In the main purpose of the Republic, therefore--to prove that the just man is happy in his justice, and the unjust miserable in his injustice, whatever supposition may be made as to consequent esteem or treatment from Gods or men--we cannot pronounce Plato to have succeeded. He himself indeed speaks with triumphant confidence of his own demonstration. Yet we find him at the close of the dialogue admitting that he had undertaken the defence of a position unnecessarily difficult. "I conceded to you" (he says) "for argument's sake that the just man should be accounted unjust, by Gods as well as men, and that the unjust man should be accounted just. But this is a concession which I am not called upon to make; for the real fact will be otherwise. I now compare the happiness of each, assuming that each has the reputation and the treatment which he merits from others. Under this supposition, the superior happiness of the just man over the unjust, is still more manifest and undeniable."[49] [Footnote 49: Plato, Republic, x. pp. 612-613.] Plato then proceeds to argue the case upon this hypothesis, which he affirms to be conformable to the reality. The just man will be well-esteemed and well-treated by men: he will also be favoured and protected by the Gods, both in this life and after this life. The unjust man, on the contrary, will be ill-esteemed and ill-treated by men: he will farther be disapproved and punished by the Gods, both while he lives and after his death. Perhaps for a time the just man may seem to be hardly dealt with and miserable the unjust man to be prosperous and popular but in the end, all this will be reversed.[50] [Footnote 50: Plato, Republic, x. p. 613.] The second line of argument is essentially different from the first. Plato dispatches it very succinctly, in two pages: while in trying to prove the first, and in working out the very peculiar comparison on which his proof rests, he had occupied the larger portion of this very long treatise. In the first line of argument, justice was recommended as implicated with happiness _per se_ or absolutely--_quand même_--to the agent: injustice was discouraged, as implicated with misery. In the second line, justice is recommended by reason of its happy ulterior consequences to the agent: injustice is dissuaded on corresponding grounds, by reason of its miserable ulterior consequences to the agent.