And what sort of dwellings are they to have? Dwellings that will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose that you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and not of shop-keepers. What is the difference? he said. That I will endeavor to explain, I replied. To keep 416 watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing? Truly monstrous, he said. And, therefore, every care must be taken lest our auxiliaries, as they are stronger than our citizens, should prevail over them, and become savage tyrants instead of gentle allies to them ? Yes, care should be taken. And would not education be the best preparation and safeguard of them? But they are well-educated, he replied; that is a safeguard which they already have. I cannot be so confident of that, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will greatly tend to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. True, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and also their means of subsistence, should be such as will neither impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense will say that. He will. Such is our conception of them; and now let us consider what way of life will correspond with this conception. In the first place, none of them should have any property beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house, with bars and bolts, closed against any one who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; their agreement is to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more, and they will have common meals and live together, like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of that earthly dross which passes under the name of gold, and ought not to pollute the divine by earthly admixture, for that commoner metal 417 has been the source of many unholy deeds; but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and the salvation of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or moneys of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens; hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass through life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that these are to be the regulations of our guardians respecting houses and all other things, and that such shall be our laws? Yes, said Glaucon. BOOK IV HERE Adeimantus interposed a question. He said: How would you answer, Socrates, if a person were to say that you make your citizens miserable, and all by their own doing; for they are the actual owners of the city, and yet they reap no advantage from this; whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses, and have everything handsome about them; offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account, and practicing hospitality; and also, as you were saying only just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among the favorites of fortune; while our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are fixed in the city and do nothing but mount guard ? Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid, in addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot make a journey of pleasure, they have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxuri- 420 ous fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, said he, let us suppose all that included in the charge. You mean to ask, I said, what is to be our answer ? Yes, he replied. If we proceed along the path which we are already going, I said, my belief is that we shall find the answer. Even if our guardians were such as you describe, there would not be anything wonderful in their still being the happiest of men; but let that pass, for our object in the construction of the State is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class; and in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole, we think that we are most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we shall then be able to decide which of the two is the happier. At present we are constructing 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. If we were painting a statue,1 and some 1 A peculiarity of ancient sculpture and architecture was the practice of painting all kinds of marble work. This is known from traces still present in many works of art and from passages in ancient writers. one were to come and blame us for not putting the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the body-for the eyes, he would say, ought to be purple, but they are black -in that case we should seem to excuse ourselves fairly enough by saying to him, "Pray, sir, do not have the strange notion that we ought to beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; but see whether, by giving this and the other features their due, we make the whole beautiful." And, I say again, in like manner do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians; for we also should have no difficulty in clothing our husbandmen in fine linen, and setting crowns of gold on their heads, bidding them till the ground no more than they like. Neither is ignorance the reason why we do not allow our potters to repose on couches, and feast by the fireside, passing round the glittering bowl, while their wheel is conveniently at hand, and working at pottery as much as they like, and no more; or, why we do not make every class happy in this way and then, as you imagine, the whole State would be happy. But do not suggest this; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and nobody will have any distinct character. Now this is not of much importance where the corruption of society, and pretension to be what you are not, extends only to cobblers ; but when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seemers and not real guardians, that, as you will observe, is the utter ruin of the State: for they alone are the authors of happiness and order in a State. If we are right in depicting our guardians as the saviours and not the destroyers of the State, and the author of the other picture is representing peasants at a festival, happy in a life of revelry, rather than fulfilling the duties of citizens, we mean different things, and he is speaking of something which is not a State. And therefore we must consider whether we appoint our guardians with a view to their greatest happiness, or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the State as a whole; but if so, 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 then the whole State growing up in a noble order, the several classes will only have to re 421 ceive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich he no longer takes the same pains with his art ? Certainly not. He grows more and more indolent and careless ? And the result is that he becomes a worse potter ? But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and is unable to buy tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then workmen, and also their works, are apt to degenerate under the influence both of poverty and of wealth ? That is evident. Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty; for the one is the par- 422 ent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. That is very true, he replied; but still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful, if deprived of the sinews of war. There may possibly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy; but there is no difficulty where there are two of them. "Give me neither poverty nor riches."-Proverbs xxx. 8. |