The Republic
And so, Glaucon, we have arrived at the conclusion that in the perfect
State wives and children are to be in common; and that all education
and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best
philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings?
That, replied Glaucon, has been acknowledged.
Yes, I said; and we have further acknowledged that the governors, when
appointed themselves, will take their soldiers and place them in houses
such as we were describing, which are common to all, and contain
nothing private, or individual; and about their property, you remember
what we agreed?
Yes, I remember that no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions
of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians, receiving
from the other citizens, in lieu of annual payment, only their
maintenance, and they were to take care of themselves and of the whole
State.
True, I said; and now that this division of our task is concluded, let
us find the point at which we digressed, that we may return into the
old path.
There is no difficulty in returning; you implied, then as now, that you
had finished the description of the State: you said that such a State
was good, and that the man was good who answered to it, although, as
now appears, you had more excellent things to relate both of State and
man. And you said further, that if this was the true form, then the
others were false; and of the false forms, you said, as I remember,
that there were four principal ones, and that their defects, and the
defects of the individuals corresponding to them, were worth examining.
When we had seen all the individuals, and finally agreed as to who was
the best and who was the worst of them, we were to consider whether the
best was not also the happiest, and the worst the most miserable. I
asked you what were the four forms of government of which you spoke,
and then Polemarchus and Adeimantus put in their word; and you began
again, and have found your way to the point at which we have now
arrived.
Your recollection, I said, is most exact.
Then, like a wrestler, he replied, you must put yourself again in the
same position; and let me ask the same questions, and do you give me
the same answer which you were about to give me then.
Yes, if I can, I will, I said.
I shall particularly wish to hear what were the four constitutions of
which you were speaking.
That question, I said, is easily answered: the four governments of
which I spoke, so far as they have distinct names, are, first, those of
Crete and Sparta, which are generally applauded; what is termed
oligarchy comes next; this is not equally approved, and is a form of
government which teems with evils: thirdly, democracy, which naturally
follows oligarchy, although very different: and lastly comes tyranny,
great and famous, which differs from them all, and is the fourth and
worst disorder of a State. I do not know, do you? of any other
constitution which can be said to have a distinct character. There are
lordships and principalities which are bought and sold, and some other
intermediate forms of government. But these are nondescripts and may be
found equally among Hellenes and among barbarians.
Yes, he replied, we certainly hear of many curious forms of government
which exist among them.
Do you know, I said, that governments vary as the dispositions of men
vary, and that there must be as many of the one as there are of the
other? For we cannot suppose that States are made of ‘oak and rock,’
and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a
figure turn the scale and draw other things after them?
Yes, he said, the States are as the men are; they grow out of human
characters.
Then if the constitutions of States are five, the dispositions of
individual minds will also be five?
Certainly.
Him who answers to aristocracy, and whom we rightly call just and good,
we have already described.
We have.
Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being
the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity; also
the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most
just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be
able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads
a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The enquiry will then be
completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as
Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the
argument to prefer justice.
Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.
Shall we follow our old plan, which we adopted with a view to
clearness, of taking the State first and then proceeding to the
individual, and begin with the government of honour?—I know of no name
for such a government other than timocracy, or perhaps timarchy. We
will compare with this the like character in the individual; and, after
that, consider oligarchy and the oligarchical man; and then again we
will turn our attention to democracy and the democratical man; and
lastly, we will go and view the city of tyranny, and once more take a
look into the tyrant’s soul, and try to arrive at a satisfactory
decision.
That way of viewing and judging of the matter will be very suitable.
First, then, I said, let us enquire how timocracy (the government of
honour) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best).
Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual
governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be
moved.
Very true, he said.
In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner will the
two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with
one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to
tell us ‘how discord first arose’? Shall we imagine them in solemn
mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to
address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?
How would they address us?
After this manner:—A city which is thus constituted can hardly be
shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an
end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will
in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution:—In plants that grow
in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth’s surface,
fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences
of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences
pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But
to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and
education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them
will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense,
but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when
they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is
contained in a perfect number (i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which
is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or
time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations
represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.), but the period of human
birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by
involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three
intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers,
make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another.
(Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides
of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 3 cubed, 4 cubed, 5
cubed, which together = 6 cubed = 216.) The base of these (3) with a
third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third
power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred
times as great (400 = 4 x 100) (Or the first a square which is 100 x
100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100,
and an oblong of 100 by 75.), and the other a figure having one side
equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers
squared upon rational diameters of a square (i.e. omitting fractions),
the side of which is five (7 x 7 = 49 x 100 = 4900), each of them being
less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc.
50) or less by (Or, ‘consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational
diameters,’ etc. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see
Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square
the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of
three (27 x 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents
a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of
births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and
unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be
goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed
by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their
fathers’ places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will
soon be found to fail in taking care of us, the Muses, first by
under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and
hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the
succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the
guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which,
like Hesiod’s, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron
will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will
arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and
in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be
the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is
their answer to us.
Yes, and we may assume that they answer truly.
Why, yes, I said, of course they answer truly; how can the Muses speak
falsely?
And what do the Muses say next?
When discord arose, then the two races were drawn different ways: the
iron and brass fell to acquiring money and land and houses and gold and
silver; but the gold and silver races, not wanting money but having the
true riches in their own nature, inclined towards virtue and the
ancient order of things. There was a battle between them, and at last
they agreed to distribute their land and houses among individual
owners; and they enslaved their friends and maintainers, whom they had
formerly protected in the condition of freemen, and made of them
subjects and servants; and they themselves were engaged in war and in
keeping a watch against them.
I believe that you have rightly conceived the origin of the change.
And the new government which thus arises will be of a form intermediate
between oligarchy and aristocracy?
Very true.
Such will be the change, and after the change has been made, how will
they proceed? Clearly, the new State, being in a mean between oligarchy
and the perfect State, will partly follow one and partly the other, and
will also have some peculiarities.
True, he said.
In the honour given to rulers, in the abstinence of the warrior class
from agriculture, handicrafts, and trade in general, in the institution
of common meals, and in the attention paid to gymnastics and military
training—in all these respects this State will resemble the former.
True.
But in the fear of admitting philosophers to power, because they are no
longer to be had simple and earnest, but are made up of mixed elements;
and in turning from them to passionate and less complex characters, who
are by nature fitted for war rather than peace; and in the value set by
them upon military stratagems and contrivances, and in the waging of
everlasting wars—this State will be for the most part peculiar.
Yes.