at a close argument, having
deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others
will not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that
he will not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. 'And what can I
do more for you?' he says; 'would you have me put the words bodily
into your souls?' God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be
consistent in the use of terms, and not to employ 'physician' in an
exact sense, and then again 'shepherd' or 'ruler' in an inexact,--if the
words are strictly taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the
good of their people or flocks and not to their own: whereas you insist
that rulers are solely actuated by love of office. 'No doubt about it,'
replies Thrasymachus. Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that
their interest is not comprehended in their art, and is therefore the
concern of another art, the art of pay, which is common to the arts in
general, and therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would any
man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear
of punishment;--the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the
necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or
Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by
the last motive only; and there would be as much 'nolo episcopari' as
there is at present of the opposite...

The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and
apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced.
There is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind
do not like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay.

...Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more
important--that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as
you and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but
if we try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge
to decide for us; we had better therefore proceed by making mutual
admissions of the truth to one another.

Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than
perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates
to admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice
vice. Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one
whose only wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the
same time he is weaving a net in whi