Kitap 10
906
Ath. But to which kind of rulers are they like? Or which are like to them, of those rulers whom we can fairly compare with them, as small with great? Would drivers of rival teams resemble them, or pilots of ships? Or perhaps they might be likened to rulers of armies; or possibly they might be compared to physicians watching over a war against bodily disease, or to farmers fearfully awaiting seasons of wonted difficulty for the generation of plants, or else to masters of flocks. For seeing that we have agreedCp. Plat. Laws 904a ff., Plat. Laws 896c ff., Plat. Rep. 379c. among ourselves that the heaven is full of many things that are good, and of the opposite kind also, and that those not good are the more numerous, such a battle, we affirm, is undying, and needs a wondrous watchfulness,—the gods and daemons being our allies, and we the possessionCp.Plat. Phaedo 62b. of the gods and daemons; and what destroys us is iniquity and insolence combined with folly, what saves us, justice and temperance combined with wisdom, which dwell in the animate powers of the gods, and of which some small trace may be clearly seen here also residing in us. But there are certain souls that dwell on earth and have acquired unjust gain which, being plainly bestial, beseech the souls of the guardians—whether they be watch-dogs or herdsmen or the most exalted of masters—trying to convince them by fawning words and prayerful incantations that (as the tales of evil men relate) they can profiteer among men on earth without any severe penalty: but we assert that the sin now mentioned, of profiteering or over-gaining, is what is called in the case of fleshly bodies disease,Cp.Plat. Rep. 609 ff, Plat. Sym. 188a ff., where the theory is stated that health depends upon the harmony, or equal balance, of the constituent elements of the body (heat and cold, moisture and dryness,); when any of these (opposite) elements is in excess (πλεονεκτεῖ), disease sets in. So, too, in the body politic, the excess of due measure by any element, or member, is injustice. in that of seasons and years pestilence, and in that of States and polities, by a verbal change, this same sin is called injustice.
