is the scheme Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our state are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the arguments show that the community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better, would you not, yes, certainly, Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a state? What is the greatest good? And what is the greatest evil? And then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means, can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign, or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains, where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow, no doubt, yes, And where there is no common but only private feeling. A state is disorganized when you have one half of the world triumphing and the other half plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens. Certainly, such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the term's mind and not mine, his and not his exactly so, and is not that the best ordered state in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms mine and not mine in the same way to the same thing. Quite true? Or that again, which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual as in the body. But when a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a center and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein feels the hurt and sympathizes altogether with the part affected. And we say that the man has a pain in his finger, and that the same expression is used about any other part of the body which has a sensation of pain at suffering, or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. Very true, he replied, And I agree with you that in the best ordered state there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. Then, when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole state will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him. Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a well ordered state. It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our state and see whether this or some other is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. Very good. Our state, like every other, has rulers and subjects, true, all of whom will call one another citizens, of course, But is there not another name which people give to their rulers? And other states generally they call them masters, But in democratic states they simply call them rulers. And in our state, what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers. They are called saviors and helpers, he replied. And what do the rulers call the people. They are maintainers and foster fathers. And what do they call them in other states? Slaves? And what do the rulers call one another in other states? Fellow rulers? And what in ours? Fellow guardians? Did you ever know an example in any other state of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend. Yes, very often, And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest. Exactly, But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger, certainly he would not, for every one whom they meet will be regarded by them as either brother or sister, or father, or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. Capital I said, But let me ask you once more, shall they be a family and name only, or shall they, in all their actions be true to the name. For example, in the use of the word father, would the care of a father be implied, and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands, and as the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good, either at the hands of God or of man. Are these to be or not to be? The strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk. These, he said, and none other. For what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only, and not to act in the spirit of them. End of Book five, Part two