Plato, Republic, Book IX — Greek text with English translation

—and when he has in like manner tamed his passionate part, and does not after a quarrel fall asleep with anger still awake within him, but if he has thus quieted the two elements in his soul and quickened the third, in which reason resides, and so goes to his rest, you are aware that in such case he is most likely to apprehend truth, and the visions of his dreams are least likely to be lawless. I certainly think so, he said. This description has carried us too far, but the point that we have to notice is this, that in fact there exists in every one of us, even in some reputed most respectable, a terrible, fierce and lawless brood of desires, which it seems are revealed in our sleep. Consider, then, whether there is anything in what I say, and whether you admit it. Well, I do.

—And when these dread magi and king-makers come to realize that they have no hope of controlling the youth in any other way, they contrive to engender in his soul a ruling passion to be the protector of his idle and prodigal appetites, a monstrous winged drone. Or do you think the spirit of desire in such men is aught else? Nothing but that, he said. And when the other appetites, buzzing about it, replete with incense and myrrh and chaplets and wine, and the pleasures that are released in such revelries, magnifying and fostering it to the utmost, awaken in the drone the sting of unsatisfied yearnings, why then this protector of the soul has madness for his body-guard and runs amuck, and if it finds in the man any opinions or appetites accounted worthy and still capable of shame, it slays them and thrusts them forth until it purges him of sobriety, and fills and infects him with frenzy brought in from outside. A perfect description, he said, of the generation of the tyrannical man. And is not this analogy, said I, the reason why Love has long since been called a tyrant? That may well be, he said. And does not a drunken man, my friend, I said, have something of this tyrannical temper? Yes, he has. And again the madman, the deranged man, attempts and expects to rule over not only men but gods. Yes indeed, he does, he said. Then a man becomes tyrannical in the full sense of the word, my friend, I said, when either by nature or by habits or by both he has become even as the drunken, the erotic, the maniacal. Assuredly.

—And after this there are borrowings and levyings upon the estate? Of course. And when all these resources fail, must there not come a cry from the frequent and fierce nestlings of desire hatched in his soul, and must not such men, urged, as it were by goads, by the other desires, and especially by the ruling passion itself as captain of their bodyguard—to keep up the figure—must they not run wild and look to see who has aught that can be taken from him by deceit or violence? Most certainly. And so he is compelled to sweep it in from every source or else be afflicted with great travail and pain. He is. And just as the new, upspringing pleasures in him got the better of the original passions of his soul and robbed them, so he himself, though younger, will claim the right to get the better of his father and mother, and, after spending his own share, to seize and convert to his own use a portion of his father’s estate. Of course, he said, what else? And if they resist him, would he not at first attempt to rob and steal from his parents and deceive them? Certainly. And if he failed in that, would he not next seize it by force? I think so, he said. And then, good sir, if the old man and the old woman clung to it and resisted him, would he be careful to refrain from the acts of a tyrant? I am not without my fears, he said, for the parents of such a one. Nay, Adeimantus, in heaven’s name, do you suppose that, for the sake of a newly found belle amie bound to him by no necessary tie, such a one would strike the dear mother, his by necessity and from his birth? Or for the sake of a blooming new-found bel ami, not necessary to his life, he would rain blows upon the aged father past his prime, closest of his kin and oldest of his friends? And would he subject them to those new favorites if he brought them under the same roof? Yes, by Zeus, he said. A most blessed lot it seems to be, said I, to be the parent of a tyrant son. It does indeed, he said. And again, when the resources of his father and mother are exhausted and fail such a one, and the swarm of pleasures collected in his soul is grown great, will he not first lay hands on the wall of someone’s house or the cloak of someone who walks late at night, and thereafter he will make a clean sweep of some temple, and in all these actions the beliefs which he held from boyhood about the honorable and the base, the opinions accounted just, will be overmastered by the opinions newly emancipated and released, which, serving as bodyguards of the ruling passion, will prevail in alliance with it—I mean the opinions that formerly were freed from restraint in sleep, when, being still under the control of his father and the laws, he maintained the democratic constitution in his soul.

—But now, when under the tyranny of his ruling passion, he is continuously and in waking hours what he rarely became in sleep, and he will refrain from no atrocity of murder nor from any food or deed, but the passion that dwells in him as a tyrant will live in utmost anarchy and lawlessness, and, since it is itself sole autocrat, will urge the polity, so to speak, of him in whom it dwells to dare anything and everything in order to find support for himself and the hubbub of his henchmen, in part introduced from outside by evil associations, and in part released and liberated within by the same habits of life as his. Is not this the life of such a one? It is this, he said. And if, I said, there are only a few of this kind in a city, and the others, the multitude as a whole, are sober-minded, the few go forth into exile and serve some tyrant elsewhere as bodyguard or become mercenaries in any war there may be. But if they spring up in time of peace and tranquillity they stay right there in the city and effect many small evils. What kind of evils do you mean? Oh, they just steal, break into houses, cut purses, strip men of their garments, plunder temples, and kidnap, and if they are fluent speakers they become sycophants and bear false witness and take bribes. Yes, small evils indeed, he said, if the men of this sort are few. Why, yes, I said, for small evils are relatively small compared with great, and in respect of the corruption and misery of a state all of them together, as the saying goes, don’t come within hail of the mischief done by a tyrant. For when men of this sort and their followers become numerous in a state and realize their numbers, then it is they who, in conjunction with the folly of the people, create a tyrant out of that one of them who has the greatest and mightiest tyrant in his own soul. Naturally, he said, for he would be the most tyrannical. Then if the people yield willingly—’tis well, but if the city resists him, then, just as in the previous case the man chastized his mother and his father, so now in turn will he chastize his fatherland if he can, bringing in new boon companions beneath whose sway he will hold and keep enslaved his once dear motherland—as the Cretans name her—and fatherland. And this would be the end of such a man’s desire. Yes, he said, this, just this.

—Then, said I, is not this the character of such men in private life and before they rule the state: to begin with they associate with flatterers, who are ready to do anything to serve them, or, if they themselves want something, they themselves fawn and shrink from no contortion or abasement in protest of their friendship, though, once the object gained, they sing another tune. Yes indeed, he said. Throughout their lives, then, they never know what it is to be the friends of anybody. They are always either masters or slaves, but the tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or true friendship. Quite so. May we not rightly call such men faithless? Of course. Yes, and unjust to the last degree, if we were right in our previous agreement about the nature of justice. But surely, he said, we were right. Let us sum up, then, said I, the most evil type of man. He is, I presume, the man who, in his waking hours, has the qualities we found in his dream state. Quite so. And he is developed from the man who, being by nature most of a tyrant, achieves sole power, and the longer he lives as an actual tyrant the stronger this quality becomes. Inevitably, said Glaucon, taking up the argument.

—And would it not also be a fair challenge, said I, to ask you to accept as the only proper judge of the two men the one who is able in thought to enter with understanding into the very soul and temper of a man, and who is not like a child viewing him from outside, overawed by the tyrants’ great attendance, and the pomp and circumstance which they assume in the eyes of the world, but is able to see through it all? And what if I should assume, then, that the man to whom we ought all to listen is he who has this capacity of judgement and who has lived under the same roof with a tyrant and has witnessed his conduct in his own home and observed in person his dealings with his intimates in each instance where he would best be seen stripped of his vesture of tragedy, and who had likewise observed his behavior in the hazards of his public life—and if we should ask the man who has seen all this to be the messenger to report on the happiness or misery of the tyrant as compared with other men? That also would be a most just challenge, he said. Shall we, then, make believe, said I, that we are of those who are thus able to judge and who have ere now lived with tyrants, so that we may have someone to answer our questions? By all means.

—Then the tyrant soul also must of necessity always be needy and suffer from unfulfilled desire. So it is, he said. And again, must not such a city, as well as such a man, be full of terrors and alarms? It must indeed. And do you think you will find more lamentations and groans and wailing and anguish in any other city? By no means. And so of man, do you think these things will more abound in any other than in this tyrant type, that is maddened by its desires and passions? How could it be so? he said. In view of all these and other like considerations, then, I take it, you judged that this city is the most miserable of cities. And was I not right? he said. Yes, indeed, said I. But of the tyrant man, what have you to say in view of these same things? That he is far and away the most miserable of all, he said. I cannot admit, said I, that you are right in that too. How so? said he. This one, said I, I take it, has not yet attained the acme of misery. Then who has? Perhaps you will regard the one I am about to name as still more wretched. What one? The one, said I, who, being of tyrannical temper, does not live out his life in private station but is so unfortunate that by some unhappy chance he is enabled to become an actual tyrant. I infer from what has already been said, he replied, that you speak truly. Yes, said I, but it is not enough to suppose such things. We must examine them thoroughly by reason and an argument such as this. For our inquiry concerns the greatest of all things, the good life or the bad life. Quite right, he replied. Consider, then, if there is anything in what I say. For I think we must get a notion of the matter from these examples. From which? From individual wealthy private citizens in our states who possess many slaves. For these resemble the tyrant in being rulers over many, only the tyrant’s numbers are greater. Yes, they are. You are aware, then, that they are unafraid and do not fear their slaves? What should they fear? Nothing, I said; but do you perceive the reason why? Yes, because the entire state is ready to defend each citizen. You are right, I said. But now suppose some god should catch up a man who has fifty or more slaves and waft him with his wife and children away from the city and set him down with his other possessions and his slaves in a solitude where no freeman could come to his rescue. What and how great would be his fear, do you suppose, lest he and his wife and children be destroyed by the slaves? The greatest in the world, he said, if you ask me.

—And in addition, shall we not further attribute to him all that we spoke of before, and say that he must needs be, and, by reason of his rule, come to be still more than he was, envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, a vessel and nurse of all iniquity, and so in consequence be himself most unhappy make all about him so? No man of sense will gainsay that, he said. Come then, said I, now at last, even as the judge of last instance pronounces, so do you declare who in your opinion is first in happiness and who second, and similarly judge the others, all five in succession, the royal, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical man. Nay, he said, the decision is easy. For as if they were choruses I judge them in the order of their entrance, and so rank them in respect of virtue and vice, happiness and its contrary. Shall we hire a herald, then, said I, or shall I myself make proclamation that the son of Ariston pronounced the best man and the most righteous to be the happiest, and that he is the one who is the most kingly and a king over himself; and declared that the most evil and most unjust is the most unhappy, who again is the man who, having the most of the tyrannical temper in himself, become, most of a tyrant over himself and over the state? Let it have been so proclaimed by you, he said. Shall I add the clause alike whether their character is known to all men and gods or is not known? Add that to the proclamation, he said.

—for we called it the appetitive part because of the intensity of its appetites concerned with food and drink and love and their accompaniments, and likewise the money-loving part, because money is the chief instrument for the gratification of such desires. And rightly, he said. And if we should also say that its pleasure and its love were for gain or profit, should we not thus best bring it together under one head in our discourse so as to understand each other when we speak of this part of the soul, and justify our calling it the money-loving and gain-loving part? I, at any rate, think so, he said. And, again, of the high-spirited element, do we not say that it is wholly set on predominance and victory and good repute? Yes, indeed. And might we not appropriately designate it as the ambitious part and that which is covetous of honor? Most appropriately. But surely it is obvious to everyone that all the endeavor of the part by which we learn is ever towards knowledge of the truth of things, and that it least of the three is concerned for wealth and reputation. Much the least. Lover of learning and lover of wisdom would be suitable designations for that. Quite so, he said. Is it not also true, I said, that the ruling principle of men’s souls is in some cases this faculty and in others one of the other two, as it may happen? That is so, he said. And that is why we say that the primary classes of men also are three, the philosopher or lover of wisdom, the lover of victory and the lover of gain. Precisely so And also that there are three forms of pleasure, corresponding respectively to each? By all means. Are you aware, then said I, that if you should choose to ask men of these three classes, each in turn, which is the most pleasurable of these lives, each will chiefly commend his own? The financier will affirm that in comparison with profit the pleasures of honor or of learning area of no value except in so far as they produce money. True, he said. And what of the lover of honor? I said; does he not regard the pleasure that comes from money as vulgar and low, and again that of learning, save in so far as the knowledge confers honor, mere fume and moonshine? It is so, he said. And what, said I, are we to suppose the philosopher thinks of the other pleasures compared with the delight of knowing the truth and the reality, and being always occupied with that while he learns? Will he not think them far removed from true pleasure, and call them literally the pleasures of necessity, since he would have no use for them if necessity were not laid upon him?

—We may be sure of that, he said.
Since, then, there is contention between the several types of pleasure and the lives themselves, not merely as to which is the more honorable or the more base, or the worse or the better, but which is actually the more pleasurable or free from pain, how could we determine which of them speaks most truly? In faith, I cannot tell, he said. Well, consider it thus: By what are things to be judged, if they are to be judged rightly? Is it not by experience, intelligence and discussion? Or could anyone name a better criterion than these? How could he? he said. Observe, then. Of our three types of men, which has had the most experience of all the pleasures we mentioned? Do you think that the lover of gain by study of the very nature of truth has more experience of the pleasure that knowledge yields than the philosopher has of that which results from gain? There is a vast difference, he said; for the one, the philosopher, must needs taste of the other two kinds of pleasure from childhood; but the lover of gain is not only under no necessity of tasting or experiencing the sweetness of the pleasure of learning the true natures of things, but he cannot easily do so even if he desires and is eager for it. The lover of wisdom, then, said I, far surpasses the lover of gain in experience of both kinds of pleasure. Yes, far. And how does he compare with the lover of honor? Is he more unacquainted with the pleasure of being honored than that other with that which comes from knowledge? Nay, honor, he said, if they achieve their several objects, attends them all; for the rich man is honored by many and the brave man and the wise, so that all are acquainted with the kind of pleasure that honor brings; but it is impossible for anyone except the lover of wisdom to have savored the delight that the contemplation of true being and reality brings. Then, said I, so far as experience goes, he is the best judge of the three. By far. And again, he is the only one whose experience will have been accompanied by intelligence. Surely. And yet again, that which is the instrument, or ὄργανον, of judgement is the instrument, not of the lover of gain or of the lover of honor, but of the lover of wisdom. What is that? It was by means of words and discussion that we said the judgement must be reached; was it not? Yes. And they are the instrument mainly of the philosopher. Of course. Now if wealth and profit were the best criteria by which things are judged, the things praised and censured by the lover of gain would necessarily be truest and most real. Quite necessarily. And if honor, victory and courage, would it not be the things praised by the lover of honor and victory? Obviously. But since the tests are experience and wisdom and discussion, what follows? Of necessity, he said, that the things approved by the lover of wisdom and discussion are most valid and true.

—And did we not just now see that to feel neither pain nor pleasure is a quietude of the soul and an intermediate state between the two? Yes, we did. How, then, can it be right to think the absence of pain pleasure, or the absence of joy painful? In no way. This is not a reality, then, but an illusion, said I; in such case the quietude in juxtaposition with the pain appears pleasure, and in juxtaposition with the pleasure pain. And these illusions have no real bearing on the truth of pleasure, but are a kind of jugglery. So at any rate our argument signifies, he said. Take a look, then, said I, at pleasures which do not follow on pain, so that you may not haply suppose for the present that it is the nature of pleasure to be a cessation from pain and pain from pleasure. Where shall I look, he said, and what pleasures do you mean? There are many others, I said, and especially, if you please to note them, the pleasures connected with smell. For these with no antecedent pain suddenly attain an indescribable intensity, and their cessation leaves no pain after them. Most true, he said. Let us not believe, then, that the riddance of pain is pure pleasure or that of pleasure pain. No, we must not. Yet, surely, said I, the affections that find their way through the body to the soul and are called pleasures are, we may say, the most and the greatest of them, of this type, in some sort releases from pain.? Yes, they are. And is not this also the character of the anticipatory pleasures and pains that precede them and arise from the expectation of them? It is.

—Would it surprise you, then, said I, if similarly men without experience of truth and reality hold unsound opinions about many other matters, and are so disposed towards pleasure and pain and the intermediate neutral condition that, when they are moved in the direction of the painful, they truly think themselves to be, and really are, in a state of pain, but, when they move from pain to the middle and neutral state, they intensely believe that they are approaching fulfillment and pleasure, and just as if, in ignorance of white, they were comparing grey with black, so, being inexperienced in true pleasure, they are deceived by viewing painlessness in its relation to pain? No, by Zeus, he said, it would not surprise me, but far rather if it were not so. In this way, then, consider it. Are not hunger and thirst and similar states inanitions or emptinesses of the bodily habit? Surely. And is not ignorance and folly in turn a kind of emptiness of the habit of the soul? It is indeed. And he who partakes of nourishment and he who gets, wisdom fills the void and is filled? Of course. And which is the truer filling and fulfillment, that of the less or of the more real being? Evidently that of the more real. And which of the two groups or kinds do you think has a greater part in pure essence, the class of foods, drinks, and relishes and nourishment generally, or the kind of true opinion, knowledge and reason, and, in sum, all the things that are more excellent? Form your judgement thus. Which do you think more truly is, that which clings to what is ever like itself and immortal and to the truth, and that which is itself of such a nature and is born in a thing of that nature, or that which clings to what is mortal and never the same and is itself such and is born in such a thing? That which cleaves to what is ever the same far surpasses, he said. Does the essence of that which never abides the same partake of real essence any more than of knowledge? By no means. Or of truth and reality? Not of that, either. And if a thing has less of truth has it not also less of real essence or existence? Necessarily. And is it not generally true that the kinds concerned with the service of the body partake less of truth and reality than those that serve the soul? Much less. And do you not think that the same holds of the body itself in comparison with the soul? I do. Then is not that which is fulfilled of what more truly is, and which itself more truly is, more truly filled and satisfied than that which being itself less real is filled with more unreal things? Of course. If, then, to be filled with what befits nature is pleasure, then that which is more really filled with real things would more really and truly cause us to enjoy a true pleasure, while that which partakes of the less truly existent would be less truly and surely filled and would partake of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure. Most inevitably, he said.

—Then those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue but are ever devoted to feastings and that sort of thing are swept downward, it seems, and back again to the center, and so sway and roam to and fro throughout their lives, but they have never transcended all this and turned their eyes to the true upper region nor been wafted there, nor ever been really filled with real things, nor ever tasted stable and pure pleasure, but with eyes ever bent upon the earth and heads bowed down over their tables they feast like cattle, grazing and copulating, ever greedy for more of these delights; and in their greed kicking and butting one another with horns and hooves of iron they slay one another in sateless avidity, because they are vainly striving to satisfy with things that are not real the unreal and incontinent part of their souls. You describe in quite oracular style, Socrates, said Glaucon, the life of the multitude. And are not the pleasures with which they dwell inevitably commingled with pains, phantoms of true pleasure, illusions of scene-painting, so colored by contrary juxtaposition as to seem intense in either kind, and to beget mad loves of themselves in senseless souls, and to be fought for, as Stesichorus says the wraith of Helen was fought for at Troy through ignorance of the truth? It is quite inevitable, he said, that it should be so.