History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0405/04052.txt

Text File | 1992-10-12 | 22KB | 604 lines

$Unique_ID{how04052}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Republic Of Plato
Part II.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Plato}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{pleasure
true
pain
yes
pleasures
soul
less
life
lover
say}
$Date{1901}
$Log{}
Title:       Republic Of Plato
Book:        Book IX: On Wrong Or Right Government, And The Pleasures Of Each.
Author:      Plato
Date:        1901
Translation: Benjamin Jowett, M.A.

Part II.

     And also the soul which is under a tyrant (I am speaking of the soul
taken as a whole) is least capable of doing what she desires; there is a
gadfly which goads her, and she is full of trouble and remorse?

     Certainly.

     And is the city which is under a tyrant rich or poor?

     Poor.

     And the tyrannical soul must be always poor and insatiable?

     True.

     And must not such a State and such a man be always full of fear?

     Yes, indeed.

     Is there any State in which you will find more of lamentation and sorrow
and groaning and pain?

     Certainly not.

     And is there any man in whom you will find more of this sort of misery
than in the tyrannical man, who is in a fury of passions and desires?

     Impossible.

     Reflecting upon these and similar evils, you held the tyrannical State to
be the most miserable of States?

     And I was right, he said.

     Certainly, I said.  And when you see the same evils in the tyrannical
man, what do you say of him?

     I say that he is by far the most miserable of all men.

     There, I said, I think that you are beginning to go wrong.

     What do you mean?

     I do not think that he has as yet reached the utmost extreme of misery.

     Then who is more miserable?

     One of whom I am about to speak.

     Who is that?

     He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life
has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant.

     From what has been said, I gather that you are right.

     Yes, I replied, but in this high argument you should be a little more
certain, and should not conjecture only; for of all questions, this respecting
good and evil is the greatest.

     Very true, he said.

     Let me then offer you an illustration, which may, I think, throw a light
upon this subject.

     What is your illustration?

     The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves: from them
you may form an idea of the tyrant's condition, for they both have slaves; the
only difference is that he has more slaves.

     Yes, that is the difference.

     You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their
servants?

     What should they fear?

     Nothing.  But do you observe the reason of this?

     Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the
protection of each individual.

     Very true, I said.  But imagine one of these owners, the master say of
some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried
off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him -
will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be
put to death by his slaves?

     Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear.

     The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his
slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much
against his will - he will have to cajole his own servants.

     Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself.

     And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with
neighbors who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if
they could catch the offender, would take his life?

     His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere
surrounded and watched by enemies.

     And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound - he
who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears
and lusts?  His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the
city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other
freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the
house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and
sees anything of interest.

     Very true, he said.

     And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own
person - the tyrannical man, I mean - whom you just now decided to be the most
miserable of all - will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading
a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to
be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or
paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but
fighting and combating with other men.

     Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact.

     Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a
worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst?

     Certainly.

     He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and
is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the
flatterer of the vilest of mankind.  He has desires which he is utterly unable
to satisfy, and has more wants than anyone, and is truly poor, if you know how
to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and
is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles:
and surely the resemblance holds?

     Very true, he said.

     Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he
becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more
friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and
cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely
miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.

     No man of any sense will dispute your words.

     Come, then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical contests
proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the
scale of happiness, and who second, and in what order the others follow: there
are five of them in all - they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical,
democratical, tyrannical.

     The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses
coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter,
by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.

     Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce that the son of Ariston (the
best) has decided that the best and justest is also the happiest, and that
this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst
and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being
the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?

     Make the proclamation yourself, he said.

     And shall I add, "whether seen or unseen by gods and men"?

     Let the words be added.

     Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which
may also have some weight.

     What is that?

     The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the
individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles,
the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.

     Of what nature?

     It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond;
also three desires and governing powers.

     How do you mean? he said.

     There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns,
another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special
name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary
strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other
sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving,
because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money.

     That is true, he said.

     If we were to say that the loves and pleasures of this third part were
concerned with gain, we should then be able to fall back on a single notion;
and might truly and intelligibly describe this part of the soul as loving gain
or money.

     I agree with you.

     Again, is not the passionate element wholly set on ruling and conquering
and getting fame?

     True.

     Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious - would the term be
suitable?

     Extremely suitable.

     On the other hand, everyone sees that the principle of knowledge is
wholly directed to the truth, and cares less than either of the others for
gain or fame.

     Far less.

     "Lover of wisdom," "lover of knowledge," are titles which we may fitly
apply to that part of the soul?

     Certainly.

     One principle prevails in the souls of one class of men, another in
others, as may happen?

     Yes.

     Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men -
lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, lovers of gain?

     Exactly.

     And there are three kinds of pleasure, which are their several objects?

     Very true.

     Now, if you examine the three classes of men, and ask of them in turn
which of their lives is pleasantest, each will be found praising his own and
depreciating that of others: the money-maker will contrast the vanity of honor
or of learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and
silver?

     True, he said.

     And the lover of honor - what will be his opinion?  Will he not think
that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of learning, if it
brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense to him?

     Very true.

     And are we to suppose, I said, that the philosopher sets any value on
other pleasures in comparison with the pleasure of knowing the truth, and in
that pursuit abiding, ever learning, not so far indeed from the heaven of
pleasure?  Does he not call the other pleasures necessary, under the idea that
if there were so necessity for them, he would rather not have them?

     There can be no doubt of that, he replied.

     Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in
dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honorable, or
better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless - how shall we
know who speaks truly?

     I cannot myself tell, he said.

     Well, but what ought to be the criterion?  Is any better than experience,
and wisdom, and reason?

     There cannot be a better, he said.

     Then, I said, reflect.  Of the three individuals, which has the greatest
experience of all the pleasures which we enumerated?  Has the lover of gain,
in learning the nature of essential truth, greater experience of the pleasure
of knowledge than the philosopher has of the pleasure of gain?

     The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of
necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood
upward: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity
tasted - or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have
tasted - the sweetness of learning and knowing truth.

     Then the lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain,
for he has a double experience?

     Yes, very great.

     Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honor, or the lover
of honor of the pleasures of wisdom?

     Nay, he said, all three are honored in proportion as they attain their
object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their
crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honor they all have experience of
the pleasures of honor; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge
of true being is known to the philosopher only.

     His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than anyone?

     Far better.

     And he is the only one who has wisdom as well as experience?

     Certainly.

     Further, the very faculty which is the instrument of judgment is not
possessed by the covetous or ambitious man, but only by the philosopher?

     What faculty?

     Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.

     Yes.

     And reasoning is peculiarly his instrument?

     Certainly.

     If wealth and gain were the criterion, then the praise or blame of the
lover of gain would surely be the most trustworthy?

     Assuredly.

     Or if honor, or victory, or courage, in that case the judgment of the
ambitious or pugnacious would be the truest?

     Clearly.

     But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges -

     The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are
approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest.

     And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part
of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is
the ruling principle has the pleasantest life.

     Unquestionably, he said, the wise man speaks with authority when he
approves of his own life.

     And what does the judge affirm to be the life which is next, and the
pleasure which is next?

     Clearly that of the soldier and lover of honor; who is nearer to himself
than the money-maker.

     Last comes the lover of gain?

     Very true, he said.

     Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this
conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus
the savior: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise
is quite true and pure - all others are a shadow only; and surely this will
prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?

     Yes, the greatest; but will you explain yourself?

     I will work out the subject and you shall answer my questions.

     Proceed.

     Say, then, is not pleasure opposed to pain?

     True.

     And there is a neutral state which is neither pleasure nor pain?

     There is.

     A state which is intermediate, and a sort of repose of the soul about
either - that is what you mean?

     Yes.

     You remember what people say when they are sick?

     What do they say?

     That after all nothing is pleasanter than health.  But then they never
knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill.

     Yes, I know, he said.

     And when persons are suffering from acute pain, you must have heard them
say that there is nothing pleasanter than to get rid of their pain?

     I have.

     And there are many other cases of suffering in which the mere rest and
cessation of pain, and not any positive enjoyment, are extolled by them as the
greatest pleasure?

     Yes, he said; at the time they are pleased and well content to be at
rest.

     Again, when pleasure ceases, that sort of rest or cessation will be
painful?

     Doubtless, he said.

     Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be
pain?

     So it would seem.

     But can that which is neither become both?

     I should say not.

     And both pleasure and pain are motions of the soul, are they not?

     Yes.

     But that which is neither was just now shown to be rest and not motion,
and in a mean between them?

     Yes.

     How, then, can we be right in supposing that the absence of pain is
pleasure, or that the absence of pleasure is pain?

     Impossible.

     This, then, is an appearance only, and not a reality; that is to say, the
rest is pleasure at the moment and in comparison of what is painful, and
painful in comparison of what is pleasant; but all these representations, when
tried by the test of true pleasure, are not real, but a sort of imposition?

     That is the inference.

     Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and
you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is
only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

     What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?

     There are many of them: take as an example, the pleasures of smell, which
are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when
they depart leave no pain behind them.

     Most true, he said.

     Let us not, then, be induced to believe that pure pleasure is the
cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.

     No.

     Still, the more numerous and violent pleasures which reach the soul
through the body are generally of this sort - they are reliefs of pain.

     That is true.

     And the anticipations of future pleasures and pains are of a like nature?

     Yes.

     Shall I give you an illustration of them?

     Let me hear.

     You would allow, I said, that there is in nature an upper and lower and
middle region?

     I should.

     And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he
not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees
whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if
he has never seen the true upper world?

     To be sure, he said; how can he think otherwise?

     But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that
he was descending?

     No doubt.

     All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle
and lower regions?

     Yes.

     Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as
they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas
about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only
being drawn toward the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they
experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the
neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the
goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting
pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with gray
instead of white - can you wonder, I say, at this?

     No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite.

     Look at the matter thus: Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of
the bodily state?

     Yes.

     And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul?

     True.

     And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either?

     Certainly.

     And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that
which has more existence the truer?

     Clearly, from that which has more.

     What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence, in your
judgment - those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of
sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and
knowledge and mind and all the different kinds of virtue?  Put the question in
this way: Which has a more pure being - that which is concerned with the
invariable, the immortal, and the true, and is of such a nature, and is found
in such natures; or that which is concerned with and found in the variable and
mortal, and is itself variable and mortal?

     Far purer, he replied, is the being of that which is concerned with the
invariable.

     And does the essence of the invariable partake of knowledge in the same
degree as of essence?

     Yes, of knowledge in the same degree.

     And of truth in the same degree?

     Yes.

     And, conversely, that which has less of truth will also have less of
essence?

     Necessarily.

     Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the
body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the
soul?

     Far less.

     And has not the body itself less of truth and essence than the soul?

     Yes.

     What is filled with more real existence, and actually has a more real
existence, is more really filled than that which is filled with less real
existence and is less real?

     Of course.

     And if there be a pleasure in being filled with that which is according
to nature, that which is more filled with more real being will more really and
truly enjoy true pleasure; whereas that which participates in less real being
will be less truly and surely satisfied, and will participate in an illusory
and less real pleasure?

     Unquestionably.

     Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with
gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this
region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true
upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way,
neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and
abiding pleasure.  Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their
heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and
feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and
butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill
one another by reason of their insatiable lust.  For they fill themselves with
that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is
also unsubstantial and incontinent.

     Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like an
oracle.