Socrates “And would he not forthwith find it necessary to fawn upon some of the slaves and make them many promises and emancipate them, though nothing would be further from his wish? And so he would turn out to be the flatterer of his own servants.” “He would certainly have to,” he said, “or else perish.” “But now suppose,” said I, “that god established round about him numerous neighbors who would not tolerate the claim of one man to be master of another, but would inflict the utmost penalties on any such person on whom they could lay their hands.” “I think,” he said,

Socrates “that his plight would be still more desperate, encompassed by nothing but enemies.” “And is not that the sort of prison-house in which the tyrant is pent, being of a nature such as we have described and filled with multitudinous and manifold terrors and appetites? Yet greedy and avid of spirit as he is, he only of the citizens may not travel abroad or view any of the sacred festivals that other freemen yearn to see, but he must live for the most part cowering in the recesses of his house like a woman,

Socrates envying among the other citizens anyone who goes abroad and sees any good thing.” “Most certainly,” he said.

“And does not such a harvest of ills measure the difference between the man who is merely ill-governed in his own soul, the man of tyrannical temper, whom you just now judged to be most miserable, and the man who, having this disposition, does not live out his life in private station but is constrained by some ill hap to become an actual tyrant, and while unable to control himself attempts to rule over others, as if a man with a sick and incontinent body should not live the private life but should be compelled

to pass his days in contention and strife with other persons?” “Your analogy is most apt and true, Socrates,” he said. “Is not that then, dear Glaucon,” said I, “a most unhappy experience in every way? And is not the tyrant’s life still worse than that which was judged by you to be the worst?” “Precisely so,” he said. “Then it is the truth, though some may deny it, that the real tyrant is really enslaved

to cringings and servitudes beyond compare, a flatterer of the basest men, and that, so far from finding even the least satisfaction for his desires, he is in need of most things, and is a poor man in very truth, as is apparent if one knows how to observe a soul in its entirety; and throughout his life he teems with terrors and is full of convulsions and pains, if in fact he resembles the condition of the city which he rules; and he is like it, is he not?”

“Yes, indeed,” he said.

Socrates “And in addition, shall we not further attribute to him all that we spoke of before, and say that he must needs be, and, by reason of his rule, come to be still more than he was, envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, a vessel and nurse of all iniquity, and so in consequence be himself most unhappy make all about him so?” “No man of sense will gainsay that,” he said. “Come then,” said I,

Socrates “now at last, even as the judge of last instance pronounces, so do you declare who in your opinion is first in happiness and who second, and similarly judge the others, all five in succession, the royal, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical man.” “Nay,” he said, “the decision is easy. For as if they were choruses I judge them in the order of their entrance, and so rank them in respect of virtue and vice, happiness and its contrary.” “Shall we hire a herald, then,” said I, “or shall I myself make proclamation that the son of Ariston pronounced the best man and the most righteous to be the happiest,

Socrates and that he is the one who is the most kingly and a king over himself; and declared that the most evil and most unjust is the most unhappy, who again is the man who, having the most of the tyrannical temper in himself, become, most of a tyrant over himself and over the state?” “Let it have been so proclaimed by you,” he said. “Shall I add the clause “alike whether their character is known to all men and gods or is not known”?” “Add that to the proclamation,” he said.

“Very good,” said I; “this, then, would be one of our proofs,

but examine this second one and see if there is anything in it.” “What is it?” “Since,” said I, “corresponding to the three types in the city, the soul also is tripartite, it will admit, I think, of another demonstration also.” “What is that?” “The following: The three parts have also, it appears to me, three kinds of pleasure, one peculiar to each, and similarly three appetites and controls.” “What do you mean?” he said. “One part, we say, is that with which a man learns, one is that with which he feels anger. But the third part, owing to its manifold forms, we could not easily designate by any one distinctive name,

but gave it the name of its chief and strongest element;”

Socrates “for we called it the appetitive part because of the intensity of its appetites concerned with food and drink and love and their accompaniments, and likewise the money-loving part, because money is the chief instrument

Socrates for the gratification of such desires.” “And rightly,” he said. “And if we should also say that its pleasure and its love were for gain or profit, should we not thus best bring it together under one head in our discourse so as to understand each other when we speak of this part of the soul, and justify our calling it the money-loving and gain-loving part?” “I, at any rate, think so,” he said. “And, again, of the high-spirited element, do we not say that it is wholly set on predominance and victory and good repute?”

Socrates “Yes, indeed.” “And might we not appropriately designate it as the ambitious part and that which is covetous of honor?” “Most appropriately.” “But surely it is obvious to everyone that all the endeavor of the part by which we learn is ever towards knowledge of the truth of things, and that it least of the three is concerned for wealth and reputation.” “Much the least.” “Lover of learning and lover of wisdom would be suitable designations for that.” “Quite so,” he said. “Is it not also true,” I said,

Socrates “that the ruling principle of men’s souls is in some cases this faculty and in others one of the other two, as it may happen?” “That is so,” he said. “And that is why we say that the primary classes of men also are three, the philosopher or lover of wisdom, the lover of victory and the lover of gain.” “Precisely so” “And also that there are three forms of pleasure, corresponding respectively to each?” “By all means.” “Are you aware, then” said I, “that if you should choose to ask men of these three classes, each in turn, which is the most pleasurable of these lives, each will chiefly commend his own? The financier

Socrates will affirm that in comparison with profit the pleasures of honor or of learning area of no value except in so far as they produce money.” “True,” he said. “And what of the lover of honor?” I said; “does he not regard the pleasure that comes from money as vulgar and low, and again that of learning, save in so far as the knowledge confers honor, mere fume and moonshine?” “It is so,” he said. “And what,” said I, “are we to suppose the philosopher thinks of the other pleasures

Socrates compared with the delight of knowing the truth and the reality, and being always occupied with that while he learns? Will he not think them far removed from true pleasure, and call them literally the pleasures of necessity, since he would have no use for them if necessity were not laid upon him?”

“We may be sure of that,” he said.

“Since, then, there is contention between the several types of pleasure and the lives themselves, not merely as to which is the more honorable or the more base, or the worse or the better, but which is actually the more pleasurable or free from pain,

how could we determine which of them speaks most truly?” “In faith, I cannot tell,” he said. “Well, consider it thus: By what are things to be judged, if they are to be judged rightly? Is it not by experience, intelligence and discussion? Or could anyone name a better criterion than these?” “How could he?” he said. “Observe, then. Of our three types of men, which has had the most experience of all the pleasures we mentioned? Do you think that the lover of gain by study of the very nature of truth has more experience

of the pleasure that knowledge yields than the philosopher has of that which results from gain?” “There is a vast difference,” he said; “for the one, the philosopher, must needs taste of the other two kinds of pleasure from childhood; but the lover of gain is not only under no necessity of tasting or experiencing the sweetness of the pleasure of learning the true natures of things, but he cannot easily do so even if he desires and is eager for it.” “The lover of wisdom, then,” said I, “far surpasses the lover of gain in experience of both kinds of pleasure.”

“Yes, far.” “And how does he compare with the lover of honor? Is he more unacquainted with the pleasure of being honored than that other with that which comes from knowledge?” “Nay, honor,” he said, “if they achieve their several objects, attends them all; for the rich man is honored by many and the brave man and the wise, so that all are acquainted with the kind of pleasure that honor brings; but it is impossible for anyone except the lover of wisdom to have savored the delight that the contemplation of true being and reality brings.”

“Then,” said I, “so far as experience goes, he is the best judge of the three.” “By far.” “And again, he is the only one whose experience will have been accompanied by intelligence.” “Surely.” “And yet again, that which is the instrument, or ὄργανον, of judgement is the instrument, not of the lover of gain or of the lover of honor, but of the lover of wisdom.” “What is that?” “It was by means of words and discussion that we said the judgement must be reached; was it not?” “Yes.” “And they are the instrument mainly of the philosopher.” “Of course.” “Now if wealth and profit were the best criteria by which things are judged,

the things praised and censured by the lover of gain would necessarily be truest and most real.” “Quite necessarily.” “And if honor, victory and courage, would it not be the things praised by the lover of honor and victory?” “Obviously.” “But since the tests are experience and wisdom and discussion, what follows?” “Of necessity,” he said, “that the things approved by the lover of wisdom and discussion are most valid and true.”