Section 589

Let us, then say to the speaker who avers that it pays this man to be unjust, and that to do justice is not for his advantage, that he is affirming nothing else than that it profits him to feast and make strong the multifarious beast and the lion and all that pertains to the lion, but to starve the man 1 and so enfeeble him that he can be pulled about 2 whithersoever either of the others drag him, and not to familiarize or reconcile with one another the two creatures but suffer them to bite and fight and devour one another. 3 Yes, he said, that is precisely what the panegyrist of injustice will be found to say. And on the other hand he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us 4 complete domination 5 over the entire man and make him take charge 6 of the many-headed beast—like a farmer 7 who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild—and he will make an ally 8 of the lion’s nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will first make them friendly to one another and to himself, and so foster their growth. Yes, that in turn is precisely the meaning of the man who commends justice. From every point of view, then, the panegyrist of justice speaks truly and the panegyrist of injustice falsely. For whether we consider pleasure, reputation, or profit, he who commends justice speaks the truth, while there is no soundness or real knowledge of what he censures in him who disparages it. None whatever, I think, said he. Shall we, then, try to persuade him gently, 9 for he does not willingly err, 10 by questioning him thus: Dear friend, should we not also say that the things which law and custom deem fair or foul have been accounted so for a like reason— the fair and honorable things being those that subject the brutish part of our nature to that which is human in us, or rather, it may be, to that which is divine, 11 while the foul and base are the things that enslave the gentle nature to the wild? Will he assent or not? He will if he is counselled by me. Can it profit any man in the light of this thought to accept gold unjustly if the result is to be that by the acceptance he enslaves the best part of himself to the worst? Or is it conceivable that, while, if the taking of the gold enslaved his son or daughter and that too to fierce and evil men, it would not profit him, 12 no matter how large the sum, yet that, if the result is to be the ruthless enslavement of the divinest part of himself to the most despicable and godless part, he is not to be deemed wretched and is not taking the golden bribe much more disastrously than Eriphyle 13 did when she received the necklace as the price 14 of her husband’s life?