irony or any other shift in order that he might avoid answering?

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit the person whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, for this sort of nonsense won't do for me," then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question to him, neither he nor any one can answer. And suppose he were to say, "Thrasymachus, what do you mean? And if the true answer to the question is one of these numbers which you interdict, am I to say some other number which is not the right one? is that your meaning?" How would you answer him?

Yes, said he; but how remarkably parallel the two cases

are !

Very likely they are, I replied; but even if they are not, and only appear to be parallel to the person who is asked, can he to whom the question is put avoid saying what he thinks, even though you and I join in forbidding him?

Well, then, I suppose you are going to make one of the interdicted answers?

I dare say that I may, notwithstanding the danger, if upon reflection I approve of any of them.

But what if I give you a new and better answer, he said, than any of these? What do you deserve to have done to you?

Done to me! I can but suffer the penalty of ignorance; and the penalty is to learn from the wise-and that is what I deserve to have done to me.

What, and no payment! that's a pleasant notion!

I will pay when I have the money, I replied.

But you have, Socrates, said Glaucon; and you, Thrasymachus, need be under no anxiety about money, for we will all make a contribution for Socrates.

Yes, he replied, and I know what will happen; Socrates will do as he always does-not answer, but take and pull the argument to pieces.

Why, my good friend, I said, how can any one answer who knows, and says that he knows, just nothing; and who, even if he had some faint notions of his own, is told by a man of

authority not to utter them? The natural thing is, that the speaker should be one who knows, like yourself; and I must earnestly request that you will kindly answer for the 338edification of the company and of myself.

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Glaucon and the rest of the company joined in my request, and Thrasymachus, as any one might see, was really eager to speak; for he thought that he had an excellent answer, and would distinguish himself. But at first he affected to insist on my answering; at length he consented to begin. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.

That I learn of others, I replied, is quite true; but that I am ungrateful I wholly deny. Money I have none, and therefore I pay in praise, which is all I have; and how ready I am to praise any one who speaks well you will very soon find out when you answer, for I expect that you will answer well.

Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger. But why don't you praise me?

Let me first understand you, I replied.

[Socrates now puts a series of questions to Thrasymachus, and in answering Thrasymachus is led to admit statements which contradict his own definition of justice. When he finds himself cornered in the argument, he tries to escape by means of a long speech upon the advantages of injustice, as follows:]

You fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, who are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night. O, no; and so entirely astray are you in the very rudiments of justice and injustice as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; whereas the reverse holds in the case of injustice; for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his subjects do what

is for his benefit, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all in their private dealings: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just the conclusion of the affair always is that the unjust man has more and the just less. Next, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also that when they come into office, there is the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, but he will not compensate himself out of the public purse because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and relations for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. Now all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is

most apparent, and my meaning will be most clearly 344 seen in that highest form of injustice the perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable-I mean tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not retail but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for any one of which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly, he would be punished and incur great dishonor; for they who are guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then, instead of these dishonorable names, he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest.

Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bath-man, deluged our ears with his words, had a mind to go

away. But the company would not allow this, and they compelled him to remain and defend his position; and I myself added my own humble request that he would not leave us. Thrasymachus, I said to him, excellent man, how suggestive are your words! And are you going away before you have fairly taught or learned whether they are true or not? Is the attempt to determine the way of man's life such a small matter in your eyes—the attempt to determine the way in which life may be passed by one of us to the greatest advantage?

My reason is that I do not agree with you, he replied.

I should rather think, Thrasymachus, that you have no feeling about us, I said; you don't seem to care whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know. Prithee, friend, be obliging and impart your wisdom to us; any benefit which is conferred on a large party such as this is will not be unrewarded. For my own part I frankly admit that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe 345 354 injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament as myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice.

[In the discussion which follows, Thrasymachus again finds himself caught in the net of Socrates' questions and his argument refuted. But they arrive at no conclusion satisfactory to Socrates for they have not yet defined justice. At the close of the discussion Thrasymachus says:]

Let this, Socrates, be your entertainment at the Bendidea. And for this I am indebted to you, I said, now that you have grown gentle toward me, and have left off scolding. Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours. I may liken myself to an epicure who snatches a taste of every dish which is successively brought to table before he has fairly enjoyed the one before; and this has been the case with me. For before I discovered the nature of justice, I left that and proceeded to inquire

whether justice was virtue and wisdom or evil and folly; and then arose a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and injustice, and I could not refrain from passing on to that.

And the result of all is that I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just is happy or unhappy.