[449a]
Socrates
“To such a city, then, or
constitution I apply the terms good1 and right—and
to the corresponding kind of man; but the others I describe as bad and
mistaken, if this one is right, in respect both to the administration of
states and to the formation2 of the character of the individual soul, they falling under four
forms of badness.” “What are these,” he said.
And I was going on3 to enumerate them in what seemed to me the order of their
evolution4
1 Cf. on 427 E, and Newman, Introduction to Aristotle Polotics p. 14; for ὀρθή, “normal,” see p.423.
2 κατασκευήν: a highly general word not to be pressed in this periphrasis. Cf. Gorgias 455 E, 477 B.
3 Cf. 562 C, Theaetetus 180 C, Stein on Herodotus i. 5. For the transition here to the digression of books V., VI., and VII. cf. Introduction p. xvii, Phaedo 84 C. “Digression” need not imply that these books were not a part of the original design.
4 μεταβαίνειν: the word is half technical. Cf. 547 C, 550 D, Laws 676 A, 736 D-E, 894 A.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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