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35 - The Republic - Plato · Logic Library

• Book nine, Part three. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state, so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful, they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, And in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of setaeity in pleasure. They not knowing pleasure err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with gray instead of white. Can you wonder I say at this? No? Indeed I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite look at the matter. Thus, hunger, thirst, and the like are inanitions of the bodily state, Yes, and ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul. True and food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either, Certainly, and is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence than truer clearly from that which has more? What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment, those of which food and drink, and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, Or the class which contains true opinion, and knowledge, and mind, and all the different kinds of virtue. Put the question in this way, which has a more pure being that which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature and is found in such natures. Or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and mortal, and is itself variable and mortal. Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the invariable? And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same degree as of essence, Yes, of knowledge in the same degree, and of truth in the same degree. Yes. And conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of essence. Necessarily, then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul, far less, And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul? Yes, what is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less really existence, and is less real. Of course, and if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according to nature, that which is more really filled with more real being, will more really and truly enjoy true pleasure, whereas that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory and less real pleasure. Unquestionably, those then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean, and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world. Thither they never look, nor do they ever find their way. Neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining table, they fatten and feed and breed, and in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron, and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent. Verily, Socrates said, Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle. Their pleasures are mixed with pains. How can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are colored by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade. And so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves, and they are thought about as Descarus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth. Something of that sort must inevitably happen, and must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul. Will not the passionate man who carries his passions into action be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honor and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense, Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element. Also, then, may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honor, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them. Inasmuch as they follow truth, and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him. Yes, certainly, the best is the most natural. And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are case exactly. But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own true. And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and elusive will be the pleasure, Yes, and is not that farthest from reason, which is at the greatest distance from law and order? Clearly, And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance. Yes, and the royal and orderly desires are nearest. Yes. Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least certainly. But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly inevitably. Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them? Will you tell me? There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious. Now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious. He has run away from the region of law and reason, and takes up his abode with certain slave pleasures, which are his satellites. And the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure. How do you mean? I assume I said that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch. The democrat was in the middle. Yes, And if there is truce in what has preceded, he will be wetted to an image of pleasure, which is thrace removed as to truce from the pleasure of the oligarch. He will. And the old gark is third from the royal, since we count as one royal and aristocratical, Yes, he is third. Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three. Manifestly, the shadow, then of tyrannical pleasure, determined by the number of length, will be a plane figure. Certainly, and if you raise the power and make the plain a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king. Yes, the arithmetician will easily do the sum. Or if some person begins at the other end and measures the interval by which the king has pardoned from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he will find him when the multiplication is completed, living seven hundred and twenty nine times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by this same interval. What a wonderful calculate, and how enormous is the distance which separates the just from the unjust in regard to pleasure and pain? Yet a true calculation, I said, and a number which nearly concerns human life. If human beings are concerned with days and nights, and months and years, seven hundred and twenty nine nearly equals the number of days and nights in the year. Yes, he said, human life is certainly concerned with them. Then if the good and just man be thus superior in pleasure to the evil and unjust, his superiority will be infinitely greater in propriety of life, and in beauty, and in virtue, immeasurably greater. Well, I said, And now, having arrived at this stage of the argument, we may revert to the words which brought us hither. Was not some one saying that injustice was again to the perfectly unjust, who was reputed to be just? Yes, that was said. Now, then, having demonstrated power and quality of justice and injustice, let us have a little conversation with him. What shall we say to him? Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes. Of what sort an ideal image of the soul? Like the composite creations of ancient mythology, such as the chimera or Scylla or Cerberus. And there are many others in which two or more different natures are said to grow into one. There are said to have been such unions. Then do you now model the form of a multitudinous, many headed monster, having a ring of heads, of all manner, of beasts, tame and wild, which he is able to generate and metamorphose at will? You suppose marvelous powers in the artist. But as language is more pliable than wax or any similar substance, let there be such a model as you propose. Suppose now that you make a second form as an a lion, and the third of a man, the second smaller than the third, and the third smaller than the second. That he said is an easier task. And I have made them as you say, And now join them, and let the three go into one that has been accomplished. Next, fashion the outside of them into a single image as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within and sees only the outer hull may believe the beast to be a single human creature. I have done so, he said. And now to him who maintains that it is profitable for the human creature to be unjust and unprofitable to be just. Let us reply that, if he be right, it is profitable for this creature to feast the multitudinous monster, and strengthen the lion and the lion like qualities, but to starve and weaken the man, who is consequently liable to be dragged a boat at the mercy of either of the other two. And he is not to attempt to familiarize or harmonize them with one another. He ought rather to suffer them to fight and bite and devour one another. Certainly, he said, that is what the approver of injustice says to him. The supporter of justice makes answer that should he ever so speak an act as to give the man within him, in some way or other, the most complete mastery over the entire human creature, he should watch over the many headed monster like a good husbandman, fostering and cultivating the gentile qualities, and preventing the wild ones from growing. He should be making the lion heart his ally, and in common care of them all, should be uniting the several parts with one another and with himself. Yes, he said, that is quite what the maintainer of justice say. And so from every point of view, whether of pleasure, honor, or advantage. The approver of justice is right and speaks the truth, and the disapprover is wrong and false and ignorant. Yes, from every point of view. Come now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. Sweet sir, we will say to him, what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man, and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast. He can hardly avoid saying, yes, can he now not if he has any regard for my opinion? But if he agree so far, we may ask him to answer another question. Then how would a man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst. Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received. And will any one say that he is not a miserable catiff who remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable. Erriphilee took the necklace as the price of her husband's life. But he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin, Yes, said Glaucon, far worse, and I will answer for him. Has not the intemperate been censured of old? Because in him the huge, multiform monster is allowed to be too much at large? Clearly? And men are blamed for pride and bad temper when the lion and serpent element in them disproportionately grows and gains strength. Yes, And luxury and softness are blamed because they relax and weaken the same creature and make a coward of him. Very true, And is not a man reproached for flattery and meanness who subordinates the spirited animal to the unruly monster, and for the sake of money of which he can never have enough, habituates him in the days of his youth to be trampled in the mire, and from being a lion to become a monkey, true, he said, And why are mean employments and manual arts reproach only because they imply a natural weakness of the higher principle. The individual is unable to control the creatures within him, but he has to court them, and his great study is how to flatter them. Such appears to be the reason, and therefore, being desirous of placing him under a rule like that of the best, we say that he ought to be the servant of the best, in whom the divine rules, not as Strasimachus supposed to the injury of the servant, but because every one had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him, or, if this be impossible, than by an external authority, in order that we may be all, as far as possible, under the same government, friends and equals. True, he said, and this is clearly seen to be the intention of the law, which is the ally of the whole city, and is seen also in the authority which we exercise over children, and the refusal to let them be free until we have established in them a principle analogous to the constitution of a state, and by cultivation of this higher element, have set up in their hearts a guardian and bruler like our own. And when this is done, they may go their ways. Yes, he said, the purpose of the law is manifest. From what point of view, then, and on what ground can we say that a man is profited by injustice or intemperance, or other baseness which will make him a worse man, even though he acquire money or power by his wickedness. From no point of view at all, What shall he profit if his injustice be undetected and unpunished. He who is undetected only gets worse. Whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized. The gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength, and health, in proportion as the soul is more honorable than the body. Certainly, he said, to this nobler purpose, the man of understanding will devote the energies of his life. And in the first place he will honor studies which impress these qualities on his soul, and will disregard others. Clearly, he said, in the next place, he will regulate his bodily habit and training. And so far will he be from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, that he will regard even health as quite a secondary matter. His first object will be not that he may be fair, or strong, or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance. But he will always desire so to attemper the body as to preserve the harmony of the soul. Certainly he will if he has true music in him, And in the acquisition of wealth, there is a principle of order and harmony which he will also observe. He will not allow himself to be dazzled by the foolish applause of the world, and heap up riches to his own infinite harm. Certainly not, he said. He will look at the city which is within him, and take heeded that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want. And upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means. Very true, and for the same reason, he will gladly accept and enjoy such honors as he deems likely to make him a better man. But those whether private or public, which are likely to disorder his life, he will avoid. Then, if that is his motive, he will not be a statesman by the dog of Egypt. He will in the city which is his own, he certainly will, though in the land of his births perhaps not unless he have a divine call. I understand you mean that he will be a ruler in the city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only, for I do not believe that there is such an one anywhere on earth. In heaven, I replied, there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks, which he who desires may behold and beholding, may set his own house in order. But whether such an one exists or ever will exist, in fact, is no matter. For he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to do with any other. I think so, he said, end of Book nine.