"When we find that the case is thus stated respecting justice, both by its panegyrists and by its enemies--that the former extol it only from the reputation which it procures, and that the latter promise to the unjust man, if clever and energetic, a higher recompense than any such reputation can obtain for him--what effect can we expect to be produced on the minds of young men of ability, station, and ambition? What course of life are they likely to choose? Surely they will thus reason: A just life is admitted to be burdensome--and it will serve no purpose, unless I acquire, besides, the reputation of justice in the esteem of others. Now the unjust man, who can establish such reputation, enjoys the perfection of existence. My happiness turns not upon the reality, but upon the seeming: upon my reputation with others.[36] Such reputation then it must be my aim to acquire. I must combine the real profit of injustice with the outside show and reputation of justice. Such combination is difficult: but all considerable enterprises are difficult: I must confederate with partisans to carry my point by force or fraud. If I succeed, I attain the greatest prize to which man can aspire. I may be told that the Gods will punish me; but the same poets, who declare the existence of the Gods, assure me also that they are placable by prayer and sacrifice: and the poets are as good authority on the one point as on the other.[37] Such" (continues Adeimantus) "will be the natural reasoning of a powerful, energetic, aspiring, man. How can we expect that such a man should prefer justice, when the rewards of injustice on its largest scale are within his reach?[38] Unless he be averse to injustice, from some divine peculiarity of disposition--or unless he has been taught to abstain from it by the acquisition of knowledge,--he will treat the current encomiums on justice as ridiculous. No man is just by his own impulse. Weak men or old men censure injustice, because they have not force enough to commit it with success: which is proved by the fact than any one of them who acquires power, immediately becomes unjust as far as his power reaches. [Footnote 36: Plat. Rep. ii. pp. 365 E, 366 A.] [Footnote 37: Plat. Rep. ii. p. 365 B-D.] [Footnote 38: Plat. Rep. ii. p. 366 B-D.] [Side-note: Nobody recommends Justice _per se_, but only by reason of its consequences.]