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Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power:
he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust,
more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and
cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely
miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.
No man of any sense will dispute your words. Come, then, I said, and as
the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result, do you also
decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second,
and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all —they are
the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.
The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming
on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the
criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.
Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce that the son of Ariston (the best)
has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that this is he
who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most
unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the
greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?
Make the proclamation yourself, he said.
And shall I add, “whether seen or unseen by gods and men”?
Let the words be added.
Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may
also have some weight.
What is that?
The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the
individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the
division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.
Of what nature?
It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond;
also three desires and governing powers.
How do you mean? he said.
There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another
with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name,
but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength
and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual
appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such
1277
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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