Book 9
589
Let us, then say to the speaker who avers that it pays this man to be unjust, and that to do justice is not for his advantage, that he is affirming nothing else than that it profits him to feast and make strong the multifarious beast and the lion and all that pertains to the lion, but to starve the manThe whole passage illustrates the psychology of 440 B ff. and so enfeeble him that he can be pulled aboutCf. Protag. 352 C περιελκομένης, with Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1145 b 24. whithersoever either of the others drag him, and not to familiarize or reconcile with one another the two creatures but suffer them to bite and fight and devour one another.Perhaps a latent allusion to Hesiod, Works and Days 278. Yes, he said, that is precisely what the panegyrist of injustice will be found to say. And on the other hand he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within usCf. the inward man, Romans vii. 22, 2 Cor. iv. 16, Ephes. iii. 16. complete dominationCf. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, p. 10 Religion says: The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality. over the entire man and make him take chargeCf. Gorg. 516 A-B. of the many-headed beast—like a farmerCf. Theaet. 167 B-C, and What Plato Said, p. 456, on Euthyphro 2 D. who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild—and he will make an allyCf. 441 A. of the lion’s nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will first make them friendly to one another and to himself, and so foster their growth. Yes, that in turn is precisely the meaning of the man who commends justice. From every point of view, then, the panegyrist of justice speaks truly and the panegyrist of injustice falsely. For whether we consider pleasure, reputation, or profit, he who commends justice speaks the truth, while there is no soundness or real knowledge of what he censures in him who disparages it. None whatever, I think, said he. Shall we, then, try to persuade him gently, πράως: cf. the use of ἠρέμα476 E, 494 D. for he does not willingly err,Plato always maintains that wrong-doing is involuntary and due to ignorance. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 640 on Laws 860 D. by questioning him thus: Dear friend, should we not also say that the things which law and custom deem fair or foul have been accounted so for a like reason— the fair and honorable things being those that subject the brutish part of our nature to that which is human in us, or rather, it may be, to that which is divine,Cf. 501 B, Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years after, in fine, The highest Human Nature is divine. while the foul and base are the things that enslave the gentle nature to the wild? Will he assent or not? He will if he is counselled by me. Can it profit any man in the light of this thought to accept gold unjustly if the result is to be that by the acceptance he enslaves the best part of himself to the worst? Or is it conceivable that, while, if the taking of the gold enslaved his son or daughter and that too to fierce and evil men, it would not profit him,Cf. Matt. xvi.26, Mark viii. 36, What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? A typical argumentum ex contrario. Cf. 445 A-B and Vol. I. p. 40, note c. On the supreme value of the soul Cf. Laws 726-728, 743 E, 697 B, 913 B, 959 A-B. Cf. 585 D. no matter how large the sum, yet that, if the result is to be the ruthless enslavement of the divinest part of himself to the most despicable and godless part, he is not to be deemed wretched and is not taking the golden bribe much more disastrously than EriphyleCf. Od. xi. 326, Frazer on Apollodorus iii. 6. 2 (Loeb). Stallbaum refers also to Pindar, Nem. ix. 37 ff, and Pausan. x. 29. 7. did when she received the necklace as the priceFor ἐπί in this sense cf. Thompson on Meno 90 D. Cf. Apol. 41 A ἐπὶ πόσῳ, Demosth. xlv. 66. of her husband’s life?
