consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the
beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens
happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second
thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good
government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology,
Adeimantus is the respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest,
and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music and
gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers
the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of argument, and
who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over the question of women and
children. It is Adeimantus who is the respondent in the more
argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more imaginative portions
of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater part of the sixth
book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the conception of
the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. Glaucon resumes his
place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty in apprehending
the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits in the
course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the
allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious
State; in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues
to the end.
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive
stages of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden
time, who is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his
life by proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of
the Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher,
who know the sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them,
and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like
Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one
another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato,
is a single character repeated.