essity. To suffer injustice is an evil,
and to protect themselves from that the weak combine to prevent
injustice from being done. But if anyone had the ring of Gyges, which
made him invisible, so that he could go his own way without let or
hindrance, he would get all the pleasures he could out of life without
troubling about the justice of it. Again, imagine on the one hand your
really consummate rogue who gets credit for all the virtues and is
surrounded by all the material factors of happiness; and, on the other
hand, a man of utter rectitude, on whom circumstances combine to fix the
stigma of iniquity. He will be rejected, scourged, crucified; while the
other is enjoying wealth, honour, everything, and can afford to make his
peace with the gods into the bargain.

Then Adeimantus took the field in support of his brother. "The poets,"
he said, "hold forth about the rewards of virtue here and hereafter. But
we see the unrighteous prospering mightily; and the religious mendicants
come to rich folks and offer to sell them indulgences on easy terms. A
keen-witted lad is bound to argue that it is only the appearance of
justice that is needed for prosperity; while the gods can be reconciled
cheaply. This dwelling on the temporal rewards of justice is fatal. What
we expect of you is to show us the inherent value of justice--justice
itself, not the appearance of it."

"Well argued," said I, "especially as you reject your own conclusion. I
can but try, though the task be hard. But my weak sight may enable me to
read large characters better than small. Justice is the virtue of the
state as well as of the individual; finding it in the state, the
greater, may help us to find it in the individual, the less."

_II.--The Socratic Utopia_

Society arises because different people are the better skilled to supply
different wants, and the wants of each are supplied by mutual
arrangement and division of labour. Wants multiply; the community grows;
it exchanges its own foreign products; merchants and markets are added
to the producers; and when folk begin to hire servants you have a
complete city or state living a life of simplicity. "A city of pigs,"
said Glaucon, "with no refinements." We will go on and develop every
luxury of civilisation. But then our city and its neighbours will be
wanting each other's lands. We must have soldiers. Our best guardians
will be a select band, those who are of the right temper and thoroughly
traine