nal, and is afterwards rejected. And so far
from justice remaining over when the other virtues are eliminated,
the justice and temperance of the Republic can with difficulty be
distinguished. Temperance appears to be the virtue of a part only, and
one of three, whereas justice is a universal virtue of the whole soul.
Yet on the other hand temperance is also described as a sort of harmony,
and in this respect is akin to justice. Justice seems to differ from
temperance in degree rather than in kind; whereas temperance is the
harmony of discordant elements, justice is the perfect order by which
all natures and classes do their own business, the right man in the
right place, the division and co-operation of all the citizens. Justice,
again, is a more abstract notion than the other virtues, and therefore,
from Plato's point of view, the foundation of them, to which they
are referred and which in idea precedes them. The proposal to omit
temperance is a mere trick of style intended to avoid monotony.

There is a famous question discussed in one of the earlier Dialogues of
Plato (Protagoras; Arist. Nic. Ethics), 'Whether the virtues are one
or many?' This receives an answer which is to the effect that there
are four cardinal virtues (now for the first time brought together in
ethical philosophy), and one supreme over the rest, which is not like
Aristotle's conception of universal justice, virtue relative to others,
but the whole of virtue relative to the parts. To this universal
conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral
nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the
second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to
succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms 'law,' 'order,'
'harmony;' but while the idea of good embraces 'all time and all
existence,' the conception of justice is not extended beyond man.

...Socrates is now going to identify the individual and the State. But
first he must prove that there are three parts of the individual soul.
His argument is as follows:--Quantity makes no difference in quality.
The word 'just,' whether applied to the individual or to the State, has
the same meaning. And the term 'justice' implied that the same three
principles in the State and in the individual were doing their own
business. But are they really three or one? The question is difficult,
and one which can hardly be solved by the methods which we are n