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427D - 429A Our city is now founded. Where then is Justice, where Injustice? How do they differ, and which is essential to happiness? Let us approach the question thus. Our city is perfectly virtuous, and must therefore be wise, brave, temperate and just. If we discover three of these elements in the city, the residue will be the fourth.

Let us take Wisdom first. It is not the technical knowledge or skill of the lower classes which renders our city wise, but rather the knowledge which deliberates for the whole city's interests. Now this knowledge is embodied in the Rulers. They form the smallest section of the State, but it is none the less in virtue of their presence that we call the whole city wise.

ff. The process of purgation has now been ended, and Plato's δευτέρα πόλις is complete (see II 372 E ff.). We are therefore ready to look for the second view of Justice. See on II 372 A. It should be observed that this part of the Republic has an independent value in the history of Ethics as the first explicit assertion of the doctrine of four cardinal virtues (427 E note). For an account of Plato's teaching on the Virtues we may refer to Michaelis die Entwicklungsstufen in Plato's Tugendlehre, and especially to Hammond On the Notion of Virtue in the Dialogues of Plato Boston 1892.

αὐτός τε καὶ -- παρακάλει. For the idiom cf. (with Schneider) Phaedr. 253 B μιμούμενοι αὐτοί τε καὶ τὰ παιδικὰ πείθοντες.

ποῦ ἀδικία. If our city is τελέως ἀγαθή (427 E), it is useless to look for ἀδικία in it. On this difficulty see II 369 A note

πότερον. Herwerden's ποτέραν is quite unnecessary, as Hartman shews; cf. 428 A, 433 D, 434 C, 445 B, V 449 D.

ἐάν τε λανθάνῃ κτλ. recalls II 367 E.

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