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AND so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the
perfect State wives and children are to be in common; and that all
education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and
the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?
That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.
Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors,
when appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them
in houses such as we were describing, which are common to all, and
contain nothing private, or individual; and about their property,
you remember what we agreed?
Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary
possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and
guardians, receiving from the other citizens, in lieu of annual
payment, only their maintenance, and they were to take care of
themselves and of the whole State.
True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded,
let us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into
the old path.
There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now,
that you had finished the description of the State: you said that such
a State was good, and that the man was good who answered to it,
although, as now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both
of State and man. And you said further, that if this was the true
form, then the others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as
I remember, that there were four principal ones, and that their
defects, and the defects of the individuals corresponding to them,
were worth examining. When we had seen all the individuals, and
finally agreed as to who was the best and who was the worst of them,
we were to consider whether the best was not also the happiest, and
the worst the most miserable. I asked you what were the four forms
of government of which you spoke, and then Polemarchus and
Adeimantus put in their word; and you began again, and have found your
way to the point at which we have now arrived.
Your recollection, I said, is most exact.
Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in
the same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you
give me the same answer which you were about to give me then.
Yes, if I can, I will, I said.
I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions
of which you were speaking.
That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of
which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those
of Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed
oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of
government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally
follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes
tyranny, great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the
fourth and worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any
other constitution which can be said to have a distinct character.
There are lordships and principalities which are bought and sold,
and some other intermediate forms of government. But these are
nondescripts and may be found equally among Hellenes and among
barbarians.
Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of
government which exist among them.
Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of
men vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of
the other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and
rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which
in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them?
Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of
human characters.
Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of
individual minds will also be five?
Certainly.
Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and
good, we have already described.
We have.
Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures,
being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity;
also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place
the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them
we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of
him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry
will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue
injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the
conclusions of the argument to prefer justice.
Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.
Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to
clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the
individual, and begin with the government of honour? --I know of no
name for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps
timarchy. We will compare with this the like character in the
individual; and, after that, consider oligarchical man; and then again
we will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man;
and lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more
take a look into the tyrant's soul, and try to arrive at a
satisfactory decision.
That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable.
First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of
honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best).
Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual
governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot
be moved.
Very true, he said.
In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner the
two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or
with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the
Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in
solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and
to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?
How would they address us?
After this manner: --A city which is thus constituted can hardly
be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has
also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever,
but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution: --In
plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on
the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur
when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in
short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones
over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and
sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain;
the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence
which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring
children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of
divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number,
but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which
first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed)
obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing
and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable
to one another. The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when
combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two
harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 =
4 X 100), and the other a figure having one side equal to the
former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon
rational diameters of a square (i. e. omitting fractions), the side of
which is five (7 X 7 = 49 X 100 = 4900), each of them being less by
one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50)
or less by two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square
the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of
three (27 X 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number
represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and
evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of
births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children
will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will
be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to
hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as
guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the
Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to
gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less
cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed
who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your
different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and
brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass
with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and
irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred
and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord
has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.
Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.
Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses
speak falsely?
And what do the Muses say next?
When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways:
the iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and
gold and silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money
but having the true riches in their own nature, inclined towards
virtue and the ancient order of things. There was a battle between
them, and at last they agreed to distribute their land and houses
among individual owners; and they enslaved their friends and
maintainers, whom they had formerly protected in the condition of
freemen, and made of them subjects and servants; and they themselves
were engaged in war and in keeping a watch against them.
I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change.
And the new government which thus arises will be of a form
intermediate between oligarchy and aristocracy?
Very true.
Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how
will they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between
oligarchy and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the
other, and will also have some peculiarities.
True, he said.
In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior
class from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the
institution of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics
and military training --in all these respects this State will resemble
the former.
True.
But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are
no longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed
elements; and in turning from them to passionate and less complex
characters, who are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in
the value set by them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and
in the waging of everlasting wars --this State will be for the most
part peculiar.
Yes.
Yes, I said; and men of this stamp will be covetous of money, like
those who live in oligarchies; they will have, a fierce secret longing
after gold and silver, which they will hoard in dark places, having
magazines and treasuries of their own for the deposit and
concealment of them; also castles which are just nests for their eggs,
and in which they will spend large sums on their wives, or on any
others whom they please.
That is most true, he said.
And they are miserly because they have no means of openly
acquiring the money which they prize; they will spend that which is
another man's on the gratification of their desires, stealing their
pleasures and running away like children from the law, their father:
they have been schooled not by gentle influences but by force, for
they have neglected her who is the true Muse, the companion of
reason and philosophy, and have honoured gymnastic more than music.
Undoubtedly, he said, the form of government which you describe is a
mixture of good and evil.
Why, there is a mixture, I said; but one thing, and one thing
only, is predominantly seen, --the spirit of contention and
ambition; and these are due to the prevalence of the passionate or
spirited element.
Assuredly, he said.
Such is the origin and such the character of this State, which has
been described in outline only; the more perfect execution was not
required, for a sketch is enough to show the type of the most
perfectly just and most perfectly unjust; and to go through all the
States and all the characters of men, omitting none of them, would
be an interminable labour.
Very true, he replied.
Now what man answers to this form of government-how did he come into
being, and what is he like?
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