The works of Plato · Plato
ARGUMENT.
The mode of rightly governing a state having been duly set forth, Plato in the _eighth book_ treats of the bad government which he had previously designated as ἀδικία. Having mentioned then three principal forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, he shows in this and also the following book the excesses and defects peculiar to each. He considers these faults in two lights; first, as affecting the manners of _the citizens individually_; and, secondly, those of the state collectively. Aristocracy, says he, is apt to verge into oligarchy,—democracy into ochlarchy, and monarchy into τιμαρχία and tyranny. The two former classes only are treated in this book. CHAP. I.—Well then, Glaucon, these things have been agreed on, that in a state that is to be perfectly administered the women are to be in common, the children in common, and their education also,—so likewise their employments both in war and peace in common, and their kings the best possible both in philosophy and warfare. It has been so agreed, he replied. And this, moreover, we agreed on, that when the commanders are appointed and leading their soldiers, they should dwell in habitations, such as we have described, containing nothing particularly belonging to any individual, but common to all; and besides these habitations, we agreed also, if you recollect, as to their possessions, to what sort they should be entitled. Aye, I recollect, said he, that we thought them entitled to no possessions whatever, like the other citizens, but that, like military wrestlers and guardians, they should receive the yearly pay of their service in maintenance provided by the rest, and should take care both of themselves and the rest of the state. You say rightly, said I:—but come,—since we have settled these matters, let us recollect from what point we made this digression, in order that we may again take up the same argument.
No hard matter, said he;—for you were pursuing much about the same argument respecting the state, as you did just now, when saying that you considered such a state to be good as you then described, and the individual man also analogous thereto,—and this, too, as it seems, when you were able to define both a better state and a better man. You said, moreover, that all the rest were wrong, if this were right;—and of the other kinds of states you said, I remember, that four were deserving of consideration, with the view of seeing the errors therein and the people thereto corresponding,—in order that by seeing all these and deciding on the best and worst man, we might inquire whether the best be the happiest, and the worst the most wretched or otherwise:—and when I inquired which were the four kinds of states to which you referred, on this Polemarchus and Adimantus interrupted us;[228] and so now resuming the subject you have arrived at this point. You have recollected it, said I, with great accuracy. Once more then, like a wrestler, furnish me with the same handle; and when I ask the same question, try to say just what you were then about to tell me. Aye, said I, if I can.
CHAP. II.—Do you know, then, said I, that of men there are as many descriptions as of states?—or do you think that states, somehow or other, spring out of an oak or a rock, and not out of the habits of those in the state, whither, indeed, everything else must verge and be attracted? I, for my part, think it is derived from no other source than that. In that case, if there be five kinds of states, the intellectual distinctions of the individuals will be five likewise. Of course. As for the person then, who resembles an aristocracy, we have already described him, and rightly pronounced him to be both good and just. Aye, we have described him. Are we then, in the next place, to argue about the inferior,—the contentious and ambitious man formed according to the Spartan model, and him again, who resembles an oligarchy, or a democracy, or a tyranny, in order that we may contemplate the most unjust, and contrast him with the most just, and thus our inquiry may be complete, how unmingled justice stands in opposition to unmingled injustice, as respects the happiness or misery of its possessor,—thus either pursuing injustice in compliance with Thrasymachus’s suggestion, or else justice in compliance with our present argument? We must do so, by all means, said he. Are we then, just as we began, to consider moral habits in states primarily, or rather in private individuals, as being there more clearly developed; and now must we not thus first consider the ambitious republic (for I cannot call it by any other term, but only denominate it a timocracy or a timarchy), and in connexion with it an individual of the same character,—then again an oligarchy and a man of oligarchical character,—and so also, when considering a democracy, must we contemplate a democratic person,—and, fourthly, coming to a state governed by a tyrant, consider a person of tyrannical disposition;—thus trying to become competent judges about what we proposed? According to reason, indeed, such should be both our view and decision.
CHAP. III.—Come then, said I;—let us try to show in what way a timocracy arises out of an aristocracy:—is it not plain, at any rate, that every government changes through the agency of that portion which holds the public offices, whenever sedition arises in that particular part; whereas, if it only agree with itself, however small the state, it cannot possibly be disturbed? Such is the case. How then, Glaucon, said I, will our state be disturbed and how will our allies and rulers fall into quarrels with each other and amongst themselves:—do you wish, like Homer, that we implore the muses to tell us how first sedition rose, and address them in tragic fashion, as if we were children, playing and jesting, so to speak, with seriousness uttering lofty language? How so?
Somehow thus:—it is hard indeed for a state thus constituted to become disturbed;—but, as everything generated is liable to corruption, not even such a constitution as this can abide for ever, but must be dissolved:—and its dissolution is as follows.—Not only as regards terrestrial plants, but likewise terrestrial animals, a fertility and sterility both of soul and body take place, when the revolutions of the heavenly bodies complete the periphery of their respective orbits, which are shorter to the shorter-lived, and contrariwise to the contrary: and with reference to the fertility and sterility of your race, though those are wise whom you have trained as governors of the state, yet they will never, by intellect and sense united, observe the proper season for procreation, but let it slip by, and sometimes generate children when they ought not.—To that, however, which is divinely generated, there is a period which is comprehended by the perfect number; whereas, to that generated by man, there is one, in which the augmentations, both surpassing and surpassed, after having received three separations and four boundaries of things similar and dissimilar, increasing and decreasing, will render all things correspondent and rational;—of which the sesquiternian root, conjoined with the pentad and thrice increased, affords two harmonies,—one of these, the equally equal, just a hundred times as much;—while the other, of equal length indeed, but of oblong shape, is of a hundred numbers from effable diameters of the pentad, each wanting one, two of which are irrational and of a hundred cubes of the triad.—And the whole of this geometric number is, having such an influence, concerned with worse and better generations.[229] Now, if our governors be ignorant of this, and join our couples together unseasonably, the children will neither possess talent, nor be fortunate either; and though former governors should have placed the best of them in office, nevertheless as they are unworthy of it, and only come into the power which their fathers had, they will begin to neglect us in their guardianship, holding music first of all, and then gymnastics in less esteem than they ought, and hence our young men will become too little disposed to music;—in consequence of which the governors to be appointed from among them will not be very clever guardians, as respects proving, according to Hesiod and ourselves, what are the several species of talents, the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron.
Where iron, however, mingles with silver, and brass with gold, then there arises a dissimilitude and unharmonious unevenness;—(and when this is the case, wherever it prevails, it perpetually generates war and hatred;)—we must say that sedition belongs to such a race as this, whenever it arises. Aye,—and we shall say that the answer was correctly given, replied he. Aye, and it must be so too, said I—as they are Muses. What then, said he, do the Muses say next? Sedition having once arisen, said I, two classes of genius,—the iron and the brazen, will be allured to gain, and the acquisition of land and houses, gold and silver,—while the golden and silver, not being in poverty but naturally rich, will lead souls to virtue and their original constitution; whereas, should they be violent and strive one against the other, they would agree to divide their lands and houses as individual possessions; and then, enslaving those formerly guarded by them as freemen, friends, and tutors, keep them as denizens and slaves, themselves providing for war and their own protection. This revolution, said he, seems to me to have just this origin. Will not then this government, said I, be a medium between aristocracy and oligarchy? Certainly. ----- Footnote 229: This passage, descriptive of the geometric or fatal number, has baffled the ingenuity of every commentator. Any literal translation is little better than nonsense, and any explanation would be too long for a mere note. The views of Baroccius, Schneider, &c. are given in a dissertation at the end of the volume;—but they are all far from satisfactory.
And such as these, said I, will ever be lovers of wealth, just like those in oligarchies, and will have a wild though disguised love for gold and silver, as if they possessed treasuries of their own and domestic storehouses in which to hoard and hide them,—and circularly-enclosed houses also,—nests as it were wholly their own, in which they can lose and spend much, together with their own wives and such others as they fancy. Most true, said he. Well then,—will they not from their love of wealth be sparing of it also, though not openly acquiring it, but disposed to squander other people’s property through lustful desire and secret indulgence in pleasure;—just as children escaping from parental law, who have been brought up not by persuasion but force, owing to their neglect of the true muse, which unites reasoning and philosophy and the preference also which they give to gymnastics over music? It is quite a mixed government, said he, of which you are now speaking,—compounded of good and ill. Aye, mixed indeed, said I:—but the most remarkable thing in it is what simply arises from the prevalence of high spirit,—contention and ambition. Aye, just so, said he. Such then is the origin and character of this form of government, if one may ideally sketch it without giving a complete description,—though enough for us to see from this sketch,—who is the just and the unjust man; and it were a work of tedious length to argue on all governments and all the various manners of men without any exception whatever. Quite right, said he.
CHAP. V.—What then will the individual be, who corresponds to this form of government;—how did he become so: and what is his nature? I think indeed, said Adimantus, he has a tendency to be like this Glaucon here, as far at least as concerns the love of contention. Perhaps so, said I, as to this particular;—but I think, that in these respects he cannot at all resemble him. How? He must necessarily, said I, be more self-willed, and somewhat unapt to music, though fond of it; and fond of hearing, but by no means a rhetorician:—such an one will be rough towards the slaves, without despising them, as the man does who is fairly educated. He will be polite towards the free, submissive to governors, a lover of dominion and honour,—not thinking it proper to govern by eloquence or anything of the kind, but by political management and military achievements, being a lover of gymnastics and hunting. This indeed, said he, is the spirit of that form of government. And will not such an one, said I, despise money during his youth, but the older he grows, always value it the more, because he partakes of the covetous disposition, and is not sincerely affected towards virtue, because destitute of the best guardian? Of what guardian? said Adimantus.
Reason, said I, accompanied with music, which being the only inbred preservative of virtue, dwells with the possessor through the whole of life. You say well, he replied. And surely the timocratic youth, said I, resembles such a state. Certainly. And such an one, said I, is somehow thus formed.—He may happen perhaps to be the youthful son of a worthy father, dwelling in an ill-governed state, and shunning public honours, magisterial offices, lawsuits, and all such public business, content to live neglected in obscurity, that he may have no trouble. In what manner then, said he, is he formed? First of all, said I, when he hears his mother complaining that her husband is not in magisterial office, and that she is on this account neglected among other women, and then sees that he is not over attentive to the acquisition of wealth, and does not wrangle and quarrel privately and publicly in the law courts, but on all these occasions acts indolently;—and when she perceives him always attentive to himself, and treating her neither with extreme respect nor contempt;—on all these accounts, she is filled with indignation, and tells her son that his father is unmanly, extremely careless, and whatever else wives are wont to chant about such matters.
Aye,—many things, truly, said Adimantus, and quite in accordance with their spirit.—And you know, said I, that the domestics likewise of such families, such of them as would be thought good-natured, sometimes say privately the very same to the sons; and if they see either a debtor whom the father does not sue, or any one otherwise acting unjustly, they exhort him to punish all such persons when he comes to manhood, and to be more of a man than his father.—And when he goes abroad, he hears other such-like things, and sees also that such in the state as attend to their own affairs are called simple, and held in little esteem, while such as do not attend to their affairs are both honoured and commended.—The youth then who hears and sees all this, and then again hears his father’s speeches, and closely observes his pursuits in contrast with those of others, is drawn in two opposite directions,—his father irrigating and promoting the growth of his rational part, and the others his passions and high spirit;—and so, being not naturally bad, but spoiled only by evil connexion with others, he is brought to a mean between both and delivers up the government within himself to a middle power,—the love of contention and high spirit:—and so he becomes a haughty and ambitious man.
I think, said he, you have quite correctly explained the training of such a person.—We have here then, said I, the second form of government and the second individual. Aye,—we have, said he. CHAP. VI.—Shall we not then after this say with Æschylus,— Where state to state,—then each to each incline;— or rather, shall we, according to our plan, establish the state first? Certainly, he replied. It would be an oligarchy then, methinks, that would succeed such a government as this. But what constitution is it, said he, that you call an oligarchy? That government, said I, which is founded on the estimate of men’s property;—in which the rich rule, and the poor have no share in the government. Aye,—I understand, said he. Should we not, first of all explain, how the change is made from a timocracy to an oligarchy? We should. And surely the way, in which this change is made, said I, is manifest even to the blind! How? That treasury, said I, which each one fills with gold destroys such a state; for, first of all, they discover for themselves modes of expense, for which they set aside the laws,—both themselves and their wives disobeying them. Very likely, said he, and afterwards, I think, when one observes another, and enters into rivalry, the people generally become of this character. It is likely.
And thence then, said I, as they advance in the intensity of the desire for acquiring wealth, the more honourable they account this, the more dishonourable will they deem virtue;—for is not virtue so at variance with wealth, that, supposing each to be placed at the opposite end of a balance, they would always weigh the one against the other? Justly so, he replied. While wealth then and the wealthy are honoured in the state, both virtue and good men must necessarily be held in dishonour? It is plain. And what is honoured is always pursued, while what is dishonoured is neglected? Just so. Instead then of being contentious and ambitious men, they have at last become lovers of gain and wealth;—and the rich they praise and admire, elevating them to the magistracy, while the poor man they quite despise. Certainly. And do they not enact laws, marking out the boundary of the oligarchal constitution, and regulating the quantity of oligarchal power by the quantity of wealth,—allotting more to the more wealthy and less to those less so, intimating that he who has not the amount settled by law can have no share in the government;—and do they not settle these matters compulsorily, by force of arms, establishing such a state after previous intimidation?—Is it not thus? Aye, indeed.
This then, so to speak, is its constitution? Yes, replied he. What then is the nature of the government, and what are the faults thereto ascribed? First of all, said I, of this very thing, the constitution itself, what think you?—for consider, if a person were thus to appoint pilots of ships, by the amount of their property never intrusting one of them with a poor man, though better skilled in piloting,—what would then be the consequence? They would make a very bad voyage, he replied. And is it not the same about any other matter, or any presiding office whatever? I think so. Is it always so, except in a state, said I; or is it so as regards a state likewise? There, beyond all others, said he; inasmuch as it is the most difficult, and most important kind of government. Oligarchy then would seem to have this unquestionably very great fault. So it seems. But what;—is this no less a fault? What? That such a state is not integrally one, but necessarily two; one containing the poor, and the other the rich, dwelling in one place and always plotting against one another. By Zeus, said he, not a whit less;—and this besides is a fine thing,—the incapacity of waging war, through the necessity, either of employing the armed multitude, who are to be dreaded more than the enemy themselves, or else refusing to employ them at all, and so appearing quite oligarchical in battle,—being unwilling also to advance money for the public service, through a natural disposition to covetousness? This is not well. What then;—with reference to what we long ago condemned,—engaging in a variety of pursuits, the same persons in such a state giving their attendance all at once to agriculture, money-making, and military affairs; does this seem right? Not at all, of course.
CHAP. VII.—Let us see, then,—does this form of government above all others introduce this greatest of all evils? What is that? The permission to each person of selling the whole of his effects, and to another of purchasing them from him, and the privilege to the seller of dwelling in our state, though he belongs to no one class therein, and can be called neither a money-maker, nor mechanic, nor horseman, nor foot-soldier, but poor and destitute. Yes, above all others, he replied. Such a thing is not prevented in oligarchal governments; for, in that case some of them would not be over-rich, and others altogether poor. Right. But consider this likewise;—when such a rich man as this spends his property, would it do the state any more service, as regards the objects just mentioned; or did he only seem to be one of the magistrates, while in truth he was neither magistrate nor servant to the state, but only a consumer of its substance? Aye,—he did seem so, he replied;—he was nothing but a consumer. Do you desire, then, said I, that we should say of him, that, as a drone in a beehive brings ailment among the whole swarm, just so, such a person as this, like a drone in his house, is the ailment of a state?
Quite so, Socrates, he replied. And has not God, Adimantus, made all the winged drones without any sting,—and those that have feet, some without stings, and some with dreadful stings?—And do not those that are without stings continue poor to old age:—whereas those that have stings, are those that we called mischievous? Most true, said he. It is plain then, said I, that in a state where you would observe poor people, there are doubtless concealed thieves, cutpurses, sacrilegious persons, and workers of all such evils. Evidently so, said he. What then? Do not you find poor people in states that are placed under oligarchal government? Almost all are so, said he, except the governors themselves. And do we not think, said I, that they contain within them many mischievous persons with stings, whom the magistrates must restrain by vigilance and compulsory measures? We do indeed think so, said he. And must we not say, that it is through want of education, bad nurture, and a corrupt constitution of state, that persons of this character are here engendered? Yes we must. Well then, is not the state oligarchally governed when under an oligarchy of this character; and is it not affected by all these evils, and probably more too? It is nearly so, said he. Let us distinguish then this form of government likewise, said I, which they call oligarchy, as one having its governors [elected] according to the valuation of their property.
CHAP. VIII.—Next let us consider the man who is analogous to this [form of government,] how he is formed and what is his character. By all means, said he. Is it not thus then chiefly that the individual man changes from the timocratic to the oligarchic form? How? When such an one has a son, he, first of all, emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards, when he sees him suddenly dashed on the state [like a ship] on a rock, squandering his property and ruining himself, either at the head of the army, or in some other high magisterial office,—then falling into the law-courts, ruined by public informers, and either put to death, or exiled, and stripped of his honours and entire property. It is likely, said he.
Aye, my friend, and after seeing and suffering this, and losing his property, he instantly, through fear, I think, pushes headlong from the throne within his soul, his ambitious, lofty temper, and at length, humbled by poverty, turns his attention to gain, lives meanly and sparingly, and by hard labour acquires wealth;—do you not think that such a man will seat on that throne in his soul a covetous and money-loving spirit, making it a mighty king within himself, and girding it, as it were, with tiaras, and bracelets, and sceptres? I think so, said he. But, as for the principles of reason and high spirit, having laid them both at his feet on either side as mere slaves, he forbids the one to reason at all, or at any rate to inquire into aught else, except by what means a smaller amount of property can be made greater; and the other, again, to admire and honour anything but riches and the rich, and to receive honour with any other view than the acquisition of money, or whatever else may tend thereto. There is no change, said he, so sudden and powerful as that of an ambitious to an avaricious man. Is not this, then, said I, the oligarchic man? Aye—the change which he undergoes is from a person who resembles that government from which oligarchy arises. Shall we consider, now, if he does at all resemble it? Let us consider.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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