Section 409

Suppose then that we had put to the man who was thus exhorting us this further question— What arts do you say these are? His answer, no doubt, would be—Gymnastics and medicine. So now, in the case before us, what do we say is the art which deals with the virtue of the soul? Let it be stated. Then he who was reputed to be their most powerful exponent of these matters answered me and said that this art is precisely that which, said he, you hear Socrates describing,—nothing else than justice. I then replied—Do not explain to me merely its name, but like this:—There is an art called medicine; and of this the effects are two-fold, the one being to produce constantly new doctors in addition to those already existing, and the other to produce health. And of these the latter result is no longer in itself an art but an effect of that art which both teaches and is taught, which effect we term health. So likewise the operations of the joiner’s art are a house and joinery, of which the one is an effect, the other a doctrine. In like manner let it be granted that the one effect of justice is to produce just men, as of the other arts their several artists; but as to the other, the operation which the just man is capable of performing for us, what do we say that is? Tell us. The reply of your exponent was, I think, The beneficial; while another said The right; a third The useful; and yet another The profitable. So I resumed my inquiry and said: In the former case also we find these names in each one of the arts—doing the right, the profitable, the useful, and the rest of such terms; but as regards the object at which all these operations aim, each art will declare that which is peculiar to itself; for example, the art of joinery will assert that the result of good, beautiful, and right action is the production of wooden vessels, which in themselves are not an art. So let the operation of justice be stated in the same way. Finally, Socrates, one of your companions, who was reputed to be a most accomplished speaker, made answer that the peculiar effect of justice, which was effected by no other art, was to produce friendship in States. 1 And he, in turn, when questioned declared that friendship is a good thing and never an evil; while as to the friendships of children and those of wild beasts, which we call by this name, he refused to admit—when questioned upon the point—that they were friendships; since, as a result of the argument, he was forced to say that such relations were for the most part harmful rather than good. So to avoid such an admission he denied that such relations were friendships at all, and said that those who give them this name name them falsely; and real and true friendship, he said, is most exactly described as unanimity. And when asked about unanimity, whether he declared it to be unity of opinion 2 or knowledge, he rejected the expression unity of opinion, for of necessity many cases of unity of opinion occurred amongst men that were harmful, whereas he had agreed that friendship was wholly a good thing and an effect of justice; consequently he affirmed that unanimity was the same, and was not opinion, but knowledge.