Phaedrus — Plato

p. 353Likely ! Yes, he replied.

And when he has made the reasoning and passionate faculties sit on the ground obediently on either side, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of the method by which lesser sums may be converted into larger ones, and schools the other into the worship and admiration of riches and rich men ; no ambition will he tolerate except the ambition of getting rich and the means which lead to this.

Of all conversions, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as when the ambitious youth changes into the avaricious one. And the avaricious, I said, is the oligarchical youth? Yes, he said ; at any rate the individual out of whom he came is like the State out of which oligarchy came. Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First, then, they resemble one another in the value ^ which they set upon wealth ?

Certainly. Also in their penurious, laborious character ; the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites, and confines liis expenditure to them ; his other desires he subdues, under the idea that there is no use in them ? True. He is a shabby fellow, I said, who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself ; and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud. Is he not like the State which he represents ?

That would be my view of him, he replied ; at any rate, money is highly valued by him as well as by the State. Why, he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said ; had he been educated he would never have made a blind god director of his chorus, or given him chief honor. ^^ Excellent ! I said.

Yet consider this : Will there not be »> Plutus, god of wealth (identified with Hades or Pluto, god of the lower world) : according to one myth blinded by Zeus in order that he might distribute his wealth impartially. Jowett paraphrases the passage thus : " He would never have allowed the Wind god of riches to lead the dance within him." as 2p. 354found in him, owing to his want of cultivation, dronelike desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life ? True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogueries ? Where must I look ?

Let him be the guardian of an orphan, or have some other great opportunity of acting dishonestly, and then he will show that, in sustaining the reputation of uprightness wWch attaches to him in his dealings generally, he coerces his other bad passions by an effort of virtue ; not that he convinces them of evil, or exerts over them the gentle influence of reason, but he acts upon them by necessity and fear, and because he trembles for his possessions.

That is clear. Yes, indeed, I said, my dear friend, you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same, whenever he has the spending of another's goods. No mistake about that. This sort of man, then, will be at war with himself; he will be two men, and not one ; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True.

For these reasons such an one will be more decent than many are ; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will be far out of his reach. That I believe.

And surely, in his private capacity, the miser will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honorable ambition ; he is too much ^^^ afraid of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle ; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true.

Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and moneymaker answers to the oligarchical State ? Certainly not. Next comes democracy and the democratical man : the 3p. 355origin and nature of them we have still to learn, that we may compare the individual and the State, and so pronounce upon them.

That, he said, is our method. |k Well, I said, is not this the way in which the change from oligarchy into democracy arises? — they are insatiable of wealth which they propose to themselves as their end ; and the rulers, who are aware that their own power rests upon property, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because they will gain by their ruin ; they lend them money, and buy them out of their land, and grow in wealth and honor ?

Exactly. There can be no doubt that in a State you cannot have in the citizens the love of wealth and the spirit of moderation ; one or the other will have to be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in oligarchical States, from carelessness and the indulgence of their extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary ? Yes, often.

And still they remain in the city ; there they are, and they have stings and arms, and some of them owe money, some are no longer citizens ^^ : a third class are in both predicaments, and they hate and conspire against those who have got their property, and anybody else, and are eager for revolution. That is true.

On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and pretending never so much as to see those whom they have already ruined, insert the sting — that is, their money — into anybody else who is not on his guard against them, and recover the parent or principal sum many times over multiplied into a family of children : this is the way in which they make drone and pauper to abound in the State.

Yes, he said, there are plenty of them, that is cer- ^ tain. "^ The evil is like a fire which is blazing up, and which they will not extinguish either by placing restriction on the disposition of property or — What is the other solution of the difficulty ? >* Literally some are dishonored, i,e., officiaUy deprived of cStiieiialilpu