The Republic — Plato
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I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds?
Nay, he said, in that case injustice, if fatal to the unjust, will not be so very terrible to him, for he will be delivered from evil. But I rather suspect the opposite to be the truth, and that injustice which, if it have the power, will murder others, keeps the murderer alive — aye, and well awake, too; so far removed is her dwelling-place from being a house of death.
True, I said ; if the inherent natural vice or evil of the soul is unable to kill or destroy her, hardly will that which is appointed to be the destruction of some other body, destroy a soul or anything else except that of which it was appointed to be the destruction. Yes, that can hardly be. But the soul which cannot be destroyed by an evil, whether inherent or external, must exist forever, and, if existing forever, must be immortal ? Certainly.
That is the conclusion, I said ; and, if a true conclusion, then the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number. Neither will they increase, for the increase of the immortal natures must come from something mortal, and all things would thus end in immortality. Very true.
But this vv^e cannot believe — reason will not allow us — any more than we can believe the soul, in her truest nature, to be full of variety and difiference and dissimilarity. What do you mean ? he said. The soul, I said, being, as is now proven, immortal, must be the fairest of compositions and cannot be compounded of many elements? Certainly not.
Her immortality is demonstrated by the previous argument, and there are many other proofs ; but to see her as she really is, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with the body and other miseries, you must contemplate her with the eye of reason, in her original purity ; and then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the things which we have described will be manifested more clearly.
Thus far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present, but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken of¥ and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and incrustations have grown over them of sca-weed and shells and stones, so that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form.
And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look. Where, then ? At her love of wisdom.
Let us see whom she affects, and what society and converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal and eternal and divine ; also how different she would become if, wholly following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things in this life as they are termed : then you would see her as she is, and know whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is.
Of her affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think that we have now said enough. f True, he replied. And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument ; ^ we have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod ; but justice in her own nature has been shown to be the best for the soul in her own nature.
Let a man do what ig just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades. Very true. And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in fin-ther enumerating how many and how great are the rewards which jus- ' Reading direAuo-o^efla.
tice and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death. Certainly not, he said. Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument? What did I borrow ?
The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. Do you remember? I should be much to blame if I had forgotten.
Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice that the estimation in which she is held by gods and men and which we acknowledge to be her due should now be restored to her by us ; ^ since she has been shown to confer reality, and not to deceive those who truly possess her, let what has been taken from her be given back, that so she may win that palm of appearance which is hers also, and which she gives to her own.
The demand, he said, is just. In the first place, I said — and this is the first thing which you will have to give back — the nature both of the just and unjust is truly known to the gods. Granted. And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning? True.
And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from them all things at their best, excepting only such evil as is the necessary consequence of former sins? Certainly.
Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death : for the gods have a care of anyone whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue? ' Reading fmSiv.
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