9: THE REPUBLIC

     Therefore it was, for my part, friend Thrasymachus, I was saying
     just now that no one would be willing of his own motion to rule,
     and take in hand the ills of other people to set them right, but
     that he would ask a reward; because he who will do fairly by his
     art, or prosper by his art, never does what is best for himself,
     nor ordains that, in ordaining what is proper to his art, but
     what is best for the subject of his rule.  By reason of which
     indeed, as it seems, there must needs be a reward for those who
     shall be willing to rule, either money, or honour, or a penalty
     unless he will rule.--How do you mean this Socrates? said
     Glaucon: for the two rewards I understand; but the penalty, of
     which you speak, and have named as in the place of a reward, I
     do not understand.--Then you do not understand, I said, the
     reward of the best, for the sake of which the most virtuous
     rule, when they are willing to rule.  Or do you not know that
     the being fond of honours, fond of money, is said to be, and
     is, a disgrace?--For my part, Yes! he said.--On this ground
     then, neither for money are the good willing to rule, nor for
     honour; for they choose neither, in openly exacting hire as
     a return for their rule, to be called hirelings, nor, in taking
     secretly therefrom, thieves.  Nor again is it for honour they
     will rule; for they are not ambitious.  Therefore it is, that
     necessity must be on them, and a penalty, if they are to be
     willing to rule: whence perhaps it has come, that to proceed
     with ready will to the office of ruler, and not to await
     compulsion, is accounted indecent.  As for the penalty,--the
     greatest penalty is to be ruled by one worse than oneself,
     unless one will rule.  And it is through fear of that, the
     good seem to me to rule, when they rule: and then they proceed
     to the office of ruler, not as coming to some good thing, nor
     as to profit therein, but as to something unavoidable, and
     as having none better than themselves to whom to entrust it,
     nor even as good.  Since it seems likely that if a city of good
     men came to be, not to rule would be the matter of contention,
     as nowadays to rule; and here it would become manifest that a
     ruler in very deed, in the nature of things, considers not what
     is profitable for himself, but for the subject of his rule.
     So [264] that every intelligent person would choose rather to
     be benefited by another, than by benefiting another to have
     trouble himself.  Republic, 346.

Now if philosophy really is where Plato consistently puts it, and is all he claims for it, then, for those capable of it, who are capable also in the region of practice, it will be precisely "that better thing than being a king for those who must be our kings, our archons." You see that the various elements of Platonism are interdependent; that they really cohere.

Just at this point then you must call to memory the greatness of the claim Plato makes for philosophy--a promise, you may perhaps think, larger than anything he has actually presented to his readers in the way of a philosophic revelation justifies. He seems, in fact, to promise all, or almost all, that in a later age natures great and high have certainly found in the Christian religion. If philosophy is only star-gazing, or only a condition of doubt, if what the sophist or the philistine says of it is all that can be said, it could hardly compete with the rewards which the vulgar world holds out to its servants. But for Plato, on the other hand, if philosophy is anything at all, it is nothing less than an "escape from the evils of the world," and homoiôsis tô theô,+ a being made like to God. It provides a satisfaction not for the intelligence only but for the whole nature of man, his imagination and faith, his affections, his capacity [265] for religious devotion, and for some still unimagined development of the capacities of sense.

How could anything which belongs to the world of mere phenomenal change seem great to him who is "the spectator of all time and all existence"? "For the excellency" of such knowledge as that, we might say, he must "count all things but loss." By fear of punishment in some roundabout way, he might indeed be compelled to descend into "the cave," "to take in hand the wrongs of other people to set them right"; but of course the part he will take in your sorry exhibition of passing shadows, and dreamy echoes concerning them, will not be for himself. You may think him, that philosophic archon or king, who in consenting to be your master has really taken upon himself "the form of a servant"--you may think him, in our late age of philosophic disillusion, a wholly chimerical being. Yet history records one instance in which such a figure actually found his way to an imperial throne, and with a certain approach to the result Plato promises. It was precisely because his whole being was filled with philosophic vision, that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that fond student of philosophy, of this very philosophy of Plato, served the Roman people so well in peace and war--with so much disinterestedness, because, in fact, so reluctantly. Look onward, and what is strange and inexplicable in his realisation of the Platonic scheme--strange, if we consider how cold and [266] feeble after all were the rays of light on which he waited so devoutly--becomes clear in the person of Saint Louis, who, again, precisely because his whole being was full of heavenly vision, in self-banishment from it for a while, led and ruled the French people so magnanimously alike in peace and war. The presence, then, the ascendancy amid actual things, of the royal or philosophic nature, as Plato thus conceives it--that, and nothing else, will be the generating force, the seed, of the City of the Perfect, as he conceives it: this place, in which the great things of existence, known or divined, really fill the soul. Only, he for one would not be surprised if no eyes actually see it. Like his master Socrates, as you know, he is something of a humorist; and if he sometimes surprises us with paradox or hazardous theory, will sometimes also give us to understand that he is after all not quite serious. So about this vision of the City of the Perfect, The Republic, Kallipolis,+ Uranopolis, Utopia, Civitas Dei, The Kingdom of Heaven--

     Suffer me, he says, to entertain myself as men of listless
     minds are wont to do when they journey alone.  Such persons,
     I fancy, before they have found out in what way ought of what
     they desire may come to be, pass that question by lest they
     grow weary in considering whether the thing be possible or no;
     and supposing what they wish already achieved, they proceed at
     once to arrange all the rest, pleasing themselves in the
     tracing out all they will do, when that shall have come to
     pass--making a mind already idle idler still.  Republic, 144.

NOTES

236. +Transliteration: Peri Dikaiosynês. Pater's translation: "on the nature of justice."

236. +Transliteration: tod' ên hôs eoike prooimion. E-text editor's translation: "this was only by way of introduction." Plato, Republic 357a.

241. +Transliteration: to hen prattein, to ta hautou prattein. E-text editor's translation: "to do one thing [only], to do only things proper to oneself." Plato, Republic 369e.

241. +Transliteration: poikilia, pleonexia, polypragmosynê. Liddell and Scott definitions: "poikilia = metaph: cunning; pleonexia = a disposition to take more than one's share; polupragmosunê = meddling."

242. +Transliteration: Prôton men phyetai hekastos ou pany homoios hekastô, alla diapherôn tên physin, allos ep allou ergou praxin. E- text editor's translation: "To begin with, each person is of a nature not the same as another's; rather, people differ in nature, and so one person will be best fitted for one task, and another for a different kind of work." Plato, Republic 370a-b.

242. +Transliteration: ergon. Liddell and Scott definition: "work . . . employment."

242. +Transliteration: poikilia. Liddell and Scott definition: "metaph: cunning."

243. +Transliteration: gignetai toinyn hôs egômai polis epeidê tunchanei hêmôn hekastos ouk autarkês. E-text editor's translation: "As I see it, the city will come into existence because it so happens that as individuals we are not sufficient to provide for ourselves." Plato, Republic 369b.

243. +Transliteration: Poiêsei hôs egômai tên polin hêmetera chreia. E- text editor's translation: "As I see it, it will be our needs that create the city." Plato, Republic 369c.

244. +Transliteration: hoi dêmiourgoi. Liddell and Scott definition of dêmiourgos: "workman."

245. +Transliteration: eis hen kata physin. E-text editor's translation: "to one activity in accordance with [a given person's] nature." Plato, Republic 372e..

246. +Transliteration: polis êdê tryphôsa. E-text editor's translation: "a city already [grown] luxurious." The verb tryphaô means "to live softly or delicately, fare sumptuously, live in luxury." (Liddell and Scott.) Plato, Republic 372e.

246. +Transliteration: polis êdê tryphôsa. E-text editor's translation: "a city already [grown] luxurious." The verb tryphaô means "to live softly or delicately, fare sumptuously, live in luxury." (Liddell and Scott.) Plato, Republic 372e.

246. +Transliteration: kai hê chôra pou hê tote hikanê smikra ex hikanês estai. E-text editor's translation: "And the land that used to be sufficient will be insufficient." Plato, Republic 373d.

246. +Transliteration: oukoun tês tôn plêsion chôras hêmin apotmêteon. E-text editor's translation: "And so we will appropriate for ourselves some of our neighbor's land." Plato, Republic 373d.

247. +Transliteration: Phylakes . . . epikouroi. Pater's translation: "watchmen or auxiliaries."

247. +Transliteration: hôs en pharmakou eidei ta pseudê ta en deonti genomena. E-text editor's translation: "timely falsehoods that take the form of medicine." Plato, Republic 389b and 414b contain parts of the quotation.

247. +Transliteration: phoinikikon pseudos. E-text editor's translation: "Phoenician story." Plato, Republic 414c.

251. +Transliteration: nomisma tês allagês heneka. E-text editor's translation: "a common currency for exchange." Plato, Republic 371b.

254. +Transliteration: oikeiopragia. E-text editor's translation: "functioning," from oikeios (proper to a thing, fitting) and pragos or, in everyday non-poetic speech, pragma(deed). Plato, Republic 434c.

255. +Transliteration: dêmos. Liddell and Scott definition: "the commons, common people, plebeians; in Attica, townships or hundreds."

255. +Transliteration: ta tôn philôn koina. E-text editor's translation: "the possessions of friends are held in common." Plato, Phaedrus 279c contains similar language.

257. +Transliteration: archontes. Liddell and Scott definition of archon: "ruler."

257. +Transliteration: philopolides. Liddell and Scott definition: "[those] loving [their] city, state, or country."

258. +Transliteration: Ta tôn philôn koina. E-text editor's translation: "the possessions of friends are held in common." Plato, Phaedrus 279c contains similar language.

260. +Transliteration: kalokagathos. Liddell and Scott definition: "beautiful and good, noble and good."

264. +Transliteration: homoiôsis tô theô. Pater's translation: "a [process or act of] being made like to God." Plato, Republic 454c.

266. +Transliteration: Kallipolis. Liddell and Scott definition: "beautiful city." Plato, Republic 527c.

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