ends at the home of Cephalus at the
Piraeus. Socrates criticizes and punctures the definitions advanced by
the others until Thrasymachus, apparently with some heat, challenges
Socrates to give an answer of his own to the question "what is
justice?" and not to content himself, nor to consume time, with merely
refuting others. After some further discussion of various aspects of
the question, Socrates finally says, "I have gone from one subject to
another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature
of justice. I left the inquiry and turned away to consider whether
justice is virtue and wisdom, or evil and folly, and when there arose
a further question about the comparative advantages of justice and
injustice I could not refrain from passing on to that. The result of
the whole discussion has been that I know nothing at all. I know not
what justice is and therefore am not likely to know whether or not it
is a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy."
Granting that the confession may have been intended ironically, the
further discussion did not result in any practical solution, even if
in one possible in Plato's ideal, but impossible, state. Indeed, the
inquiry is not yet closed and will not be until the millennium.

Still, upon a question so old, so important, so persistent, so
ingrained in human society, and even now receiving such diverse and
conflicting answers, a brief consideration of the earlier beliefs and
theories may not be useless. As said by Bishop Stubbs, the historian,
"The roots of the present lie deep in the past and nothing in the past
is dead to him who would learn how the present came to be what it is."
The roots should be examined by him who would understand the tree.

In Homer we get a glimpse of a theory of his time, to wit, that each
separate decision given by the magistrate in any litigated controversy
was furnished to him by Zeus specially for that case. The Greek word
for such a decision was _themis_, and it was supposed that somewhere
in the Pantheon was a corresponding deity whose special function was
to furnish the appropriate themis for each case. This deity was
shadowily personified as the goddess Themis, the daughter of heaven
and earth, the companion and counselor of Zeus. It was she who
summoned gods and men to council and presided unseen over their
deliberations. Hence she came to be regarded as also the spirit of
order without which the Greek philoso