Socrates “That is,” he said, “the maturity and prime for both of body and mind.” “Then, if anyone older or younger than the prescribed age meddles with procreation for the state, we shall say that his error is an impiety and an injustice, since he is begetting for the city a child whose birth, if it escapes discovery, will not be attended by the sacrifices and the prayers which the priests and priestesses and the entire city prefer at the ceremonial marriages, that ever better offspring may spring from good sires and from fathers helpful to the state

Socrates sons more helpful still. But this child will be born in darkness and conceived in foul incontinence.” “Right,” he said. “And the same rule will apply,” I said, “if any of those still within the age of procreation goes in to a woman of that age with whom the ruler has not paired him. We shall say that he is imposing on the state a base-born, uncertified, and unhallowed child.” “Most rightly,” he said. “But when, I take it, the men and the women have passed the age of lawful procreation, we shall leave the men free to form such relations

Socrates with whomsoever they please, except daughter and mother and their direct descendants and ascendants, and likewise the women, save with son and father, and so on, first admonishing them preferably not even to bring to light anything whatever thus conceived, but if they are unable to prevent a birth to dispose of it on the understanding that we cannot rear such an offspring.” “All that sounds reasonable,” he said; “but how are they to distinguish one another’s fathers and daughters,

Socrates and the other degrees of kin that you have just mentioned?” “They won’t,” said I, “except that a man will call all male offspring born in the tenth and in the seventh month after he became a bridegroom his sons, and all female, daughters, and they will call him father. And, similarly, he will call their offspring his grandchildren and they will call his group grandfathers and grandmothers. And all children born in the period in which their fathers and mothers were procreating will regard one another as brothers and sisters.

Socrates This will suffice for the prohibitions of intercourse of which we just now spoke. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to cohabit if the lot so falls out and the Delphic oracle approves.” “Quite right,” said he.

“This, then, Glaucon, is the manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the next point that we must get confirmed

by the argument. Is not that so?”

Socrates “It is, indeed,” he said. “Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprints of the good and do not suit those of the evil?” “By all means,” he said. “Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that distracts it

Socrates and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?” “We do not.” “Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths?” “By all means,” he said. “But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings

Socrates to the city and its inhabitants?” “Of course.” “And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as “mine” and “not mine,” and similarly with regard to the word “alien”?”“Precisely so.” “That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression “mine” and “not mine” of the same things in the same way.” “Much the best.” “And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man. For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for “integration”

Socrates with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure.” “The same,” he said, “and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.” “That is the kind of a state,

Socrates then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole.” “Inevitably,” he said, “if it is well governed.”

“It is time,” I said, “to return to our city and observe whether it, rather than any other, embodies the qualities agreed upon in our argument.” “We must,” he said.

“Well, then,

Socrates there are to be found in other cities rulers and the people as in it, are there not?” “There are.” “Will not all these address one another as fellow-citizens?” “Of course.” “But in addition to citizens, what does the people in other states call its rulers.” “In most cities, masters. In democratic cities, just this, rulers.” “But what of the people in our city. In addition to citizens,

Socrates what do they call their rulers?” “Saviors and helpers,” he said. “And what term do these apply to the people?” “Payers of their wage and supporters.” “And how do the rulers in other states denominate the populace?” “Slaves,” he said. “And how do the rulers describe one another?” “Co-rulers,” he said. “And ours?” “Co-guardians.” “Can you tell me whether any of the rulers in other states would speak of some of their co-rulers as “belonging” and others as outsiders?” “Yes, many would.” “And such a one thinks and speaks of the one that “belongs” as his own, doesn’t he, and of the outsider as not his own?” “That is so.” “But what of your guardians. Could any of them think or speak of

Socrates his co-guardian as an outsider?” “By no means,” he said; “for no matter whom he meets, he will feel that he is meeting a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or the offspring or forebears of these.” “Excellent,” said I; “but tell me this further,

Socrates will it be merely the names of this kinship that you have prescribed for them or must all their actions conform to the names in all customary observance toward fathers and in awe and care and obedience for parents, if they look for the favor of either gods or men, since any other behaviour would be neither just nor pious? Shall these be the unanimous oracular voices that they hear from all the people, or shall some other kind of teaching beset the ears of your children from their birth, both concerning what is due to those who are pointed out as their fathers

Socrates and to their other kin?” “These,” he said; “for it would be absurd for them merely to pronounce with their lips the names of kinship without the deeds.” “Then, in this city more than in any other, when one citizen fares well or ill, men will pronounce in unison the word of which we spoke: “It is mine that does well; it is mine that does ill.”” “That is most true,” he said.

Socrates “And did we not say that this conviction and way of speech brings with it a community in pleasures and pains?” “And rightly, too.” “Then these citizens, above all others, will have one and the same thing in common which they will name mine, and by virtue of this communion they will have their pleasures and pains in common.” “Quite so.” “And is not the cause of this, besides the general constitution of the state, the community of wives and children among the guardians?” “It will certainly be the chief cause,” he said.

“But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.” “And we were right in so agreeing.” “Then it is the greatest blessing for a state of which the community of women and children among the helpers has been shown to be the cause.” “Quite so,” he said. “And this is consistent with what we said before. For we said, I believe, that these helpers must not possess houses of their own or

land or any other property, but that they should receive from the other citizens for their support the wage of their guardianship and all spend it in common. That was the condition of their being true guardians.” “Right,” he said. “Is it not true, then, as I am trying to say, that those former and these present prescriptions tend to make them still more truly guardians and prevent them from distracting the city by referring “mine” not to the same but to different things, one man dragging off to his own house anything he is able to acquire apart from the rest,

and another doing the same to his own separate house, and having women and children apart, thus introducing into the state the pleasures and pains of individuals? They should all rather, we said, share one conviction about their own, tend to one goal, and so far as practicable have one experience of pleasure and pain.” “By all means,” he said. “Then will not law-suits and accusations against one another vanish, one may say, from among them, because they have nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common?

So that we can count on their being free from the dissensions that arise among men from the possession of property, children, and kin.” “They will necessarily be quit of these,” he said. “And again, there could not rightly arise among them any law-suit for assault or bodily injury. For as between age-fellows we shall say that self-defence is honorable and just, thereby compelling them to keep their bodies in condition.” “Right,” he said.