Socrates : Then it is impossible to BE HAPPY if one is not temperate and good. ALCIBIADES I
Socrates : So it is not walls or warships or arsenals that cities need, Alcibiades, if they are to BE HAPPY, nor numbers, nor size, without virtue. ALCIBIADES I
(134e) Socrates : Well now, if you act in this way, I am ready to warrant that you must BE HAPPY. ALCIBIADES I
Socrates : Then it is not despotic power, my admirable Alcibiades, that you ought to secure either to yourself or to the state, if you would BE HAPPY, but virtue. ALCIBIADES I
Hear, then, I said, my own dream ; whether coming through the horn or the ivory gate, I cannot tell. The dream is this : Let us suppose that wisdom is such as we are now defining, and that she has absolute sway over us ; then each action will be done according to the arts or sciences, and no one professing to be a pilot when he is not, or any physician or general, or any one else pretending to know matters of which he is ignorant, will deceive or elude us ; our health will be improved ; our safety at sea, and also in battle, will be assured ; our coats and shoes, and all other instruments and implements will be skilfully made, because the workmen will be good and true. Aye, and if you please, you may suppose that prophecy, which is the knowledge of the future, will be under the control of wisdom, and that she will deter deceivers and set up the true prophets in their place as the revealers of the future. Now I quite agree that mankind, thus provided, would live and act according to knowledge, for wisdom would watch and prevent ignorance from intruding on us. But whether by acting according to knowledge we shall act well and BE HAPPY, my dear Critias, — this is a point which we have not yet been able to determine. CHARMIDES
Then, I said, we are giving up the doctrine that he who lives according to knowledge is happy, for these live according to knowledge, and yet they are not allowed by you to BE HAPPY ; but I think that you mean to confine happiness to particular individuals who live according to knowledge, such for example as the prophet, who, as I was saying, knows the future. Is it of him you are speaking or of some one else ? CHARMIDES
Monster ! I said ; you have been carrying me round in a circle, and all this time hiding from me the fact that the life according to knowledge is not that which makes men act rightly and BE HAPPY, not even if knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this, medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes ? — whether the art of the pilot will not equally save our lives at sea, and the art of the general in war ? CHARMIDES
And if your father and mother love you, and desire that you should BE HAPPY, no one can doubt that they are very ready to promote your happiness. LYSIS
What do you mean ? I said. Do they want you to BE HAPPY, and yet hinder you from doing what you like ? For example, if you want to mount one of your father’s chariots, and take the reins at a race, they will not allow you to do so — they will prevent you ? LYSIS
I shall BE HAPPY, I said, to let you have a share. Here is Lysis, who does not understand something that I was saying, and wants me to ask Menexenus, who, as he thinks, is likely to know. LYSIS
Soc. In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind : this habit I sum up under the word “flattery” ; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art : — another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are two others : thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric : he did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question : Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine thing ? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, “What is rhetoric ?” For that would not be right, Polus ; but I shall BE HAPPY to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric ? GORGIAS
Soc. Not so, my simple friend, but because you will refute me after the manner which rhetoricians practise in courts of law. For there the one party think that they refute the other when they bring forward a number of witnesses of good repute in proof of their allegations, and their adversary has only a single one or none at all. But this kind of proof is of no value where truth is the aim ; a man may often be sworn down by a multitude of false witnesses who have a great air of respectability. And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement — you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him ; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi ; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose — they will all agree with you : I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me ; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth. But I consider that nothing worth speaking of will have been effected by me unless I make you the one witness of my words ; nor by you, unless you make me the one witness of yours ; no matter about the rest of the world. For there are two ways of refutation, one which is yours and that of the world in general ; but mine is of another sort — let us compare them, and see in what they differ. For, indeed, we are at issue about matters which to know is honourable and not to know disgraceful ; to know or not to know happiness and misery — that is the chief of them. And what knowledge can be nobler ? or what ignorance more disgraceful than this ? And therefore I will begin by asking you whether you do not think that a man who is unjust and doing injustice can BE HAPPY, seeing that you think Archelaus unjust, and yet happy ? May I assume this to be your opinion ? GORGIAS
Soc. But I say that this is an impossibility — here is one point about which we are at issue : — very good. And do you mean to say also that if he meets with retribution and punishment he will still BE HAPPY ? GORGIAS
Soc. On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will BE HAPPY ? GORGIAS
Cal. Quite so, Socrates ; and they are really fools, for how can a man BE HAPPY who is the servant of anything ? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them ; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain ; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise temperance and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than temperance — to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him ? — must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and temperance hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city ? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this : — that luxury and intemperance and licence, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness — all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth. GORGIAS
Soc. Then those who want nothing are not truly said to BE HAPPY ? GORGIAS
And will not the temperate man do what is proper, both in relation to the gods and to men ; — for he would not be temperate if he did not ? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just ; See and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy ; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy ? Very true. And must he not be courageous ? for the duty of a temperate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought ; and therefore, Callicles, the temperate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and perfectly whatever he does ; and he who does well must of necessity BE HAPPY and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable : now this latter is he whom you were applauding — the intemperate who is the opposite of the temperate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to BE HAPPY must pursue and practise temperance and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him : he had better order his life so as not to need punishment ; but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would BE HAPPY. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present with him and BE HAPPY, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them leading a robber’s life. Such ; one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend. But although you are a philosopher you seem to me never to have observed that geometrical equality is mighty, both among gods and men ; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or excess, and do not care about geometry. — Well, then, either the principle that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance, and the miserable the possession of vice, must be refuted, or, if it is granted, what will be the consequences ? All the consequences which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his rhetoric — all those consequences are true. And that which you thought that Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that, to do injustice, if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse ; and the other position, which, according to Polus, Gorgias admitted out of modesty, that he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and have a knowledge of justice, has also turned out to be true. GORGIAS
Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will BE HAPPY in life and after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind ; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practise of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds ; so utterly stupid are we ! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go ; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you ; for that way, Callicles, is nothing worth. GORGIAS
Well, then, I said, since we all of us desire happiness, how can we BE HAPPY ? — that is the next question. Shall we not BE HAPPY if we have many good things ? And this, perhaps, is even a more simple question than the first, for there can be no doubt of the answer. EUTHYDEMUS
We contrived at last, somehow or other, to agree in a general conclusion, that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune. I then recalled to his mind the previous state of the question. You remember, I said, our making the admission that we should BE HAPPY and fortunate if many good things were present with us ? EUTHYDEMUS
And should we BE HAPPY by reason of the presence of good things, if they profited us not, or if they profited us ? EUTHYDEMUS
And if a person had wealth and all the goods of which we were just now speaking, and did not use them, would he BE HAPPY because he possessed them ? EUTHYDEMUS
Then, I said, a man who would BE HAPPY must not only have the good things, but he must also use them ; there is no advantage in merely having them ? EUTHYDEMUS
Her. I have often talked over this matter, both with Cratylus and others, and cannot convince myself that there is any principle of correctness in names other than convention and agreement ; any name which you give, in my opinion, is the right one, and if you change that and give another, the new name is as correct as the old — we frequently change the names of our slaves, and the newly-imposed name is as good as the old : for there is no name given to anything by nature ; all is convention and habit of the users ; — such is my view. But if I am mistaken I shall BE HAPPY to hear and learn of Cratylus, or of any one else. CRATYLUS
Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister ; and let no one oppose him — he is the enemy of the gods who oppose him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider application — they include men and women everywhere ; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would BE HAPPY. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union ; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn ; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left. SYMPOSIUM
Phaed. I remember the strange feeling which came over me at being with him. For I could hardly believe that I was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I did not pity him, Echecrates ; his mien and his language were so noble and fearless in the hour of death that to me he appeared blessed. I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would BE HAPPY, if any man ever was, when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity him as might seem natural at such a time. But neither could I feel the pleasure which I usually felt in philosophical discourse (for philosophy was the theme of which we spoke). I was pleased, and I was also pained, because I knew that he was soon to die, and this strange mixture of feeling was shared by us all ; we were laughing and weeping by turns, especially the excitable Apollodorus — you know the sort of man ? PHAEDO
Str. This then we declare to be the completion of the web of political Action, which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, whenever the royal science has drawn the two minds into communion with one another by unanimity and friendship, and having perfected the noblest and best of all the webs which political life admits, and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them, and, in so far as to BE HAPPY is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to secure their happiness. STATESMAN
Ath. “Friends,” we say to them, — “God, as the old tradition declares, holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is, travels according to his nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of his end. Justice always accompanies him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who would BE HAPPY holds fast, and follows in her company with all humility and order ; but he who is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth or rank, or beauty, who is young and foolish, and has a soul hot with insolence, and thinks that he has no need of any guide or ruler, but is able himself to be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of God ; and being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like himself, and dances about, throwing all things into confusion, and many think that he is a great man, but in a short time he pays a penalty which justice cannot but approve, and is utterly destroyed, and his family and city with him. Wherefore, seeing that human things are thus ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or not do or think ? LAWS BOOK IV
Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary in dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves or immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them. Wherefore our citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current among themselves, but not accepted among the rest of mankind ; with a view, however, to expeditions and journeys to other lands — for embassies, or for any other occasion which may arise of sending out a herald, the state must also possess a common Hellenic currency. If a private person is ever obliged to go abroad, let him have the consent of the magistrates and go ; and if when he returns he has any foreign money remaining, let him give the surplus back to the treasury, and receive a corresponding sum in the local currency. And if he is discovered to appropriate it, let it be confiscated, and let him who knows and does not inform be subject to curse and dishonour equally him who brought the money, and also to a fine not less in amount than the foreign money which has been brought back. In marrying and giving in marriage, no one shall give or receive any dowry at all ; and no one shall deposit money with another whom he does not trust as a friend, nor shall he lend money upon interest ; and the borrower should be under no obligation to repay either capital or interest. That these principles are best, any one may see who compares them with the firsfirst principle and intention of a state. The intention, as we affirm, of a reasonable statesman, is not what the many declare to be the object of a good legislator, namely, that the state for the true interests of which he is advising should be as great and as rich as possible, and should possess gold and silver, and have the greatest empire by sea and land ; — this they imagine to be the real object of legislation, at the same time adding, inconsistently, that the true legislator desires to have the city the best and happiest possible. But they do not see that some of these things are possible, and some of them are impossible ; and he who orders the state will desire what is possible, and will not indulge in vain wishes or attempts to accomplish that which is impossible. The citizen must indeed BE HAPPY and good, and the legislator will seek to make him so ; but very rich and very good at the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the sense in which the many speak of riches. For they mean by “the rich” the few who have the most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may quite well be a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the doctrine that the rich man will BE HAPPY — he must be good as well as rich. And good in a high degree, and rich in a high degree at the same time, he cannot be. Some one will ask, why not ? And we shall answer — Because acquisitions which come from sources which are just and unjust indifferently, are more than double those which come from just sources only ; and the sums which are expended neither honourably nor disgracefully, are only half as great as those which are expended honourably and on honourable purposes. Thus, if the one acquires double and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case and is a good man cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first — I am speaking of the saver and not of the spender — is not always bad ; he may indeed in some cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he never is. For he who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends neither nor unjustly, will be a rich man if he be also thrifty. On the other hand, the utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor ; while he who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means only, can hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very poor. Our statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if they are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was that the citizens should be as happy as may be, and as friendly as possible to one another. And men who are always at law with one another, and amongst whom there are many wrongs done, can never be friends to one another, but only those among whom crimes and lawsuits are few and slight. Therefore we say that gold and silver ought not to be allowed in the city, nor much of the vulgar sort of trade which is carried on by lending money, or rearing the meaner kinds of live stock ; but only the produce of agriculture, and only so much of this as will not compel us in pursuing it to neglect that for the sake of which riches exist — I mean, soul and body, which without gymnastics, and without education, will never be worth anything ; and therefore, as we have said not once but many times, the care of riches should have the last place in our thoughts. For there are in all three things about which every man has an interest ; and the interest about money, when rightly regarded, is the third and lowest of them : midway comes the interest of the body ; and, first of all, that of the soul ; and the state which we are describing will have been rightly constituted if it ordains honours according to this scale. But if, in any of the laws which have been ordained, health has been preferred to temperance, or wealth to health and temperate habits, that law must clearly be wrong. Wherefore, also, the legislator ought often to impress upon himself the question — “What do I want ?” and “Do I attain my aim, or do I miss the mark ?” In this way, and in this way only, he ma acquit himself and free others from the work of legislation. LAWS BOOK V
Ath. The reason is that masters and freemen in states, when they hear of it, are very likely to arrive at a true conviction that without due regulation of private life in cities, stability in the laying down of laws is hardly to be expected ; and he who makes this reflection may himself adopt the laws just now mentioned, and, adopting them, may order his house and state well and BE HAPPY. LAWS BOOK VII
Ath. And ought the legislator alone among writers to withhold his opinion about the beautiful, the good, and the just, and not to teach what they are, and how they are to be pursued by those who intend to BE HAPPY ? LAWS BOOK IX
Ath. Let us first speak, as far as we are able, of their various kinds. The greatest cause of them is lust, which gets the mastery of the soul maddened by desire ; and this is most commonly found to exist where the passion reigns which is strongest and most prevalent among mass of mankind : I mean where the power of wealth breeds endless desires of never-to-be-satisfied acquisition, originating in natural disposition, and a miserable want of education. Of this want of education, the false praise of wealth which is bruited about both among Hellenes and barbarians is the cause ; they deem that to be the first of goods which in reality is only the third. And in this way they wrong both posterity and themselves, for nothing can be nobler and better than that the truth about wealth should be spoken in all states — namely, that riches are for the sake of the body, as the body is for the sake of the soul. They are good, and wealth is intended by nature to be for the sake of them, and is therefore inferior to them both, and third in order of excellence. This argument teaches us that he who would BE HAPPY ought not to seek to be rich, or rather he should seek to be rich justly and temperately, and then there would be no murders in states requiring to be purged away by other murders. But now, as I said at first, avarice is the chiefest cause and source of the worst trials for voluntary homicide. A second cause is ambition : this creates jealousies, which are troublesome companions, above all to the jealous man himself, and in a less degree to the chiefs of the state. And a third cause is cowardly and unjust fear, which has been the occasion of many murders. When a man is doing or has done something which he desires that no one should know him to be doing or to have done, he will take the life of those who are likely to inform of such things, if he have no other means of getting rid of them. Let this be said as a prelude concerning crimes of violence in general ; and I must not omit to mention a tradition which is firmly believed by many, and has been received by them from those who are learned in the mysteries : they say that such deeds will be punished in the world below, and also that when the perpetrators return to this world they will pay the natural penalty which is due to the sufferer, and end their lives in like manner by the hand of another. If he who is about to commit murder believes this, and is made by the mere prelude to dread such a penalty, there is no need to proceed with the proclamation of the law. But if he will not listen, let the following law be declared and registered against him : LAWS BOOK IX
For never, without these lessons, will any nature BE HAPPY in our cities : no, this is the way, this the nurture, these the studies, whether difficult or easy, this the path to pursue : to neglect the gods is not permissible, when it has been made manifest that the fame of them, stated in proper terms, hits the mark. (992b) And the man who has acquired all these things in this manner is he whom I account the most truly wisest : of him I also assert, both in jest and in earnest, that when one of his like completes his allotted span at death, I would say if he still be dead, he will not partake any more of the various sensations then as he does now, but having alone partaken of a single lot and having become one out of many, will BE HAPPY and at the same time most wise and blessed, whether one has a blessed life in continents or in islands ; and that such a man will partake (992c) always of the like fortune, and whether his life is spent in a public or in a private practice of these studies he will get the same treatment, in just the same manner, from the gods. EPINOMIS BOOK XII
In the highest class, I replied — among those goods which he who would BE HAPPY desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II
For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just, profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. I will describe around me a picture and shadow of virtue to be the vestibule and exterior of my house ; behind I will trail the subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, greatest of sages, recommends. But I hear someone exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult ; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would BE HAPPY, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies ; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods ? or, suppose them to have no care of human things — why in either case should we mind about concealment ? And even if there are gods, and they do care about us, yet we know of them only from tradition and the genealogies of the poets ; and these are the very persons who say that they may be influenced and turned by “sacrifices and soothing entreaties and by offerings.” Let us be consistent, then, and believe both or neither. If the poets speak truly, why, then, we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice ; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice ; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished. “But there is a world below in which either we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.” Yes, my friend, will be the reflection, but there are mysteries and atoning deities, and these have great power. That is what mighty cities declare ; and the children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II
If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men ; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole ; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice : and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole ; and by and by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. Suppose that we were painting a statue, and someone came up to us and said : Why do you not put the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the body — the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black — to him we might fairly answer : Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes ; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians ; for we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel, and set crowns of gold on their heads, and bid them till the ground as much as they like, and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the wine-cup, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery only as much as they like ; in this way we might make every class happy — and then, as you imagine, the whole State would BE HAPPY. But do not put this idea into our heads ; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, are confined to cobblers ; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians, then see how they turn the State upside down ; and on the other hand they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the State. We mean our guardians to be true saviours and not the destroyers of the State, whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival, who are enjoying a life of revelry, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the State. But, if so, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole. But if the latter be the truth, then the guardians and auxiliaries, and all others equally with them, must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way. And thus the whole State will grow up in a noble order, and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV
But where, amid all this, is justice ? Son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would BE HAPPY should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV
At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that if any of our guardians shall try to BE HAPPY in such a manner that he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but, infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his head shall seek to appropriate the whole State to himself, then he will have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, “half is more than the whole.” THE REPUBLIC BOOK V
And if the world perceives that what we are saying about him is the truth, will they be angry with philosophy ? Will they disbelieve us, when we tell them that no State can BE HAPPY which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI
And according to the report of the messenger from the other world this was what the prophet said at the time : “Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely and will live diligently, there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence. Let not him who chooses first be careless, and let not the last despair.” And when he had spoken, he who had the first choice came forward and in a moment chose the greatest tyranny ; his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality, he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children. But when he had time to reflect, and saw what was in the lot, he began to beat his breast and lament over his choice, forgetting the proclamation of the prophet ; for, instead of throwing the blame of his misfortune on himself, he accused chance and the gods, and everything rather than himself. Now he was one of those who came from heaven, and in a former life had dwelt in a well-ordered State, but his virtue was a matter of habit only, and he had no philosophy. And it was true of others who were similarly overtaken, that the greater number of them came from heaven and therefore they had never been schooled by trial, whereas the pilgrims WhO came from earth, having themselves suffered and seen others suffer, were not in a hurry to choose. And owing to this inexperience of theirs, and also because the lot was a chance, many of the souls exchanged a good destiny for an evil or an evil for a good. For if a man had always on his arrival in this world dedicated himself from the first to sound philosophy, and had been moderately fortunate in the number of the lot, he might, as the messenger reported, BE HAPPY here, and also his journey to another life and return to this, instead of being rough and underground, would be smooth and heavenly. Most curious, he said, was the spectacle — sad and laughable and strange ; for the choice of the souls was in most cases based on their experience of a previous life. There he saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of enmity to the race of women, hating to be born of a woman because they had been his murderers ; he beheld also the soul of Thamyras choosing the life of a nightingale ; birds, on the other hand, like the swans and other musicians, wanting to be men. The soul which obtained the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion, and this was the soul of Ajax the son of Telamon, who would not be a man, remembering the injustice which was done him in the judgment about the arms. The next was Agamemnon, who took the life of an eagle, because, like Ajax, he hated human nature by reason of his sufferings. About the middle came the lot of Atalanta ; she, seeing the great fame of an athlete, was unable to resist the temptation : and after her there followed the soul of Epeus the son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a woman cunning in the arts ; and far away among the last who chose, the soul of the jester Thersites was putting on the form of a monkey. There came also the soul of Odysseus having yet to make a choice, and his lot happened to be the last of them all. Now the recollection of former toils had disenchanted him of ambition, and he went about for a considerable time in search of the life of a private man who had no cares ; he had some difficulty in finding this, which was lying about and had been neglected by everybody else ; and when he saw it, he said that he would have done the same had his lot been first instead of last, and that he was delighted to have it. And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also mention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one another and into corresponding human natures — the good into the gentle and the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X