Timaeus — Plato

i68

When will Socrates come to the point ?

Republic I'. Socrates, Glaucon. Hellenes should deal mildly with Hellenes ; and with barbarians as Hellenes now deal with one another.

The complaint of Glaucon respecting the hesitation of Socrates.

Just SO. And as they are Hellenes themselves they will not devastate Hellas, nor will they burn houses, nor ever suppose that the whole population of a city — men, women, and children — are equally their enemies, for they know that the guilt of war is always confined to a few persons and that the many are their friends.

And for all these reasons they will be unwilling to waste their lands and rase their houses ; their enmity to them will only last until the many innocent sufferers have compelled the guilty few to give satisfaction? I agree, he said, that our citizens should thus deal with their Hellenic enemies ; and with barbarians as the Hellenes now deal with one another.

Then let us enact this law also for our guardians: — that they are neither to devastate the lands of Hellenes nor to burn their houses. Agreed ; and we may agree also in thinking that these, like all our previous enactments, are very good.

But still I must say, Socrates, that if you are allowed to go on in this way you will entirely forget the other question which at the commencement of this discussion you thrust aside: — Is such an order of things possible, and how, if at all? For I am quite ready to acknowledge that the plan \vhich you propose, if only feasible, would do all sorts of good to the State.

I will add, what you have omitted, that your citizens will be the bravest of warriors, and will never leave their ranks, for they will all know one another, and each will call the other father, brother, son ; and if you suppose the women to join their armies, whether in the same rank or in the rear, either as a terror to the enemy, or as auxiharies in case of need, I know that they will then be absolutely invincible ; and there are many domestic advantages which might also be mentioned and which I also fully acknowledge : but, as I admit all these advantages and as many more as you please, if only this State of yours were to come into existence, we need say no more about them ; assuming then the existence of the State, let us now turn to the question of possibility and ways and means — the rest may be left.

The third and greatest wave. 169 472 If I loiter^ for a moment, you instantly make a raid upon Republic v, me, I said, and have no mercy ; I have hardly escaped the Socrates, first and second waves, and you seem not to be aware that ^^'^^'™^- vou are now brincrincr upon me the third, which is the Socrates cx- <^ ^ ^ cuses himself greatest and heaviest.

When you have seen and heard the and makes third wave, I think you will be more considerate and will °"^ "I ^^'° ^ . . remarks acknowledge that some fear and hesitation was natural re- preparatory specting a proposal so extraordinary as that which I have ^° ^ ^"^' now to state and investigate.

The more appeals of this sort which you make, he said, the more determined are we that you shall tell us how such a State is possible : speak out and at once. Let me begin by reminding you that we found our way hither in the search after justice and injustice. True, he replied; but what of that?

1 was only going to ask whether, if we have discovered them, we are to require that the just man should in nothing fail of absolute justice ; or may we be satisfied with an approximation, and the attainment in him of a higher degree of justice than is to be found in other men? The approximation will be enough.

We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal.

We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own (i) The ideal happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which ^^^ ^J^hith"^^ they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled can never them, but not with any view of showing that they could reauLd^^^ exist in fact. True, he said.

Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse. Well, and were we not creating an ideal of a perfect State? To be sure. And is our theory a worse theory because we are unable to ' Reading oTpayyevo/jiiv<i}.