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[591a]
with the aid of the like in
ourselves, have set up in its place a similar guardian and ruler in the
child, and then, and then only, we leave it free.” “Yes,
that is plain,” he said. “In what way,1 then,
Glaucon, and on what principle, shall we say that it profits a man to be
unjust or licentious or do any shameful thing that will make him a worse
man, but otherwise will bring him more wealth or power?”
“In no way,” he said. “And how that it pays
him to escape detection in wrongdoing and not pay the penalty2?
[591b]
Or is it not true
that he who evades detection becomes a still worse man, while in the one who
is discovered and chastened the brutish part is lulled and tamed and the
gentle part liberated, and the entire soul, returning to its nature at the
best, attains to a much more precious condition in acquiring sobriety and
righteousness together with wisdom, than the body3 does when it
gains strength and beauty conjoined with health, even as the soul is more
precious than the body?” “Most assuredly,” he
said.
[591c]
“Then the wise man will
bend all his endeavors4 to this end throughout his
life; he will, to begin with, prize the studies that will give this quality
to his soul and disprize the others.”
“Clearly,” he said. “And then,” I
said, “he not only will not abandon the habit and nurture of his
body to the brutish and irrational pleasure and live with his face set in
that direction, but he will not even make health his chief aim,5 nor give the first place to the ways of
becoming strong or healthy or beautiful unless these things are likely to
bring with them soberness of spirit,
[591d]
but
he will always be found attuning the harmonies of his body for the sake of
the concord in his soul.6” “By all means,” he replied,
“if he is to be a true musician.7” “And will
he not deal likewise with the ordering and harmonizing of his possessions?
He will not let himself be dazzled8 by the felicitations of the multitude and
pile up the mass9
of his wealth without measure,10 involving himself in measureless ills.”
“No, I think not,” he said.
[591e]
“He will rather,” I said,
“keep his eyes fixed on the constitution in his soul,11 and
taking care and watching lest he disturb anything there either by excess or
deficiency of wealth,12 will so
steer his course and add to or detract from his wealth on this principle, so
far as may be.” “Precisely so,” he said.
“And in the matter of honors and office too this will be his
guiding principle:
1 Cf. on 501 D, p. 74, note a.
2 The paradoxes of the Gorgias are here seriously reaffirmed. Cf. especially Gorg. 472 E ff., 480 A-B, 505 A-B, 509 A f. Cf. also Vol. I. p. 187, 380 Bοἱ δὲ ὠνίναντο κολαζόμενοι, and Laws 728 C; and for the purpose of punishment, What Plato Said, p. 495, on Protag. 324 A-B.
3 The a fortiori argument from health of body to health of soul is one of the chief refutations of the immoralists. Cf. 445 D-E f., Gorg. 479 B, Crito 47 D-E. For the supreme importance of the soul cf. on 589 E.
4 Cf. Gorg. 507 D, Isoc.Epist. vi. 9, Xen.Ages. 7. 1.
5 Health in the familiar skolion (Cf. Gorg. 451 E, Laws 631 C, 661 A, 728 D-E, Euthydem. 279 A-B, Meno 87 E, Soph.frag. 356) is proverbially the highest of ordinary goods. Cf. Gorg. 452 A-B, Crito 47 D, Eryxias 393 C. In fact, for Plato as for modern “scientific” ethics, health in the higher sense—the health of the soul—may be said to be the ultimate sanction. Cf. Vol. I. Introd. pp. xvi and xxi, Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 26, Idea of Good in Plato's Republic, pp. 192-194 f. But an idealistic ethics sometimes expresses itself in the paradox that “not even health,” highest of earthly goods, is of any value compared with the true interests of the soul. Cf. Laws 661 C-E ff., 728 D-E, 744 A, 960 D, Laches 195 C; and Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, p. 17 “Bodily health and vigor . . . have a more real and essential value . . . but only as they are more intimately connected with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth and population are.” This idea may be the source of the story from which the Christian Fathers and the Middle Ages derived much edification, that Plato intentionally chose an unhealthy site for the Academy in order to keep down the flesh. Cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. ix. 10, perhaps the first mention, Porphyry, De abstinentia i. 36, Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. ii. 1.4 416, n. 2; Camden on Cambridge, Gosse, Gossip in a Library, p. 23, and Himerius, Ecl. iii. 18 (Diels ii.3 p. 18)ἑκὼν δὲ ἐνόσει σῶμα Δημόκριτος, ἵνα ὑγιαίνῃ τὰ κρείττονα.
6 Cf. What Plato Said, p. 485, on Laches 188 D.
7 Cf. Phaedo 61 A.
8 Cf. p. 355, note d, on 576 D.
9 ὄγκον: cf. Horace's use of acervus,Shorey on Odes ii. 2. 24.
10 Cf. Vol. I. p. 163, note g, Newman i. p. 136. For the evils of wealth Cf. Laws 831 C ff., 870 B-C, Rep. 434 B, 550 D ff., etc.
11 This analogy pervades the Republic. Cf. 570 C and p. 240, note b, on 544 D-E, Introd. Vol. I. p. xxxv. Cf.ὥσπερ ἐν πόλει590 E, 605 B. For the subordination of everything to the moral life cf. also 443 D and p. 509, note d, on 618 C.
12 As in the state, extremes of wealth and poverty are to be avoided. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 645, on Laws 915 B.
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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