Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 209/ either believe both or neither. And if we believe them, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice ; for if we are just we shall indeed escape the ven- ^^ geance of heaven, but we shall lose the gains of injustice ; /-^ whereas, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our I sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be \ propitiated, and we shall be forgiven.
'* But there is a world .^ below in which either we or our children will suffer for our deeds.*' Yes, my friend, will be the reply, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare ; and the children of the gods, who are their poets and prophets, affirm the same.
On what principle, then, shall we choose justice rather than the worst injustice? when, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, here as well as hereafter, as say the most numerous and the highest authorities.
Knowing all this, Socrates, how can any one who has any advantage of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honor, or indeed refrain from laughing at the praises of justice ?
For even if there should be any one who is able to disprove my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust ; he is very ready to forgive them, knowing as he also does that men are not just of their own free will ; unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him has inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who abstains because he has found knowledge — ^but no other man.
He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, is incapable of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that those who are inqapable, when they have the power, and in as far as they have the power, are the first to be unjust. Now all this simply arises out of the circumstance which you may remember, Socrates, that my brother and I both mentioned to you at the beginning of the argument.
We told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice — beginning with the heroes of old, of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time — ^no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honors, and benefits which flow from them. No one has evar 14 p. 210adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either of these immanent in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man*s soul which he has within him, justice is the great- ^ est good, and injustice the greatest evil. /Had this been ' the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from our youth upwards, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another from doing wrong, but every one would have been his own watchman, because afraid, if he did wrong, of having the greatest evil dwelling with him.
I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been only repeating, and more of the same sort about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature.
But I am speaking with all my might, as I must confess, only because I want to hear you speak on the opposite side ; and I would ask you to show not only the superiority of justice over injustice, but what they do to the possessors of them that makes the one to be a good and the other an evil to him.^^ And please, as Glaucon said, to exclude reputation ; for unless you clothe the just in the garb of injustice, and the unjust in that of justice, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of justice ; we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another's good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man's own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker.
Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired as well for their results as, in a far greater degree, for their own sakes — ^just as sight or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional goods, are desired for their own sakes — I would ask you to direct your praises to that one point only : I mean to the essential good oif justice and evil of injustice.
Let others praise the rewards and appearances of justice ; that is a manner of arguing which, as coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in thinking of this, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that " •• The labour of the righteous tendeth to life ; the fruit of the wicked to sin." — Proverbs x. i6.
p. 211justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessors of them, which makes the one to be good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.
I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but when I heard this I was quite charmed, and said : That was not a bad beginning of the Elegiacs ^^ in ^^ which the admirer of Glaucon addressed you as your father's sons after you had distinguished yourselves at the battle of Megara^^. — - ** Sons of Ariston, divine offspring of a glorious hero.'* The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in being able to argue as you have done for the superiority of injustice, and remaining uninfluenced by your own arguments.
And I do believe that you are not influenced ; this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, trusting you, I have all the greater mistrust of myself.
For I am in a strait between two ; on the one hand I feel my own inability to maintain the cause of justice — your unwillingness to accept the answer which I made to Thrasymachus about the superiority of justice over injustice proves to me that I am unequal to the task ; and yet on the other hand I cannot refuse to help, for 1 fear that there may be a sin when justice is evil spoken of in standing by and failing to oflfer help or succor while breath or speech remain to me.
And therefore I must give such help as I can. Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the search would be no easy one, and would require very good eyes.
Seeing then, I said, we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which might be recommended to those who are short-sighted, and are bidden by some one to read small letters a long way off; one " Refers merely to the metre, not the subject of the poem from which the quotation is made. I'lt is uncertain which of the many battles fought at Megara is here referred to.
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