what is to be understood by 'friends'. Does it mean 'those whom a man thinks honest and good'? Then, since we do not always think aright, it may be just to help the bad and injure the good. Does it mean 'those who are really just, whether we think so or not'? Then it may be just to injure those whom we call our friends and to benefit those whom we call our enemies, reversing the original definition. Thus we arrive at the amended

definition;

'Justice is to help friends, if good, injure enemies, if

bad.'

Here Socrates lays hold of another point. Is it consistent with justice to injure, to do harm? Harm, in its true sense, means degrading a man in a moral point of view, making him less just, less righteous. Can it be the part of righteousness to make a man less righteous ?

[This high view of what is beneficial and what is harmful recurs in p. 379, where it is shown that God harms none. He may punish and inflict pain, but it is only to bring out good in the end. Man has no right to harm for the sake of harming. This is the opposite of the old Greek view that the true manly character was shown in the power and will to favour friends and injure enemies.]

Polemarchus being silenced, Thrasymachus brings forward a new definition,

'Justice is the interest of the stronger;

i. e. of the sovereign power in the state.'

'It is just for the subject to obey his ruler and to act for his ruler's interest.'

How then, if the ruler enjoins what is not for his own interest? Then the act will be just by one part of the definition, unjust by the other.

Amended definition (1) 'What the stronger imagines

to be for his interest is just.'

Amended definition (2)

Justice is obedience to the

true governor who always enjoins what is for his interest.' But the true governor is one who practises the art of government unmixed with other arts, who is in fact an impersonation of the art. Now, is the notion of selfinterest involved in the art? Compare the pilot's art, the physician's art; they may be combined with other arts, but nothing is essential to them beyond the healing of the sick and the management of the vessel. The art simply exercises an oversight over that to which as an art it belongs; but the art is stronger than that which it oversees; therefore the art provides for the interest of the weaker, and the true governor, who personifies the art, will accordingly act not for his own interest, but for the interest of his subjects, who are the weaker'.

Thrasymachus brings forward an instance on his side; 'why should the ruler, the Tony λawv, regard the interest of his people in any other light than the shepherd does that of his sheep?' and then lays down broadly the principle that

'Justice is one's own loss, another's gain; injustice one's own gain, another's loss.'

This may be most clearly seen in the complete injustice of the tyrant, whom all count happy and enviable; though they profess to blame injustice on a small scale, because they are afraid of suffering it.'

Socrates begins by disputing Thrasymachus' illustration, and points out that Thrasymachus is here deserting

This argument is used by Aristotle Pol. 111. 6.

his former ground, describing not the true shepherd, but the banqueter or money-maker. If we confine our attention to the art of government, we shall see that it cannot be itself profitable to the governor, because no one will undertake it without a bribe. The bargaining for this bribe belongs to a special art, the art of wages; it is no more a function of government, than piloting is a function of medicine; yet a man may recover his health by acting as pilot, just as he might get wages by governing. The governor would not be less a governor if he chose to perform his work gratuitously. As regards the kind of wages offered to induce men to devote their time to study the interests of others in governing them, they are usually paid either in money or honour, or the motive appealed to may be the fear of being misgoverned by others. If it were not for the last motive the best men would prefer to remain subjects, and thus receive, instead of bestowing, benefit.

Thrasymachus reasserts that perfect injustice is more profitable than perfect justice, the former being good policy, the latter at best a weak good-nature. Socrates on the other hand proceeds to argue that justice is knowledge, injustice ignorance. For the just man is one who sets limits to his actions, who will never overstep the bounds of justice, or seek to get more than a just man should. On the other hand the unjust observes no limits, but seeks to gratify every impulse and to get as much as he can. Which of the two is the scientific character? In the case of the musician and physician it is shown that the scientific are distinguished from the ignorant by this very property of attending to rules, not overstepping the bounds laid down by the masters of the

science. In like manner the just man must be scientific as compared with the unjust.

[The argument turns on the thoroughly Greek conception of the superiority of the limited to the unlimited, the defined to the undefined, répas to ameipov. Aristotle made limitation, or the avoidance of extremes, a part of his definition of virtue.]

that

Socrates then proceeds to overthrow the assertion

'Injustice is stronger than justice'

by showing that if an unjust city is strong, it can only be so on the principle of 'honour among thieves,' some remnant of justice in its internal relations. If the citizens are unjust to each other, if they illtreat and oppress one another, there can be no unity and therefore no strength. In like manner, if injustice exists in an individual, it must destroy all inward concord, and so make him half-hearted and irresolute in action; he becomes an enemy to himself and to the Gods and all just men. The same argument will overthrow the remaining assertion of Thrasymachus, viz. that

'Injustice is happier than justice.'

But this is also shown to be false from a consideration of the nature of virtue. The soul, like the eye or ear or anything else, has a special work or function to perform, and can only perform that work aright if possessed of the fitting quality or virtue. The function of the soul is life and thought, the virtue of the soul is justice; a just soul will live well, an unjust soul will live ill. But living well is happiness, living ill misery. Therefore justice is shown to be more profitable than injustice, being wiser, stronger and happier, as well as better.

Then follows in the second book the argument of

Glaucon, which we will give in Professor Jowett's abstract slightly altered, as an example of Plato's expository style.

'To do injustice is said to be a good; to suffer injustice an evil. As the evil is discovered by experience to be greater than the good, the sufferers make a compact that they will have neither, and this compact or mean is called justice, but is really the incapacity to do injustice. No one would observe such a compact if he were not obliged. Let us suppose that the just and unjust had two rings, like that of Gyges in the wellknown story, which made them invisible; then no difference would appear in them, for every one does evil if he can, and he who abstained would be regarded by the world as a fool. Men may praise him in public out of fear for themselves, but they will laugh in their hearts. And now let us frame an ideal of the just and unjust. Imagine the unjust man to be master of his craft, seldom making mistakes and easily correcting them; having gifts of money, speech, strength-the greatest villain bearing the highest character: and at his side let us place the just in his nobleness and simplicity, being, not seeming, without name or reward, clothed in his justice only, the best of men, but thought to be the worst, and let him die as he has lived. then be scourged, racked, bound, and at last crucified; and all this because he ought to have preferred seeming to being. How different is the case of the unjust, who clings to appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler; he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty, he can worship

The just man will