[454c]
“Wherefore, by the same
token,” I said, “we might ask ourselves whether the
natures of bald1 and
long-haired men are the same and not, rather, contrary. And, after agreeing
that they were opposed, we might, if the bald cobbled, forbid the
long-haired to do so, or vice versa.” “That would be
ridiculous,” he said. “Would it be so,” said
I, “for any other reason than that we did not then posit likeness
and difference of nature in any and every sense, but were paying heed solely
to the kind of diversity
1 For this humorously trivial illustration cf. Mill, Rep. Gov. chap. viii. p. 190: “I have taken no account of difference of sex. I consider it to be as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height, or in the color of the hair;” and Mill's disciple Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, i. 291: “We may at least grant that the burden of proof should be upon those who would disfranchise all red-haired men.”
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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