Socrates “Now the phrase “master of himself” is an absurdity, is it not? For he who is master of himself would also be subject to himself, 431a and he who is subject to himself would be master. For the same person is spoken of in all these expressions.” “Of course.” “But,” said I, “the intended meaning of this way of speaking appears to me to be that the soul of a man within him has a better part and a worse part, and the expression self-mastery means the control of the worse by the naturally better part. It is, at any rate, a term of praise. But when, because of bad breeding or some association,¹ the better part, which is the smaller, is dominated by the multitude² of the worse, I think that our speech 431b censures this as a reproach,³ and calls the man in this plight unselfcontrolled and licentious.” “That seems likely,” he said. “Turn your eyes now upon our new city,” said I, “and you will find one of these conditions existent in it. For you will say that it is justly spoken of as master of itself if that in which⁴ the superior rules the inferior is to be called sober and self-mastered.” “I do turn my eyes upon it,” he said, “and it is as you say.” “And again, the mob of motley⁵ 431c appetites and pleasures and pains one would find chiefly in children⁶ and women and slaves and in the base rabble of those who are freemen in name.⁷” “By all means.” “But the simple and moderate appetites which with the aid of reason and right opinion are guided by consideration you will find in few and those the best born and best educated.” “True,” he said. “And do you not find this too in your city and a domination there of the desires 431d in the multitude and the rabble by the desires and the wisdom that dwell in the minority of the better?” “I do,” he said.

“If, then, there is any city that deserves to be described as master of its pleasures and desires and self-mastered, this one merits that designation.” “Most assuredly,” he said. “And is it not also to be called sober⁸ in all these respects?” “Indeed it is,” he said. “And yet again, if there is any city in which 431e the rulers and the ruled are of one mind as to who ought to rule, that condition will be found in this. Don’t you think so?” “I most emphatically do,” he said. “In which class of the citizens, then, will you say that the virtue of soberness has its seat when this is their condition? In the rulers or in the ruled?” “In both, I suppose,⁹” he said. “Do you see then,” said I, “that our intuition was not a bad one just now that discerned a likeness between soberness and a kind of harmony¹⁰?” “Why so?”

“Because its operation is unlike that of courage and wisdom, which residing in separate parts 432a respectively made the city, the one wise and the other brave. That is not the way of soberness, but it extends literally through the entire gamut¹¹ throughout, bringing about¹² the unison in the same chant of the strongest, the weakest and the intermediate, whether in wisdom or, if you please,¹³ in strength, or for that matter in numbers, wealth, or any similar criterion. So that we should be quite right in affirming this unanimity¹⁴ to be soberness, the concord of the naturally superior and inferior 432b as to which ought to rule both in the state and the individual.¹⁵” “I entirely concur,” he said. “Very well,” said I. “We have made out these three forms in our city to the best of our present judgement.¹⁶ What can be the remaining form that¹⁷ would give the city still another virtue? For it is obvious that the remainder is justice.” “Obvious.” “Now then,¹⁸ Glaucon, is the time for us like huntsmen¹⁹ to surround the covert and keep close watch that justice may not slip through and get away from us and vanish 432c from our sight. It plainly must be somewhere hereabouts. Keep your eyes open then and do your best to descry it. You may see it before I do and point it out to me.” “Would that I could,” he said; “but I think rather that if you find in me one who can follow you and discern what you point out to him you will be making a very fair²⁰ use of me.” “Pray²¹ for success then,” said I, “and follow along with me.” “That I will do, only lead on,” he said. “And truly,” said I, “it appears to be an inaccessible place, lying in deep shadows.” “It certainly is a dark covert, 432d not easy to beat up.” “But all the same on we must go.” “Yes, on.” And I caught view and gave a hulloa and said, “Glaucon, I think we have found its trail and I don’t believe it will get away from us.” “I am glad to hear that,” said he. “Truly,” said I, “we were slackers²² indeed.” “How so?” “Why, all the time, bless your heart, the thing apparently was tumbling about our feet²³ from the start and yet we couldn’t see it, but were most ludicrous, like 432e people who sometimes hunt for what they hold in their hands.²⁴ So we did not turn our eyes upon it, but looked off into the distance, which perhaps was the reason it escaped us.” “What do you mean?” he said. “This,” I replied, “that it seems to me that though we were speaking of it and hearing about it all the time we did not understand ourselves²⁵ or realize that we were speaking of it in a sense.” “That is a tedious prologue,” he said, “for an eager listener.”

433a“Listen then,” said I, “and learn if there is anything in what I say. For what we laid down in the beginning as a universal requirement when we were founding our city, this I think, or²⁶ some form of this, is justice. And what we did lay down, and often said, you recall, was that each one man must perform one social service in the state for which his nature is best adapted.” “Yes, we said that.” “And again that to do one’s own business and not to be a busybody is justice, 433b is a saying that we have heard from many and have often repeated ourselves.²⁷” “We have.” “This, then,” I said, “my friend, if taken in a certain sense appears to be justice,²⁸ this principle of doing one’s own business. Do you know whence I infer this?” “No, but tell me,” he said. “I think that this is the remaining virtue in the state after our consideration of soberness, courage, and intelligence, a quality which made it possible for them all to grow up in the body politic and which when they have sprung up preserves them as long as it is present. And I hardly need to remind you that²⁹ 433c we said that justice would be the residue after we had found the other three.” “That is an unavoidable conclusion,” he said. “But moreover,” said I, “if we were required to decide what it is whose indwelling presence will contribute most to making our city good, it would be a difficult decision whether it was the unanimity of rulers and ruled or the conservation in the minds of the soldiers of the convictions produced by law as to what things are or are not to be feared, or the watchful intelligence 433d that resides in the guardians, or whether this is the chief cause of its goodness, the principle embodied in child, woman, slave, free, artisan, ruler, and ruled, that each performed his one task as one man and was not a versatile busybody.” “Hard to decide indeed,” he said. “A thing, then, that in its contribution to the excellence of a state vies with and rivals its wisdom, its soberness, its bravery, is this principle of everyone in it doing his own task.” “It is indeed,” he said. “And is not justice the name you would have to give³⁰ to the principle that rivals these as conducing to 433e the virtue of state?” “By all means.” “Consider it in this wise too³¹ if so you will be convinced. Will you not assign the conduct of lawsuits in your state to the rulers?” “Of course.” “Will not this be the chief aim of their decisions, that no one shall have what belongs to others³² or be deprived of his own? Nothing else but this.” “On the assumption that this is just?” “Yes.”

“From this point of view too, then, the having³³ and doing 434a of one’s own and what belongs to oneself would admittedly be justice.” “That is so.” “Consider now³⁴ whether you agree with me. A carpenter undertaking to do the work of a cobbler or a cobbler of a carpenter or their interchange of one another’s tools or honors or even the attempt of the same man to do both—the confounding of all other functions would not, think you, greatly injure a state, would it?” “Not much,” he said. “But when I fancy one who is by nature an artisan or some kind of money-maker 434b tempted and incited by wealth or command of votes or bodily strength or some similar advantage tries to enter into the class of the soldiers or one of the soldiers into the class of counsellors and guardians, for which he is not fitted, and these interchange their tools and their honors or when the same man undertakes all these functions at once, then, I take it, you too believe that this kind of substitution and meddlesomeness is the ruin of a state.” “By all means.” “The interference with one another’s business, then, of three existent classes and the substitution of the one for the other 434c is the greatest injury to a state and would most rightly be designated as the thing which chiefly³⁵ works it harm.” “Precisely so.” “And the thing that works the greatest harm to one’s own state, will you not pronounce to be injustice?” “Of course.” “This, then, is injustice.”

“Again,³⁶ let us put it in this way. The proper functioning³⁷ of the money-making class, the helpers and the guardians, each doing its own work in the state, being the reverse of that³⁸ just described, would be justice and would render the city just.” 434d “I think the case is thus and no otherwise,” said he. “Let us not yet affirm it quite fixedly,³⁹” I said, “but if this form⁴⁰ when applied to the individual man, accepted there also as a definition of justice, we will then concede the point—for what else will there be to say? But if not, then we will look for something else. But now let us work out the inquiry in which⁴¹ we supposed that, if we found some larger thing that contained justice and viewed it there,⁴² we should more easily discover its nature in the individual man. 434e And we agreed that this larger thing is the city, and so we constructed the best city in our power, well knowing that in the good⁴³ city it would of course be found. What, then, we thought we saw there we must refer back to the individual and, if it is confirmed, all will be well.”