Page - 1052 - in The Complete Plato
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essential nature of either of them abiding in the soul, and invisible to any
human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man’s soul which he
has within him, justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil.
Had this been the universal strain, had you sought to persuade us of this from
our youth upward, we should not have been on the watch to keep one another
from doing wrong, but everyone would have been his own watchman,
because afraid, if he did wrong, of harboring in himself the greatest of evils. I
dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language
which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about
justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature. But I
speak in this vehement manner, as I must frankly confess to you, because I
want to hear from you the opposite side; and I would ask you to show not
only the superiority which justice has over injustice, but what effect they have
on the possessor of them which makes the one to be a good and the other an
evil to him. And please, as Glaucon requested of you, to exclude reputations;
for unless you take away from each of them his true reputation and add on the
false, we shall say that you do not praise justice, but the appearance of it; we
shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you
really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another’s good and
the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man’s own profit and
interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that
justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired, indeed, for their
results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes—like sight or hearing
or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely
conventional good—I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one
point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice
work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice,
magnifying the rewards and honors of the one and abusing the other; that is a
manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from
you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question,
unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And
therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but
show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the
one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and
men.
I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on
hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious
father, that was not a bad beginning of the elegiac verses which the admirer of
Glaucon made in honor of you after you had distinguished yourselves at the
battle of Megara:
“Sons of Ariston,” he sang, “divine offspring of an illustrious hero.”
1052
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book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International