Justice -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800; Utopias -- Early works to 1800
If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just State, or the
man who is trained in the principles of such a State, will be less
likely than the unjust to make away with a deposit of gold or silver?
Would any one deny this?
No one, he replied.
Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or
treachery either to his friends or to his country?
Never.
Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or
agreements?
Impossible.
No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonour his
father and mother, or to fall in his religious duties?
No one.
And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business,
whether in ruling or being ruled?
Exactly so.
Are you satisfied then that the quality which makes such men and such
states is justice, or do you hope to discover some other?
Not I, indeed.
Then our dream has been realised; and the suspicion which we
entertained at the beginning of our work of construction, that some
divine power must have conducted us to a primary form of justice, has
now been verified?
Yes, certainly.
And the division of labour which required the carpenter and the
shoemaker and the rest of the citizens to be doing each his own
business, and not another's, was a shadow of justice, and for that
reason it was of use?
Clearly.
But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned
however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the
true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the
several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of
them to do the work of others,--he sets in order his own inner life,
and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and
when he has bound together the three principles within him, which may
be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the scale, and
the intermediate intervals--when he has bound all these together, and
is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly
adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act, if he has to act, whether in
a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some
affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling
that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition,
just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom,
and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust
action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.
You have said the exact truth, Socrates.
Very good; and if we were to affirm that we had discovered the just man
and the just State, and the nature of justice in each of them, we
should not be telling a falsehood?
Most certainly not.
May we say so, then?
Let us say so.
And now, I said, injustice has to be considered.
Clearly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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