Seite - 1120 - in The Complete Plato

uninstructed courage, such as that of a wild beast or of a slave—this, in your opinion, is not the courage which the law ordains, and ought to have another name. Most certainly. Then I may infer courage to be such as you describe? Why, yes, said I, you may, and if you add the words “of a citizen,” you will not be far wrong—hereafter, if you like, we will carry the examination further, but at present we are seeking, not for courage, but justice; and for the purpose of our inquiry we have said enough. You are right, he replied. Two virtues remain to be discovered in the State—first, temperance, and then justice, which is the end of our search. Very true. Now, can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance? I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favor of considering temperance first. Certainly, I replied, I should not be justified in refusing your request. Then consider, he said. Yes, I replied; I will; and as far as I can at present see, the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding. How so? he asked. Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of “a man being his own master;” and other traces of the same notion may be found in language. No doubt, he said. There is something ridiculous in the expression “master of himself;” for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted. Certainly. The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control, then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to 1120