to waive his rights in order that he may escape trouble.
And how does the son come into being?
The character of the son begins to develope when he hears his mother
complaining that her husband has no place in the government, of which
the consequence is that she has no precedence among other women.
Further, when she sees her husband not very eager about money, and
instead of battling and railing in the law courts or assembly, taking
whatever happens to him quietly; and when she observes that his thoughts
always centre in himself, while he treats her with very considerable
indifference, she is annoyed, and says to her son that his father is
only half a man and far too easy-going: adding all the other complaints
about her own ill-treatment which women are so fond of rehearsing.
Yes, said Adeimantus, they give us plenty of them, and their complaints
are so like themselves.
And you know, I said, that the old servants also, who are supposed to
be attached to the family, from time to time talk privately in the same
strain to the son; and if they see any one who owes money to his father,
or is wronging him in any way, and he fails to prosecute them, they tell
the youth that when he grows up he must retaliate upon people of this
sort, and be more of a man than his father. He has only to walk abroad
and he hears and sees the same sort of thing: those who do their own
business in the city are called simpletons, and held in no esteem, while
the busy-bodies are honoured and applauded. The result is that the young
man, hearing and seeing all these things--hearing, too, the words of
his father, and having a nearer view of his way of life, and making
comparisons of him and others--is drawn opposite ways: while his father
is watering and nourishing the rational principle in his soul, the
others are encouraging the passionate and appetitive; and he being not
originally of a bad nature, but having kept bad company, is at last
brought by their joint influence to a middle point, and gives up the
kingdom which is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness
and passion, and becomes arrogant and ambitious.
You seem to me to have described his origin perfectly.
Then we have now, I said, the second form of government and the second
type of character?
We have.
Next, let us look at another man who, as Aeschylus says,
'Is set over against another State;'
or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the State.
By all
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