[500d]
associating with the divine order will himself become orderly and divine
in the measure permitted to man.1 But calumny2 is plentiful everywhere.”
“Yes, truly.” “If, then,” I said,
“some compulsion3 is laid upon him to
practise stamping on the plastic matter of human nature in public and
private the patterns that he visions there,4 and not merely to mould5 and
fashion himself, do you think he will prove a poor craftsman6 of sobriety and justice and all forms
of ordinary civic virtue7?” “By no means,”
he said. “But if the multitude become aware
1 Cf. on 493 D, and for the idea 383 C.
2 Cf. HamletIII. i. 141 “thou shalt not escape calumny,” Bacchylides 12 (13). 202-203βροτῶν δὲ μῶμος πάντεσσι μέν ἐστιν ἐπ᾽ ἔγοις.
3 The philosopher unwillingly holds office. Cf. on 345 E.
4 ἐκεῖ is frequently used in Plato of the world of ideas. Cf. Phaedrus 250 A.Phaedo 109 E.
5 For the word πλάττειν used of the lawgiver cf. 377 C, Laws 671 C, 712 B, 746 A, 800 B, Rep. 374 A, 377 c, 420 c, 466 A, 588 C, etc. For the idea that the ruler shapes the state according to the pattern Cf. 540 A-B. Plato apples the language of the theory of ideas to the “social tissue” here exactly as he apples it to the making of a tool in the Cratylus 389 C. In both cases there is a workman, the ideal pattern and the material in which it is more or less perfectly embodied. Such passages are the source of Aristotle's doctrine f matter and form. Cf. Met. 1044 a 25De part. an. 630 b 25-27, 640 b 24 f., 642 a 10 ff., De an. 403 b 3, Seller, Aristot.(Eng.) i. p. 356. Cf. also Gorg. 503 D-E, Polit. 306 C, 309 D and Unity of Plato's Thought, pp. 31-32. Cf. Alcinous,Εἰσαγωγή ii. (Teubner vi. p. 153)ἃ κατὰ τὸν θεωρητικὸν βίον ὁρᾶται, μελετῆσαι εἰς ἀνθρώπων ἤθη.
6 Cf. Aristot.Pol. 1329 a 21ἀρετῆς δημιουργόν. Cf. also 1275 b 29 with Newman, Introd. Aristot.Pol. p. 229. Cf. 395 Cδημιουργοὺς ἐλευθερίας, Theages 125 Aδημιουργὸν . . . τῆς σοφίας.
7 Cf. Laws 968 Aπρὸς ταῖς δημοσίαις ἀρεταῖς, Phaedo 82 A and supra, Vol. I. on 430 C. Brochard, “La Morale de Platon,”L’Année Philosophique, xvi. (1905) p. 12 “La justice est appelée une vertu populaire.” This is a little misleading, if he means that justice itself is “une vertu populaire.”
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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