1 Cf. 331 C, 386 B. Instead of the simple or absolute argument that justice, since it is wisdom and virtue, must be stronger, etc., then injustice, Socrates wishes to bring out the deeper thought that the unjust city or man is strong not because but in spite of his injustice and by virtue of some saving residue of justice.
2 Thrasymachus can foresee the implications of either theory.
3 For the thought cf. Spencer, Data of Ethics, 114: “Joint aggressions upon men outside the society cannot prosper if there are many aggressions of man on man within the society;” Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, Chapter. VIII. 31: “It (the loyalty of a thief to his gang) is rather a spurious or class morality,” etc.; Carlyle: “Neither James Boswell's good book, nor any other good thinng . . . is or can be performed by any man in virtue of his badness, but always solely in spite thereof.” Proclus, In Rempub. Kroll i. 20 expands this idea. Dante (ConvivioI. xii.) attributes to the Philosopher in the fifth of the ethics the saying that even robbers and plunderers love justice. Locke (Human Understanding i. 3) denies that this proves the principles of justice innate: “They practise them as rules of convenience within their own communities,” etc. Cf. further Isocrates xii. 226 on the Spartans, and Plato Protagoras 322 B, on the inconveniences of injustice in the state of nature,ἠδίκουν ἀλλήλους.
4 The specific function must operate universally in bond or free, in many, two, or one. The application to the individual reminds us of the main argument of the Republic. Cf. 369 A, 433 D, 441 C. For the argument many, few or two, one, Cf. Laws 626 C.
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