Timaeus — Plato
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a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him — that is about as much as I am good for. Offer up a prayer with me and follow. I will, but you must show me the way. Here is no path, I said, and the wood is dark and perplexing ; still we must push on. Let us push on. Here I saw something : Halloo! I said, I begin to perceive a track, and I believe that the quarry will not escape. Good news, he said.
Truly, I said, we are stupid fellows. Why so? Why, my good sir, at the beginning of our enquiry, ages ago, there was justice tumbling out at our feet, and we never saw her ; nothing could be more ridiculous. Like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands — that was the way with us — we looked not at what we were seeking, but at what was far off in the distance ; and therefore, I suppose, we missed her. What do you mean?
I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice, and have failed to recognise her. I grow impatient at the length of your exordium.
Well then, tell me, I said, whether I am right or not : You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted ; — now justice is this principle or a part of it. Yes, we often said that one man should do one thing only.
Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody ; we said so again and again, and many others have said the same to us. Yes, we said so. Then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice. Can you tell me whence I derive this inference ? I cannot, but I should hke to be told.
Because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted ; and, that this is the ultimate
Republic II'. Socrates, Glaucon.
We had already found her when we spoke of one man doing one thing only.
From another point of view Justice
p. 124
TJie four virtues in relation to the State.
Republic IV. Socrates, Glaucon. is the residue of the three others.
Our idea is confirmed by the administration of justice in lawsuits man is to have what is not his own.
No
Illustration: Classes, cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative ; and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us, justice would be the fourth or remaining one. That follows of necessity.
If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject, — the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm — the question is not so easily answered.
Certainly, he replied, there would be a difHculty in saying which. Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage. Yes, he said. And the virtue which enters into this competition is justice? Exactly.
Let us look at the question from another point of view : Are not the rulers in a State those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law? Certainly. And are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is his own? Yes ; that is their principle. Which is a just principle? Yes.
Then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own, and belongs to him? Very true. Think, now, and say w*hether you agree with me or not. Suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler,
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