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And is it not apparent that its force is such that wherever it is found in city, family, camp, or in anything else it first renders the thing incapable of cooperation with itself owing to faction and difference, and secondly an enemy to itselfPlato paradoxically treats the state as one organism and the individual as many warring members (cf. Introduction p. xxxv). Hence, justice in one, and being a friend to oneself are more than metaphors for him. Cf. 621 C, 416 C, 428 D, Laws 626 E, 693 B, Epistles vii. 332 D, Antiphon 556.45 Diels ὁμονοεῖ πρὸς ἑαυτόν. Aritotle, Eth. Nic. v. 11, inquires whether a man can wrong himself, and Chrysippus (Plutarch, Stoic. Repug. xvi.) pronounces the expression absurd. and to its opposite in every case, the just? Isn’t that so? By all means. Then in the individual too, I presume, its presence will operate all these effects which it is its nature to produce. It will in the first place make him incapable of accomplishing anything because of inner faction and lack of self-agreement, and then an enemy to himself and to the just. Is it not so? Yes. But, my friend, the gods tooThis is the conventional climax of the plea for any moral ideal. So Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1179 a 24, proves that the σοφός being likest God is θεοφιλέστατος. Cf. Democ. fr. 217 D. μοῦνοι θεοφιλέες ὅσοις ἐχθρὸν τὸ ἀδικεῖν; 382 E, 612 E, Philebus 39 E, Laws 716 D. The enlightened Thrasymachus is disgusted at this dragging in of the gods. Cf. Theaetetus 162 D θεούς τε εἰς τὸ μέσον ἄγοντες. He is reported as saying (Diels p. 544.40) that the gods regard not human affairs, else they would not have overlooked the greatest of goods, justice, which men plainly do not use. are just. Have it that they are, he said. So to the gods also, it seems, the unjust man will be hateful, but the just man dear. Revel in your discourse, he said, without fear, for I shall not oppose you, so as not to offend your partisans here. Fill up the measure of my feast,ἑστιάσεως keeps up the image of the feast of reason. Cf. 354 A-B, Lysis 211 C, Gorgias 522 A, Phaedrus 227 B, and Tim. 17 A, from which perhaps it becomes a commonplace in Dante and the Middle Ages. then, and complete it for me, I said, by continuing to answer as you have been doing. Now that the just appear to be wiser and better and more capable of action and the unjust incapable of any common action, and that if we ever say that any men who are unjust have vigorously combined to put something over, our statement is not altogether true, for they would not have kept their hands from one another if they had been thoroughly unjust, but it is obvious that there was in them some justice which prevented them from wronging at the same time one another too as well as those whom they attacked; and by dint of this they accomplished whatever they did and set out to do injustice only half corruptedFor the idea cf. the argument in Protagoras 327 C-D, that Socrates would yearn for the wickedness of Athens if he found himself among wild men who knew no justice at all. by injustice, since utter rascals completely unjust are completely incapable of effective action—all this I understand to be the truth, and not what you originally laid down. But whether it is also trueThe main ethical question of the Republic, suggested in 347 E, now recurs. that the just have a better life than the unjust and are happier, which is the question we afterwards proposed for examination, is what we now have to consider. It appears even now that they are, I think, from what has already been said. But all the same we must examine it more carefully.Similarly 578 C. What has been said implies that injustice is the corruption and disease of the soul (see on 445 A-B). But Socrates wishes to make further use of the argument from ἔργον or specific function. For it is no ordinaryCf. on 344 D, ibid, pp. 71 f. matter that we are discussing, but the right conduct of life. Proceed with your inquiry, he said. I proceed, said I. Tell me then—would you say that a horse has a specific workSee on 335 D, and Aristotle Eth. Nic. i. 7. 14. The virtue or excellence of a thing is the right performance of its specific function. See Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. p. 301, Newman, Introduction Aristotle Politics p. 48. The following argument is in a sense a fallacy, since it relies on the double meaning of life, physical and moral (cf. 445 B and Cratylus 399 D) and on the ambiguity of εὖ πράττειν, fare well and do well. The Aristotelian commentator, Alexander, animadverts on the fallacy. For ἔργον cf. further Epictet. Dis. i. 4. 11, Max. Tyr. Dis. ii. 4, Musonius apud Stobaeus 117. 8, Thompson on Meno 90 E, Plato, Laws 896 D, Phaedrus 246 B. or function? I would. Would you be willing to define the work of a horse or of anything else to be that which one can do only with it or best with it? I don’t understand, he replied. Well, take it this way: is there anything else with which you can see except the eyes? Certainly not. Again, could you hear with anything but ears? By no means. Would you not rightly say that these are the functions of these (organs)? By all means.
