Plato with his usual acumen foresaw the possibility of this development, and was careful to provide for it within the bounds of Thrasymachus’ formula. All that it is necessary to do if we wish to apply the formula to a democracy is to invert it; for ‘stronger’ read ‘weaker’, and the formula remains unaltered. The practicability of this inversion is demonstrated by one Callicles, in the Dialogue called _Gorgias_. Most men are stupid, irresolute, apathetic, mediocre, timid, and unimaginative. The qualities implied by these epithets, though discernible at all times, force themselves most pressingly upon the attention when men act together. Take a sheep and stand it on its hind legs and its resemblance to a human being is scarcely noticeable; but stand a flock of sheep on their hind legs and, so far as psychology and behaviour go, you have a crowd of men. In other words, taken severally men may be individuals; taken together they are a mere transmitting medium for herd emotion. Their individual stupidities are added together, but their individual wisdoms cancel out. In a democracy, says Callicles, the common men are the more numerous, they also possess the power; acting, therefore, in accordance with their natures, they make the laws which their natures demand. Now it is natural for every man to wish to obtain as much as he can. It is also inevitable that in a state of nature the stronger should obtain more than the weaker. Hence the weaker, acting in self-defence, so frame the laws that the endeavour of one individual to obtain more than the many is stigmatized as unjust. Hence justice, or morality, which is now revealed as the interest of the individually weaker but collectively stronger, may be regarded as their device for depriving the stronger of the preponderance of good things, which the strongers’ superior talents would naturally procure for them.