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They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer
injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so
when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience
of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they
think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither;
hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is
ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to
be the origin and nature of justice; --it is a mean or compromise,
between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished,
and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power
of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the
two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and
honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man
who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an
agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such
is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of
justice.
Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and
because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we
imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and
the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither
desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just
and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their
interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only
diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty
which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the
form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges the
ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges
was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a
great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the
place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he
descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a
hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in
saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and
having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the
dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to
custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks
to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his
finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet
of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the
rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no
longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring
he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials
of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet
inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he
contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the
court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with
her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the
kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the
just put on one of them and the unjust the other;,no man can be
imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in
justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when
he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into
houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from
prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust;
they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may
truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly
or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but
of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be
unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that
injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and
he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are
right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming
invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's,
he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot,
although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up
appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer
injustice. Enough of this.
Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and
unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the
isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely
unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away
from either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the
work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other
distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician,
who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits,
and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So
let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie
hidden if he means to be great in his injustice (he who is found out
is nobody): for the highest reach of injustice is: to be deemed just
when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man
we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no
deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to
have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken
a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who
can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who
can force his way where force is required his courage and strength,
and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the
just man in his nobleness and simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus
says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if
he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and then we shall
not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of
honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only,
and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life
the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be
thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we
shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its
consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being
just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost
extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment
be given which of them is the happier of the two.
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