ers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although
they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances
with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
Enough of this.

Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and
unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the
isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely
unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from
either of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work
of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other
distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physician, who
knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who,
if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust
make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means
to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for
the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not.
Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most
perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow
him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest
reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to
recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his
deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required
by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at
his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity,
wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no
seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honoured and rewarded, and
then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or
for the sake of honours and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in
justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a
state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men,
and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the
proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of
infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of
death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the
uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let
judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.

Heavens! my dear Glaucon, I said, ho