his better desires will be found to prevail over
his inferior ones.

True.

For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people;
yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far
away and never come near him.

I should expect so.

And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a
State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition;
he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of
awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in
the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part
only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the
prize and saves his money.

Very true.

Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to
the oligarchical State?

There can be no doubt.

Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to
be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the
democratic man, and bring him up for judgment.

That, he said, is our method.

Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy
arise? Is it not on this wise?--The good at which such a State aims is
to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable?

What then?

The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse
to curtail by law the extravagance of the spendthrift youth because
they gain by their ruin; they take interest from them and buy up their
estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance?

To be sure.

There can be no doubt that the love of wealth and the spirit of
moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any
considerable extent; one or the other will be disregarded.

That is tolerably clear.

And in oligarchical States, from the general spread of carelessness and
extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary?

Yes, often.

And still they remain in the city; there they are, ready to sting and
fully armed, and some of them owe money, some have forfeited their
citizenship; a third class are in both predicaments; and they hate
and conspire against those who have got their property, and against
everybody else, and are eager for revolution.

That is true.

On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk, and
pretending not even to see those whom they have already ruined, insert
their sting--that