Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  That certainly wouldn’t be surprising, for, even as you were speaking it occurred to me that, in the first place, we aren’t all born alike, but each of us differs somewhat in nature from the others, one being suited to one task, another to another. Or don’t you think so? [b]

  I do.

  Second, does one person do a better job if he practices many crafts or—since he’s one person himself—if he practices one?

  If he practices one.

  It’s clear, at any rate, I think, that if one misses the right moment in anything, the work is spoiled.

  It is.

  That’s because the thing to be done won’t wait on the leisure of the doer, but the doer must of necessity pay close attention to his work rather than treating it as a secondary occupation. [c]

  Yes, he must.

  The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.

  Absolutely.

  Then, Adeimantus, we’re going to need more than four citizens to provide the things we’ve mentioned, for a farmer won’t make his own plough, not if it’s to be a good one, nor his hoe, nor any of his other farming tools. Neither will a builder—and he, too, needs lots of things. And the same is [d] true of a weaver and a cobbler, isn’t it?

  It is.

  Hence, carpenters, metal workers, and many other craftsmen of that sort will share our little city and make it bigger.

  That’s right.

  Yet it won’t be a huge settlement even if we add cowherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen in order that the farmers have cows to do their ploughing, [e] the builders have oxen to share with the farmers in hauling their materials, and the weavers and cobblers have hides and fleeces to use.

  It won’t be a small one either, if it has to hold all those.

  Moreover, it’s almost impossible to establish a city in a place where nothing has to be imported.

  Indeed it is.

  So we’ll need yet further people to import from other cities whatever is needed.

  Yes.

  And if an importer goes empty-handed to another city, without a cargo of the things needed by the city from which he’s to bring back what his [371] own city needs, he’ll come away empty-handed, won’t he?

  So it seems.

  Therefore our citizens must not only produce enough for themselves at home but also goods of the right quality and quantity to satisfy the requirements of others.

  They must.

  So we’ll need more farmers and other craftsmen in our city.

  Yes.

  And others to take care of imports and exports. And they’re called merchants, aren’t they?

  Yes.

  So we’ll need merchants, too.

  Certainly.

  And if the trade is by sea, we’ll need a good many others who know [b] how to sail.

  A good many, indeed.

  And how will those in the city itself share the things that each produces?

  It was for the sake of this that we made their partnership and founded their city.

  Clearly, they must do it by buying and selling.

  Then we’ll need a marketplace and a currency for such exchange.

  Certainly.

  [c] If a farmer or any other craftsman brings some of his products to market, and he doesn’t arrive at the same time as those who want to exchange things with him, is he to sit idly in the marketplace, away from his own work?

  Not at all. There’ll be people who’ll notice this and provide the requisite service—in well-organized cities they’ll usually be those whose bodies are weakest and who aren’t fit to do any other work. They’ll stay around the [d] market exchanging money for the goods of those who have something to sell and then exchanging those goods for the money of those who want them.

  Then, to fill this need there will have to be retailers in our city, for aren’t those who establish themselves in the marketplace to provide this service of buying and selling called retailers, while those who travel between cities are called merchants?

  That’s right.

  There are other servants, I think, whose minds alone wouldn’t qualify them for membership in our society but whose bodies are strong enough [e] for labor. These sell the use of their strength for a price called a wage and hence are themselves called wage-earners. Isn’t that so?

  Certainly.

  So wage-earners complete our city?

  I think so.

  Well, Adeimantus, has our city grown to completeness, then?

  Perhaps it has.

  Then where are justice and injustice to be found in it? With which of the things we examined did they come in?

  I’ve no idea, Socrates, unless it was somewhere in some need that these [372] people have of one another.

  You may be right, but we must look into it and not grow weary. First, then, let’s see what sort of life our citizens will lead when they’ve been provided for in the way we have been describing. They’ll produce bread, wine, clothes, and shoes, won’t they? They’ll build houses, work naked and barefoot in the summer, and wear adequate clothing and shoes in the [b] winter. For food, they’ll knead and cook the flour and meal they’ve made from wheat and barley. They’ll put their honest cakes and loaves on reeds or clean leaves, and, reclining on beds strewn with yew and myrtle, they’ll feast with their children, drink their wine, and, crowned with wreaths, hymn the gods. They’ll enjoy sex with one another but bear no more children than their resources allow, lest they fall into either poverty or war. [c]

  It seems that you make your people feast without any delicacies, Glaucon interrupted.

  True enough, I said, I was forgetting that they’ll obviously need salt, olives, cheese, boiled roots, and vegetables of the sort they cook in the country. We’ll give them desserts, too, of course, consisting of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and they’ll roast myrtle and acorns before the fire, drinking moderately. And so they’ll live in peace and good health, and when they [d] die at a ripe old age, they’ll bequeath a similar life to their children.

  If you were founding a city for pigs, Socrates, he replied, wouldn’t you fatten them on the same diet?

  Then how should I feed these people, Glaucon? I asked.

  In the conventional way. If they aren’t to suffer hardship, they should recline on proper couches, dine at a table, and have the delicacies and desserts that people have nowadays. [e]

  All right, I understand. It isn’t merely the origin of a city that we’re considering, it seems, but the origin of a luxurious city. And that may not be a bad idea, for by examining it, we might very well see how justice and injustice grow up in cities. Yet the true city, in my opinion, is the one we’ve described, the healthy one, as it were. But let’s study a city with a [373] fever, if that’s what you want. There’s nothing to stop us. The things I mentioned earlier and the way of life I described won’t satisfy some people, it seems, but couches, tables, and other furniture will have to be added, and, of course, all sorts of delicacies, perfumed oils, incense, prostitutes, and pastries. We mustn’t provide them only with the necessities we mentioned at first, such as houses, clothes, and shoes, but painting and embroidery must be begun, and gold, ivory, and the like acquired. Isn’t that so?

  [b] Yes.

  Then we must enlarge our city, for the healthy one is no longer adequate. We must increase it in size and fill it with a multitude of things that go beyond what is necessary for a city—hunters, for example, and artists or imitators, many of whom work with shapes and colors, many with music. And there’ll be poets and their assistants, actors, choral dancers, contractors, and makers of all kinds of devices, including, among other things, those needed for the adornment of women. And so we’ll need more servants, [c] too. Or don’t you think that we’ll need tutors, wet nurses, nannies, beauticians, barbers, chefs, cooks, and swineherds? We didn’t need any
of these in our earlier city, but we’ll need them in this one. And we’ll also need many more cattle, won’t we, if the people are going to eat meat?

  Of course.

  And if we live like that, we’ll have a far greater need for doctors than [d] we did before?

  Much greater.

  And the land, I suppose, that used to be adequate to feed the population we had then, will cease to be adequate and become too small. What do you think?

  The same.

  Then we’ll have to seize some of our neighbors’ land if we’re to have enough pasture and ploughland. And won’t our neighbors want to seize part of ours as well, if they too have surrendered themselves to the endless acquisition of money and have overstepped the limit of their necessities?

  [e] That’s completely inevitable, Socrates.

  Then our next step will be war, Glaucon, won’t it?

  It will.

  We won’t say yet whether the effects of war are good or bad but only that we’ve now found the origins of war. It comes from those same desires that are most of all responsible for the bad things that happen to cities and the individuals in them.

  That’s right.

  Then the city must be further enlarged, and not just by a small number, either, but by a whole army, which will do battle with the invaders in [374] defense of the city’s substantial wealth and all the other things we mentioned. Why aren’t the citizens themselves adequate for that purpose?

  They won’t be, if the agreement you and the rest of us made when we were founding the city was a good one, for surely we agreed, if you remember, that it’s impossible for a single person to practice many crafts or professions well.

  That’s true.

  Well, then, don’t you think that warfare is a profession? [b]

  Of course.

  Then should we be more concerned about cobbling than about warfare?

  Not at all.

  But we prevented a cobbler from trying to be a farmer, weaver, or builder at the same time and said that he must remain a cobbler in order to produce fine work. And each of the others, too, was to work all his life at a single trade for which he had a natural aptitude and keep away from all the others, so as not to miss the right moment to practice his own work well. [c] Now, isn’t it of the greatest importance that warfare be practiced well? And is fighting a war so easy that a farmer or a cobbler or any other craftsman can be a soldier at the same time? Though no one can become so much as a good player of checkers or dice if he considers it only as a sideline and doesn’t practice it from childhood. Or can someone pick up a shield or any other weapon or tool of war and immediately perform adequately in an infantry battle or any other kind? No other tool makes [d] anyone who picks it up a craftsman or champion unless he has acquired the requisite knowledge and has had sufficient practice.

  If tools could make anyone who picked them up an expert, they’d be valuable indeed.

  Then to the degree that the work of the guardians is most important, it [e] requires most freedom from other things and the greatest skill and devotion. I should think so.

  And doesn’t it also require a person whose nature is suited to that way of life?

  Certainly.

  Then our job, it seems, is to select, if we can, the kind of nature suited to guard the city.

  It is.

  By god, it’s no trivial task that we’ve taken on. But insofar as we are able, we mustn’t shrink from it.

  No, we mustn’t. [375]

  Do you think that, when it comes to guarding, there is any difference between the nature of a pedigree young dog and that of a well-born youth?

  What do you mean?

  Well, each needs keen senses, speed to catch what it sees, and strength in case it has to fight it out with what it captures.

  They both need all these things.

  And each must be courageous if indeed he’s to fight well.

  Of course.

  And will a horse, a dog, or any other animal be courageous, if he isn’t spirited? Or haven’t you noticed just how invincible and unbeatable spirit is, so that its presence makes the whole soul fearless and unconquerable? [b]

  I have noticed that.

  The physical qualities of the guardians are clear, then.

  Yes.

  And as far as their souls are concerned, they must be spirited.

  That too.

  But if they have natures like that, Glaucon, won’t they be savage to each other and to the rest of the citizens?

  By god, it will be hard for them to be anything else.

  Yet surely they must be gentle to their own people and harsh to the [c] enemy. If they aren’t, they won’t wait around for others to destroy the city but will do it themselves first.

  That’s true.

  What are we to do, then? Where are we to find a character that is both gentle and high-spirited at the same time? After all, a gentle nature is the opposite of a spirited one.

  Apparently.

  If someone lacks either gentleness or spirit, he can’t be a good guardian. Yet it seems impossible to combine them. It follows that a good guardian [d] cannot exist.

  It looks like it.

  I couldn’t see a way out, but on reexamining what had gone before, I said: We deserve to be stuck, for we’ve lost sight of the analogy we put forward.

  How do you mean?

  We overlooked the fact that there are natures of the sort we thought impossible, natures in which these opposites are indeed combined.

  Where?

  You can see them in other animals, too, but especially in the one to which we compared the guardian, for you know, of course, that a pedigree [e] dog naturally has a character of this sort—he is gentle as can be to those he’s used to and knows, but the opposite to those he doesn’t know.

  I do know that.

  So the combination we want is possible after all, and our search for the good guardian is not contrary to nature.

  Apparently not.

  Then do you think that our future guardian, besides being spirited, must also be by nature philosophical?

  [376] How do you mean? I don’t understand.

  It’s something else you see in dogs, and it makes you wonder at the animal.

  What?

  When a dog sees someone it doesn’t know, it gets angry before anything bad happens to it. But when it knows someone, it welcomes him, even if it has never received anything good from him. Haven’t you ever wondered at that?

  I’ve never paid any attention to it, but obviously that is the way a dog behaves.

  Surely this is a refined quality in its nature and one that is truly philosophical. [b]

  In what way philosophical?

  Because it judges anything it sees to be either a friend or an enemy, on no other basis than that it knows the one and doesn’t know the other. And how could it be anything besides a lover of learning, if it defines what is its own and what is alien to it in terms of knowledge and ignorance?

  It couldn’t.

  But surely the love of learning is the same thing as philosophy or the love of wisdom?

  It is.

  Then, may we confidently assume in the case of a human being, too, that if he is to be gentle toward his own and those he knows, he must be a lover of learning and wisdom? [c]

  We may.

  Philosophy, spirit, speed, and strength must all, then, be combined in the nature of anyone who is to be a fine and good guardian of our city.

  Absolutely.

  Then those are the traits a potential guardian would need at the outset. But how are we to bring him up and educate him? Will inquiry into that topic bring us any closer to the goal of our inquiry, which is to discover the origins of justice and injustice in a city? We want our account to be [d] adequate, but we don’t want it to be any longer than necessary.

  I certainly expect, Glaucon’s brother said, that such inquiry will further our goal.

  Then, by god, Adeimantus, I said, we mustn’t leave it out
, even if it turns out to be a somewhat lengthy affair.

  No, we mustn’t.

  Come, then, and just as if we had the leisure to make up stories, let’s describe in theory how to educate our men.

  All right. [e]

  What will their education be? Or is it hard to find anything better than that which has developed over a long period—physical training for bodies and music and poetry for the soul?

  Yes, it would be hard.

  Now, we start education in music and poetry before physical training, don’t we?

  Of course.

  Do you include stories under music and poetry? I do.

  Aren’t there two kinds of story, one true and the other false?

  Yes.

  And mustn’t our men be educated in both, but first in false ones? [377]

  I don’t understand what you mean.

  Don’t you understand that we first tell stories to children? These are false, on the whole, though they have some truth in them. And we tell them to small children before physical training begins.

  That’s true.

  And that’s what I meant by saying that we must deal with music and poetry before physical training.

  All right.

  You know, don’t you, that the beginning of any process is most important, especially for anything young and tender? It’s at that time that it is [b] most malleable and takes on any pattern one wishes to impress on it.

  Exactly.

  Then shall we carelessly allow the children to hear any old stories, told by just anyone, and to take beliefs into their souls that are for the most part opposite to the ones we think they should hold when they are grown up?

  We certainly won’t.

  Then we must first of all, it seems, supervise the storytellers. We’ll select their stories whenever they are fine or beautiful and reject them when they [c] aren’t. And we’ll persuade nurses and mothers to tell their children the ones we have selected, since they will shape their children’s souls with stories much more than they shape their bodies by handling them. Many of the stories they tell now, however, must be thrown out.

  Which ones do you mean?

  We’ll first look at the major stories, and by seeing how to deal with them, we’ll see how to deal with the minor ones as well, for they exhibit the same pattern and have the same effects whether they’re famous or [d] not. Don’t you think so?