money, in which the just man is more useful than others? _P._--He is useful when you wish to have your money safely kept. _S._--That is, when your money is not to be employed, but to lie idle: so that when your money is useless, then is the time when justice is useful for it. _P._--So it seems. _S._--In regard to other things also, a sickle, a shield, a lyre when you want to use them, the pruner, the hoplite, the musician, must be invoked as co-operators: justice is useful only when you are to keep them unused. In a word, justice is useless for the use of any thing, and useful merely for things not in use. Upon this showing, it is at least a matter of no great worth.[7] [Footnote 5: Plato, Republic, i. p. 332 D. [Greek: ê( ou)=n dê\ ti/si ti/ a)podidou=sa te/chnê dikaiosu/nê a)\n kaloi=to?]] [Footnote 6: Plato, Republic, i. p. 332 E. [Greek: o( di/kaios e)n ti/ni pra/xei kai\ pro\s ti/ e)/rgon dunatô/tatos phi/lous ô)phelei=n kai\ e)chthrou\s bla/ptein?]] [Footnote 7: Plat. Repub. i. pp. 332-333. 333 E: [Greek: Ou)k a)\n ou)=n pa/nu ge/ ti spoudai=on ei)/ê ê( dikaiosu/nê, ei) pro\s ta\ a)/chrêsta chrê/simon o)\n tugcha/nei?]] [Side-note: The just man, being good for keeping property guarded, must also be good for stealing property--Analogies cited.] But let us pursue the investigation (continues Sokrates). In boxing or in battle, is not he who is best in striking, best also in defending himself? In regard to disease, is not he who can best guard himself against it, the most formidable for imparting it to others? Is not the general who watches best over his own camp, also the most effective in surprising and over-reaching the enemy? In a word, whenever a man is effective as a guard of any thing, is he not also effective as a thief of it? _P._--Such seems the course of the discussion. _S._--Well then, the just man turns out to be a sort of thief, like the Homeric Autolykus. According to the explanation of Simonides, justice is a mode of thieving, for the profit of friends and damage of enemies.[8] _P._--It cannot be so. I am in utter confusion. Yet I think still that justice is profitable to friends, and hurtful to enemies. [Footnote 8: Plat. Repub. i. p. 334 B. [Greek: e)/oiken ou)=n ê( dikaiosu/nê . . . kleptikê/ tis ri)=nai, e)p' ô)phelei/a| me/ntoi tô=n phi/lôn, kai\ e)pi\ bla/bê| tô=n e)chthrô=n.]] [Side-note: Justice consists in doing good to friends, evil to enemies--But how, if a man mistakes who his friends are, and makes friends of bad men?]