Phaedrus — Plato

p. 259Charming ! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is good. These gentlemen, I said, do not seem to be in your good graces ? No, indeed. Nor would a State which acts like them stand high in your estimation.

And are not ill-governed States like them, which begin by proclaiming to their citizens that no one, under penalty of death, shall alter the constitution of the State, while he who conforms to their politics and most sweetly serves them, who indulges them and fawns upon them and has a presentiment of their wishes, and is skillful in gratifying them, he is esteemed as their good man, and the wise and mighty one who is to be held in honor by them ?

Yes, he said ; the States are as bad as the men ; and I am far from approving them. But do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption ? Yes, he said, that I do ; but not of all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen, and they are not much to be admired. What do you mean ?

I said ; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing them ? He cannot.

Well, then, do not be angry with them ; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at legislation, and always fancying that by reforming they will make an end of the dishonesties and rascalities of mankind, not knowing that they are in reality cutting away the heads of a hydra ? ^ Yes, he said ; that is a very just description of them. ^ I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with enactments of this sort in an ill-ordered any more than in a well ordered State ; for in the former they are useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in inventing them, and many of them will naturally flow out of our institutions. * In Greek mythology, a monstrous water-serpent with many heads, each of which, if cut off, was succeeded by two others.

p. 260What, then, he said, is still remaining to us of the work of legislation ? Nothing to us, I replied ; but to Apollo, the god of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest of all.

What is that ? he said. f The institution of temples and sacrifices, and in general the service of gods, demigods, and heroes ; also the ordering of the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed in order to propitiate the inhabitants of the world , below. For these are matters of which we are ignorant, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting to any interpreter but our ancestral deity.

He is the god who sits in ' the centre, on the navel of the earth, and interprets them to lall mankind.* You are right, he said ; we will do as you propose. !gut where, amid ^11 this, is justice? Son of Ariston, tell me where.

Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus, and the rest of our friends, to help, and let us see whether we can discover the place of justice and injustice, and discern the difference between them, and find out which of them the man who would be happy should have as his portion, whether perceived or unperceived by gods and men.

Nonsense, said Glaucon ; did you not promise to search yourself, saying that to desert justice in her need would be an impiety ? Very true, I said ; and as you remind me, I will be as good as my word ; but you must join. That we will, he replied. ( Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way. I mean to proceed by a method of residues, beginning with the flj^nmptinn that Our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect, u^hat is most certain.

1^ And being perfect, our State is wjse and valiant and tom- Iperate and jyst. ^^ That is also clear. » It was customary to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi (see Apology, note 12), about the founding of cities. " Delphi, or rather a round stone in the Delphic temple, was called navel, as marking the middle point of .the earth." (L. andS.)j

THE REPUBLIO 261 And of whatever is known, that which is unknown will bej: the residue ; this is the next step. Very good. ^ Suppose the number of terms to be four, and we were ^ searching for one of them, that one might be known to us at first, and there would be no further trouble ; or, if we knew the other three first, and could eliminate them, then the fourth would clearly be the remainder. Very true, he said.

And is not this the method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number ? Clearly. Firet among the virtues found in the State wis4pm comes^ 1 into view, and in this I detect a certain pecuji^ity. / What is that ? ' The State that we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel : that is true? Yes. And good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge, for not by ignorance, but by knowledge, do men counsel well ?

Clearly. And the kinds of knowledge in a State are many and diverse? Of course. There is the knowledge of the carpenter ; but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel ? Certainly not ; that would only give a city the reputation of skill in carpentering. Then a city is not to be called wise because possessed of knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements? Certainly not.

Nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen implements, I said, nor as possessing any other similar knowledge? Not by reason of any of them, he said. Nor by reason of agricultural knowledge ; that would give the city the name of agriculture ? Yes, that is what I should suppose. Well, I said, and is. ther^ any knowledge in our recently-