[497a]
to
have achieved before taking his departure.” “He would
not have accomplished any very great thing either,1” I replied, “if it were not his
fortune to live in a state adapted to his nature. In such a state only will
he himself rather attain his full stature2 and
together with his own preserve the common weal.“The causes and the injustice of the calumniation of philosophy,
I think, have been fairly set forth, unless you have something to add.3”
“No,” he said, “I have nothing further to
offer on that point. But which of our present governments do you think is
suitable for philosophy?”
1 Cf. Aristot.Eth. Nic. 1094 b 9μεῖζόν γε καὶ τελεώτερον τὸ τῆς πόλεως φαίνεται καὶ λαβεῖν καὶ σώζειν, “yet the good of the state seems a grander and more perfect thing both to attain and to secure” (tr. F. H. Peters).
2 For αὐξήσεται Cf. Theaet. 163 Cἵνα καὶ αὐξάνῃ and Newman, Aristot.Pol. i. p. 68 “As the Christian is said to be complete in Christ so the individual is said by Aristotle to be complete in the πόλις” Spencer, Data of Ethics, xv. “Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state.” Cf. also 592 A-B, 520 A-C and Introd. Vol. I. p. xxvii.
3 An instance of Socrates' Attic courtesy. Cf 430 B, Cratyl. 427 D, Theaet. 183 C, Gorg. 513 C, Phaedr. 235 A. But in Gorg. 462 C it is ironical and perhaps in Hipp. Maj. 291 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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