We have now to describe the despotic individual, the parallel of the despotised city. As the democratic individual arises from the son of an oligarchical citizen departing from the frugality of his father and contracting habits of costly indulgence: so the son of this democrat will contract desires still more immoderate and extravagant than his father, and will thus be put into training for the despotic character. He becomes intoxicated by insane appetites, which serve as seconds and auxiliaries to one despotic passion or mania, swaying his whole soul.[277] To gratify such desires, he spends all his possessions, and then begins to borrow money wherever he can. That resource being exhausted, he procures additional funds by fraud or extortion; he cheats and ruins his father and mother; he resorts to plunder and violence. If such men are only a small minority, amidst citizens of better character, they live by committing crimes on the smaller scale. But if they are more numerous, they set up as a despot the most unprincipled and energetic of their number, and become his agents for the enslavement of their fellow-citizens.[278] The despotic man passes his life always in the company of masters, or instruments, or flatterers: he knows neither freedom nor true friendship--nothing but the relation of master and slave. The despot is the worst and most unjust of mankind: the longer he continues despot, the worse he becomes.[279] [Footnote 277: Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 572-573 D. [Greek: E)/rôs tu/rannos e)/ndon oi)kô=n diakuberna=| ta\ tê=s psuchê=s a(/panta.] 574 E-575 A: [Greek: turanneuthei\s u(po\ E)/rôtos--E)/rôs mo/narchos], &c.] [Footnote 278: Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 574-575.] [Footnote 279: Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 575-576.] [Side-note: The city has thus passed by four stages, from best to worse. Question--How are Happiness and Misery apportioned among them?] We have thus gone through the four successive depravations which our perfect city will undergo--timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, despotism. Step by step we have passed from the best to the worst--from one extreme to the other. As is the city, so is the individual citizen--good or bad: the despotic city is like the despotic individual,--and so about the rest. Now it remains to decide whether in each case happiness and misery is proportioned to good and evil: whether the best is the happiest, the worst the most miserable,--and so proportionally about the intermediate.[280] On this point there is much difference of opinion.[281] [Footnote 280: Plato, Republic, ix. p. 576 D.] [Footnote 281: Plato, Republic, ix. p. 576 C. [Greek: toi=s de\ polloi=s polla\ kai\ dokei=.]] [Side-note: Misery of the despotised city.]