Book IV, 419–427

419a Adeimantus broke in. “What answer will you make, Socrates, if someone says that you are hardly making these men happy, and that through their own doing? The city is truly theirs, yet they enjoy none of its blessings. Others own fields and build fine, spacious houses, furnish them as befits such houses, offer private sacrifices to the gods, entertain guests, and indeed possess what you mentioned just now—gold and silver and everything thought to belong to people destined for happiness. But these men, he might say, appear to sit in the city like hired auxiliaries, 420a doing nothing but standing guard.”

“Yes,” I said, “and they receive their meals, but no wages besides their food, as the others do. So they cannot go abroad on private business even if they wish, or give money to courtesans, or spend it wherever else they like, as those who are thought happy spend theirs. You are leaving these and many like them out of the indictment.”

“Then let them be included in the indictment,” he said. 420b “What answer shall we make, then?”

“Yes.”

“If we follow the same road,” I said, “I think we shall find what to say. We shall say that it would be no surprise if these men were the happiest of all even as they are. But we are founding our city with our eyes not on making one class exceptionally happy but on making the whole city as happy as possible. For we thought that in such a city we should most readily find justice, and in the worst-governed city 420c injustice; by seeing both we might decide the question we have long been pursuing. At present, then, we believe we are shaping a happy city, not by setting a few people apart and making them happy in it, but by making the whole city happy. Presently we shall examine its opposite. Suppose we were painting a statue, and someone approached to reproach us for not applying the most beautiful colors to the most beautiful parts of the figure: its eyes, the most beautiful part, had been painted not purple but black. We might reasonably 420d answer him this way: ‘My good man, do not imagine we should paint the eyes so beautifully that they cease to look like eyes—or do the same to the other parts. Look instead at whether, by giving each its proper color, we make the whole beautiful.’ So now, too, do not compel us to attach such happiness to the guardians that it would make them anything 420e rather than guardians. We know how to dress the farmers in splendid robes and deck them with gold, and then tell them to till the land for their pleasure; how to lay the potters on couches beside the fire, drinking and feasting, with the wheel close by so they can make pots whenever they please; and how to make everyone else happy in the same fashion, so that the entire city may flourish. But do not give us such advice: if we followed it, the farmer would no longer be a farmer, 421a the potter no longer a potter, and no one would retain any of the roles that make a city. The others matter less: if cobblers grow worthless and corrupt and pretend to be cobblers when they are not, that is no disaster for the city. But when the guardians of its laws and of the city are guardians in appearance only, you can see that they destroy the whole city outright; and they alone have the opportunity to govern it well and make it happy. If we, then, are making true guardians, 421b the least likely of all to harm the city, while our critic is speaking of farmers of a kind, happy hosts at a festival rather than citizens of a city, he must be speaking of something other than a city. We must therefore consider whether, when establishing the guardians, our aim is to secure them the greatest possible happiness, or whether we should look to the city as a whole to see if happiness arises there, while compelling and persuading these auxiliaries and 421c guardians to become the finest craftsmen at their own work, and all the others to do likewise. Then, as the whole city grows and is well governed, we must let each class share in happiness as its nature allows.”

“I think you speak well,” he said.

“Will you think I speak reasonably of something akin to this?” I asked.

“What is that?” 421d

“Consider whether these next two things corrupt the other craftsmen and make them bad at their trades.”

“Which things?”

“Wealth,” I said, “and poverty.”

“How?”

“Like this: do you think a potter who becomes rich will still want to attend to his craft?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“And will he become lazier and more careless than he was?”

“Much more.”

“Then he becomes a worse potter?”

“Much worse in that respect too,” he said.

“Again, if poverty leaves him unable to provide tools or anything else his craft requires, the things he makes will be worse, 421e and he will train his sons or any other apprentices into worse craftsmen.”

“Of course.”

“Both poverty and wealth, then, make the works of the crafts worse, and the craftsmen worse as well.”

“Evidently.”

“So it seems we have discovered two more things that the guardians must keep from slipping into the city unnoticed, by every means in their power.”

“What things?”

422a “Wealth and poverty,” I said. “The one breeds luxury, idleness, and a taste for upheaval; the other, servility and poor workmanship, as well as a taste for upheaval.”

“Certainly,” he said. “But consider this, Socrates: how will our city be able to wage war if it has no wealth, especially if it is forced to fight a great and wealthy city?”

“Clearly,” I said, “it will be harder to fight one, 422b but easier to fight two such cities.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“To begin with,” I said, “if they have to fight, will they not, as trained athletes of war, be fighting rich men?”

“Yes, they will,” he said.

“Now, Adeimantus, would not a single boxer, trained as well as possible for boxing, find it easy to fight two men who are not boxers but are rich and fat?”

“Perhaps not both at once,” he said.

“Not even if he could retreat from the first man who came at him, wheel around to strike him, and do it repeatedly in the hot, stifling sun? 422c Might a boxer like that not overcome even more such men?”

“He certainly might; that would be no wonder,” he said.

“And do you not think that rich men have more knowledge and experience of boxing than of war?”

“I do,” he said.

“Then, in all likelihood, our athletes will easily fight twice or three times their own number.”

“I grant you that,” he said; “you seem to be right.” 422d

“And what if they send an embassy to one of the two cities and tell it the truth: ‘We use neither gold nor silver, nor are we permitted to; you are. Fight at our side and take the other city's possessions.’ Do you think anyone hearing this will choose to fight against lean, hardened dogs rather than join those dogs in fighting fat, tender sheep?”

“I think not. But if the wealth of the other cities is gathered into one city,” he said, 422e “take care that it poses no danger to the city without wealth.”

“How fortunate you are,” I said, “to think any city other than the one we are constructing deserves to be called a city.”

“What else should we call it?” he said.

“We should give the others a grander name,” I said. “Each of them is a great many cities, not a city at all, as the players say. There are at least two, whatever else may be true, at war with each other: 423a one of the poor and one of the rich. Within each of these are many more. Approach them as one city and you will miss your mark entirely; approach them as many, giving some the money and power of others—or the people themselves—and you will always have many allies and few enemies. As long as your city is governed temperately, as we have just ordained, it will be the greatest city: not greatest in reputation, I mean, but greatest in truth, even if it has only a thousand men to fight for it. For you will not easily find a single city so great among Greeks or barbarians, 423b though you will find many that seem to be cities many times its size. Do you think otherwise?”

“No, by Zeus,” he said.

“Then this would also be the finest limit for our rulers to observe in deciding how large to make the city, how much territory to set aside for it at that size, and how much to leave alone.”

“What limit?” he asked.

“This, I think,” I said: “let it grow as long as its growth allows it to remain one city, but no further.” 423c

“And rightly so,” he said.

“Then we shall give the guardians this further instruction: by every means they must see that the city is neither small nor merely great in appearance, but of adequate size and one.”

“That may be an easy instruction for them,” he said.

“Easier still,” I said, “is the one we mentioned before: if a guardian has an inferior child, he must be sent down among the others, while any worthy child born among the others must be brought into the guardians. The point was that each of the other citizens, too, must be directed to the single task for which he is naturally suited, 423d so that by pursuing his own one work each person may become one, not many, and thus the whole city may grow into one, not many.”

“Yes,” he said, “this is a smaller matter than the other.”

“My dear Adeimantus,” I said, “we are not giving them many great instructions, as someone might suppose. They are all easy, provided the guardians protect the one great thing—or rather, not great but sufficient.” 423e

“What is that?” he asked.

“Their education and upbringing,” I said. “If they are well educated and become measured men, they will readily see all these things, and others we are now passing over: how to possess women, how to marry and beget children, and how, according to the proverb, all these things should be made as far as possible common among friends.” 424a

“That would be quite right,” he said.

“Moreover,” I said, “once a constitution starts well, it grows like a rolling circle. Good upbringing and education, when preserved, produce good natures; good natures, receiving such an education in turn, grow even better than those before them, in other respects and in their offspring, as with other animals.” 424b

“That seems likely,” he said.

“To put it briefly, then, those responsible for the city must hold fast to this, lest its corruption escape them. Above all they must guard against any innovation in gymnastics and music contrary to the established order. They must protect it as far as possible, wary when someone says that people pay the greatest heed to ‘that song which is newest as it passes among the singers,’ lest anyone suppose that the poet means not new songs 424c but a new way of singing, and praise it. We must neither praise nor accept such a thing. We must beware of changing to a new kind of music, for it puts everything at risk: musical modes are never changed without the greatest laws of the city changing too, as Damon says, and I believe him.”

“Count me among the believers as well,” said Adeimantus. 424d

“Then it seems the guardians must build their watchpost here, in music,” I said.

“At least lawlessness can easily slip in this way unnoticed,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “because it seems a kind of play, doing no harm.”

“Nor does it do anything else,” he said, “except settle in little by little and quietly seep into habits and practices. From these it spills over more boldly into people's dealings with one another; then, from those dealings, it advances 424e against the laws and constitutions with great insolence, Socrates, until at last it overturns everything, private and public.”

“Well,” I said, “is that how it is?”

“So I think,” he said.

“Then, as we said from the outset, our children must take part from the beginning in play that obeys the law. If play becomes lawless, and children with it, it is impossible for law-abiding and serious adults 425a to grow out of them.”

“Of course,” he said.

“So when children begin by playing well and absorb respect for law through music, the opposite happens to what happens in those other cases: it accompanies them into everything as they grow, restoring even what had earlier gone wrong in the city.”

“True indeed,” he said.

“And they discover even the seemingly minor customs,” I said, “which the others had lost altogether.”

“Which customs?” 425b

“Such things as young people keeping properly silent before their elders, giving up seats and rising before them, honoring parents, and observing the rules for haircuts, clothing, shoes, their whole bearing, and all things of the kind. Do you agree?”

“I do.”

“But I think it foolish to legislate these things. They do not arise from laws laid down in speech or writing, and such laws could not keep them in place.”

“How could they?”

“It seems, Adeimantus,” I said, “that wherever a person's education sets him on his way, 425c everything that follows takes the same direction. Does not like always call to like?”

“Certainly.”

“And in the end, I think, we should say that this comes to full fruition as something vigorous, whether good or its opposite.”

“Of course,” he said.

“That is why,” I said, “I would not attempt any further legislation on such matters.”

“Reasonably so,” he said.

“But in the gods' name,” I said, “what about these matters of the marketplace: the contracts people make with one another there, 425d or, if you wish, agreements with craftsmen; matters of insult and assault, filing lawsuits and appointing juries, and any necessary assessment, collection, or imposition of dues in marketplaces or harbors; and in general all rules governing markets, the city, harbors, and anything else of that sort? Shall we venture to legislate for any of these?”

“It is not worth prescribing them for honorable men,” he said. 425e “They will easily discover for themselves most of the rules that need to be made.”

“Yes, my friend,” I said, “provided a god grants them preservation of the laws we described earlier.”

“Otherwise,” he said, “they will spend their lives laying down and revising countless such rules, forever expecting to arrive at the best.”

“You mean they will live,” I said, “like invalids who, through lack of self-control, refuse to give up a harmful way of life.”

“Precisely.”

426a “And they lead a charming life, to be sure. Their treatment achieves nothing except to multiply and enlarge their illnesses, while they are always hoping that some medicine recommended to them will make them healthy.”

“Yes,” he said, “those are just the ailments of people who are ill in that way.”

“And is it not charming,” I asked, “that they regard as their worst enemy the man who tells them the truth: until they stop drinking, gorging themselves, indulging their sexual appetites, and doing no work, 426b neither medicines nor cauterizing nor cutting, nor incantations nor amulets nor anything else of the kind will do them any good?”

“Not very charming,” he said. “There is no charm in being angry with someone who gives good advice.”

“You do not seem an admirer of such men,” I said.

“Certainly not, by Zeus.”

“Then you will not praise the city as a whole if it acts as we were just saying. Do not the badly governed cities do the same thing when they forbid their citizens to disturb the constitution as a whole, on pain of death for anyone who does, 426c yet regard as a good man, profoundly wise and worthy of honor, whoever serves and flatters them most agreeably in their present way of governing, runs to do their bidding, anticipates their wishes, and proves skillful in fulfilling them?”

“They do exactly the same thing, I think,” he said, “and I do not praise them in the least.” 426d

“And those who are eager and willing to serve such cities—do you not admire their courage and readiness?”

“I do,” he said, “except for those who are deceived by the cities into thinking themselves genuine statesmen because the multitude praises them.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Can you not forgive these men? Do you think a man unable to measure would fail to believe himself four cubits tall if a great many others, no better able to measure, 426e told him he was?”

“No,” he said, “not in that case.”

“Then do not be angry. Such men are the most charming of all: they make and revise laws of the sort we just discussed, always thinking they will find some end to abuses in contracts and the other matters I mentioned, unaware that they are really cutting the Hydra to pieces.”

427a “That is just what they are doing,” he said.

“For my part,” I said, “I should think that a true lawgiver ought not to occupy himself with this kind of legislation or constitution, whether in a badly or a well-governed city. In the former it is useless and achieves nothing; in the latter anyone could discover some of the necessary rules, and the rest will arise of themselves from the practices already established.” 427b

“What, then,” he asked, “remains for us to legislate?”

“Nothing for us,” I said, “but for Apollo at Delphi, the greatest, finest, and first of the ordinances.”

“Which ones?” he asked.

“The founding of temples, sacrifices, and the other services owed to gods, divine beings, and heroes; also the burial of the dead and all the rites that must be performed to win the favor of those in the world beyond. We have no knowledge of these things, and if we have any sense, in founding a city 427c we shall follow no guide other than the ancestral one. For surely this god is the ancestral guide for all human beings in such matters, giving his guidance as he sits at the navel [in the center] of the earth.”

“You speak well,” he said, “and so we must do.”

“So now your city is founded, son of Ariston,” I said. 427d “Next, find yourself enough light from somewhere and look inside it; enlist your brother, Polemarchus, and the others too, and see if we can discover where justice and injustice lie, how they differ from each other, and which a person who is to be happy must possess, whether or not he escapes the notice of all gods and human beings.”

“That will not do,” said Glaucon. “You promised to make the search yourself, because it would be a sin for you not to come to the aid of justice with every means in your power.” 427e

“You remind me truly,” I said, “and that is what I must do. But you too must help.”

“We shall,” he said.

“Then I hope to find it this way,” I said. “I think our city, if we have founded it correctly, is wholly good.”

“It must be,” he said.

“Clearly, then, it is wise, brave, temperate, and just.”

“Clearly.”

“So when we find some of these qualities in it, the remainder will be what we have not yet found?”

419a Adeimantus interrupted. “So, Socrates,” he said, “how will you defend yourself if someone says you aren't making these men very happy? And it's their own city, really, yet they get none of its benefits. Other people own land, build fine large houses and furnish them to match. They make private sacrifices to the gods, entertain guests, and, as you just mentioned, own gold and silver and everything else people think a happy person needs. Someone might say that these men seem simply to sit in the city like hired 420a troops, doing nothing but guard it.”

“Yes,” I said, “and they get their meals but no wages on top of their food, unlike other people. So they can't travel abroad on their own if they want to, give gifts to courtesans, or spend money on anything else they choose, the way people thought to be happy spend it. You're leaving these and many similar charges off the list.”

“Then count those as charges too,” he said. 420b “What will we say in defense?”

“Yes.”

“By following the same path,” I said, “I think we'll find the answer. We'll say that it wouldn't be surprising if these men were happiest as they are. But our aim in founding the city isn't to make one group exceptionally happy. It's to make the whole city as happy as possible. We thought we would most likely find justice in that kind of city, and 420c injustice in the worst-governed one. Once we had seen both, we could decide the question we've been asking all along. Right now, then, we are making what we think is a happy city. We aren't setting aside a few people to make them happy. We are making the city happy as a whole. After that we'll examine its opposite. Imagine that we were painting a statue and someone criticized us for not putting the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts. The eyes, its most beautiful part, were painted black instead of purple. We would reasonably 420d answer: 'My friend, don't expect us to paint the eyes so beautifully that they stop looking like eyes, or to do the same to the other parts. Look instead at whether we make the whole statue beautiful by giving each part the right color.' Likewise, don't force us to give the guardians a kind of happiness that would make them anything but guardians. 420e We know how to dress farmers in elegant robes and gold and tell them to work the land only for pleasure. We could seat potters reclining beside the fire, drinking and feasting, with their wheels next to them, and let them make pots only when they feel like it. We could make everyone else happy in the same way, supposedly so that the whole city would be happy. But don't advise us to do that. If we listen to you, 421a the farmer won't be a farmer, the potter won't be a potter, and none of the occupations that make up a city will keep their character. It matters less in other cases. If cobblers become corrupt, do poor work, and pretend to be cobblers when they aren't, that isn't a terrible thing for the city. But if those who only appear to guard its laws and the city aren't really guardians, you can see they ruin the whole city. And they alone have the chance to make it live well and happily. If we're making real 421b guardians who will do the least harm to the city, while our critic is talking about farmers who live like happy guests at a festival rather than citizens in a city, then he's talking about something other than a city. We must decide whether we're appointing guardians to give them the greatest possible happiness, or whether we should look to the whole city and see whether happiness exists there. In that case we must require and persuade these helpers and 421c guardians to become as good as possible at their own work, and require the same of everyone else. Then, as the whole city grows and is well ordered, we must let nature give each group its share of happiness.”

“That seems right to me,” he said.

“Will you think the same of a related point?” I asked.

“What point?” 421d

“Think about whether these two things ruin the other workers too, making them bad at their work.”

“Which things?”

“Wealth and poverty,” I said.

“How?”

“Like this. Do you think a potter who gets rich will still want to pay attention to his craft?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“He'll become lazier and less careful than he was?”

“Much more so.”

“So he becomes a worse potter?”

“Much worse,” he said.

“And if poverty prevents him from getting tools or anything else needed for his craft, his 421e products will be worse. He will also teach his sons or other pupils to be worse workers.”

“Of course.”

“So both poverty and wealth make the work worse, and make the workers themselves worse.”

“Apparently.”

“We've found two more things, then, that the guardians must watch with all their care and never allow to slip into the city unnoticed.”

“What are they?”

“422a Wealth and poverty,” I said. “Wealth produces luxury, idleness, and a taste for revolution. Poverty produces servility and shoddy work, as well as a taste for revolution.”

“Certainly,” he said. “But consider this, Socrates. How can our city fight a war if it has no money, especially if it has to fight a large, wealthy city?”

“Clearly,” I said, “fighting one such city will be harder, 422b but fighting two will be easier.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“First,” I said, “if they have to fight, won't our trained athletes of war be facing rich men?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Now, Adeimantus, don't you think that one boxer trained as well as possible could easily fight two rich, fat men who aren't boxers?”

“Perhaps not both at the same time,” he said.

“422c Not even if he could dodge the first man to approach him, turn and strike him, then do this again and again in the heat of the sun? Couldn't such a boxer beat even more than two of those men?”

“He certainly could. That wouldn't be surprising,” he said.

“And don't you think rich men have more knowledge and experience of boxing than of warfare?”

“I do,” he said.

“Then it's reasonable to expect our trained fighters to take on two or three times their number without much trouble.”

“I'll grant you that,” he said. “I think you're right.”

“422d Suppose they send an embassy to the other city and tell the truth: 'We don't use gold or silver, and our laws don't allow us to. You do. Fight beside us and take the other city's property.' Do you think anyone who hears that would choose to fight tough, lean dogs rather than join the dogs in fighting fat, soft sheep?”

“I don't think so. But 422e if the wealth of the other cities is gathered together in one city, look out: it might endanger the city that has no wealth.”

“You're lucky,” I said, “if you think any city other than the one we're building deserves to be called a city.”

“What else would you call it?” he asked.

“We need a bigger name for the others,” I said. “Each of them is many cities, not one city, as children say when they play. There are at least two cities at war with each other, 423a one of the poor and one of the rich. Each contains many more. If you deal with them as one, you'll miss your aim entirely. But if you treat them as many, give the wealth, power, or even the people of one group to another, you'll always have many allies and few enemies. As long as your city is governed sensibly, according to the plan we've just made, it will be the greatest city. I don't mean greatest in reputation but truly greatest, even if it has only 1,000 defenders. You'll have trouble finding a single city that large among Greeks or 423b foreigners, though you'll find many that seem far larger. Do you disagree?”

“By Zeus, no,” he said.

“Then this would also be the best limit for our rulers: how large the city should grow, how much land to mark out for it at that size, and when to leave the rest alone.”

“What limit?” he asked.

“This one, I think: let it grow as long as it can remain one city, but no further.”

“A good limit,” he said. 423c

“And we'll give the guardians another order: take every precaution that the city is neither too small nor apparently large, but a sufficient size and united.”

“Perhaps that will be an easy order for them,” he said.

“Easier still is the order we mentioned earlier. If a guardian has a child who is unfit for the role, send that child to the other groups. If a child from another group is fit, bring that child into the guardians. 423d We meant that every citizen should be assigned the single job that fits their nature. That way each person, occupied with their own work, will be one person rather than many, and the whole city will grow into one rather than many cities.”

“Yes,” he said, “that's an even smaller task.”

“My good Adeimantus,” I said, “these orders may sound numerous and important, but they're all easy if the guardians protect the one great thing, or rather 423e the one sufficient thing.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Education and upbringing,” I said. “If a good education makes them reasonable people, they'll easily see to all this and the other matters we're leaving out now: the sharing of women, marriage, and having children. As the saying goes, 424a friends should share everything as much as possible.”

“That would be exactly right,” he said.

“Once a state starts well,” I said, “it grows like a circle. Good upbringing and education, when kept in place, produce good natures. Good natures receiving that education become even better than the previous generation in every way, including 424b their ability to produce children, just as with other animals.”

“That seems likely,” he said.

“To put it briefly, the city's leaders must hold firmly to this and watch that it isn't corrupted without their noticing. Above all they must preserve the established system of physical and musical education, allowing no changes in it. They must be on guard when someone says that people give more attention to”

“the song that is newest when it comes around among singers.”

“424c They must not take the poet to mean a new style of song rather than new songs, and praise it. They must neither praise nor accept such a thing. They must beware of changing the form of music, since that puts everything at risk. The styles of music are never changed without changing the most important laws of the city. Damon says so, and I agree.”

“Put me among those who agree too,” Adeimantus said.

“424d Then the guardians must build their lookout post here, in music,” I said.

“That's certainly where lawlessness easily slips in unnoticed,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “because it looks like mere play and seems to do no harm.”

“It does nothing else,” he said, “except gradually settle in and quietly seep into people's habits and ways of life. From there it grows and passes into their dealings with each other, and from those dealings it 424e attacks the laws and forms of government with great arrogance, Socrates. In the end it overturns everything, private and public.”

“Well,” I said, “is that how it is?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Then, as we said at the start, our children must take part in more law-abiding games from the beginning. If their games and the children themselves become lawless, they can't grow into law-abiding, decent 425a adults.”

“Of course not,” he said.

“So when children begin by playing properly and absorb respect for law through music, the effect runs the other way. It follows them everywhere, grows with them, and even repairs earlier faults in the city.”

“That's true,” he said.

“Then they'll rediscover all the small rules of behavior that earlier people lost.”

“What rules?”

“425b Rules like how young people should keep quiet before their elders, give them seats and stand up for them; how they should care for their parents; and how they should wear their hair, their clothes and shoes, and carry themselves generally. All the other things of that kind. Don't you think so?”

“I do.”

“But I think it's foolish to make laws about them. Rules of this kind aren't brought into being by being spoken or written down, and they wouldn't last that way.”

“How could they?”

“A person's education, Adeimantus, seems to 425c set the course for everything that follows. Doesn't like always lead to like?”

“Yes.”

“In the end, I think, it produces a complete and vigorous result, good or bad.”

“Of course,” he said.

“That's why I wouldn't try to pass laws about these things,” I said.

“Reasonably so,” he said.

“But, for heaven's sake,” I said, “what about business in the marketplace? What about the contracts people make with one another there, or, if you like, 425d contracts with tradespeople, insults, assaults, bringing lawsuits, selecting juries, and any necessary levies or payments imposed or collected in marketplaces and harbors? What about all the regulations for markets, streets, harbors, and similar matters? Will we dare make laws about these?”

“425e It isn't worth instructing good, decent people about them,” he said. “They'll easily work out most of the rules that need to be made.”

“Yes, my friend,” I said, “provided a god lets them preserve the laws we went through earlier.”

“Otherwise,” he said, “they'll spend their lives constantly making and revising rules of that kind, expecting at last to find the best arrangement.”

“You mean they'll live like sick people who, through lack of self-control, refuse to give up a harmful way of life.”

“Exactly.”

“426a They do live amusingly. Their treatments achieve nothing except to make their illnesses more complicated and serious. Yet they always hope that if someone recommends a drug, it will cure them.”

“Yes,” he said, “that's just what happens to sick people like that.”

“And isn't this funny?” I asked. “They hate most of all the person who tells them the truth: until they stop drinking, overeating, having sex without restraint, and idling, 426b no drugs, cautery, surgery, spells, amulets, or anything like them will help.”

“Not very funny,” he said. “There's nothing amusing about getting angry at someone who gives good advice.”

“You don't seem to admire people of that sort,” I said.

“By Zeus, I don't.”

“So you wouldn't approve if the whole city did what we were just describing. Don't badly governed cities do the same thing? They forbid 426c their citizens to disturb the city's whole arrangement, on pain of death. But whoever serves them most pleasantly under that arrangement, flatters them, anticipates their wishes and skillfully carries them out, is considered a good man, wise in the most important matters, and is honored by them.”

“They do exactly the same thing,” he said, “and I don't approve at all.”

“426d What about those who are willing and eager to serve cities like that? Don't you admire their courage and readiness?”

“Yes,” he said, “except for those who are fooled by the cities and think they're real statesmen because the crowd praises them.”

“What do you mean? Can't you forgive them?” I asked. “Suppose a man can't measure, and many other people who can't measure tell him 426e he's four cubits tall. Can he avoid believing that about himself?”

“No, not in that case,” he said.

“Then don't be angry with them. They're the most amusing people of all. They keep making and revising the laws we've been discussing. They always think they'll find some way to stop wrongdoing in contracts and the other areas I mentioned. They don't realize they're really chopping up a Hydra.”

“427a That's exactly what they're doing,” he said.

“In my view,” I said, “a real lawgiver shouldn't spend time on laws and arrangements of that kind, whether the city is badly or well governed. In a badly governed city, they're useless and change nothing. In a well-governed city, anyone could work out some of them, while the rest follow on their own from the practices established earlier.”

“427b Then what's left for us to legislate?” he asked.

“Nothing for us,” I said. “But the greatest, finest, and most basic laws are left to Apollo at Delphi.”

“Which ones?” he asked.

“Establishing temples, sacrifices, and other ways to honor gods, divine spirits, and heroes; burial of the dead and the services needed to keep those in the next world well-disposed toward us. We don't know these things. And if we have any sense while founding a city, we'll follow no other guide in them than our ancestral one. 427c This god, sitting [in the middle] of the earth at its navel, is surely everyone's ancestral guide in such matters.”

“Well said,” he replied. “That's what we must do.”

“So now, 427d son of Ariston,” I said, “your city is founded. Next, get enough light from somewhere and look inside it. Call your brother, Polemarchus, and the others to help. Perhaps we can see where justice and injustice are in it, how they differ, and which one a person must possess to be happy, whether or not that person escapes the notice of all gods and human beings.”

“Nonsense,” Glaucon said. “You promised to look for it. 427e You said it would be wrong not to do everything you can to defend justice.”

“That's a true reminder,” I said. “I must do that, but you must help too.”

“We will,” he said.

“Then here's how I hope to find it,” I said. “If our city is correctly founded, I think it must be good in every respect.”

“It must,” he said.

“Clearly, then, it's wise, courageous, self-controlled, and just.”

“Clearly.”

“So if we find some of those qualities in it, the one left over will be the one we haven't found.”