HKB
Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an oracle.
Their pleasures are mixed with pains—how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.
Something of that sort must inevitably happen.
And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without reason or sense?
Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also.
Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which is best for each one is also most natural to him?
Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.
And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of which they are capable?
Exactly.
But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own?
True.
And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?
Yes.
And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance from law and order?
Clearly.
And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest distance? Yes.
And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?
Yes.
Then the tyrant will live at the greatest distance from true or natural pleasure, and the king at the least?
Certainly.
But if so, the tyrant will live most unpleasantly, and the king most pleasantly?
Inevitably.
Would you know the measure of the interval which separates them?
Will you tell me?
There appear to be three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious: now the transgression of the tyrant reaches a point beyond the spurious; he has run away from the region of law and reason, and taken up his abode with certain slave pleasures which are his satellites, and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure.
How do you mean?
I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle?
Yes.
And if there is truth in what has preceded, he will be wedded to an image of pleasure which is thrice removed as to truth from the pleasure of the oligarch?
He will.
And the oligarch is third from the royal; since we count as one royal and aristocratical?
Yes, he is third.
Then the tyrant is removed from true pleasure by the space of a number which is three times three?
Manifestly.
The shadow then of tyrannical pleasure determined by the number of length will be a plane figure.
Certainly.
And if you raise the power and make the plane a solid, there is no difficulty in seeing how vast is the interval by which the tyrant is parted from the king.
Yes; the arithmetician will easily do the sum.