e passionate element:--the desires of
the ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior
satisfaction. Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the
other principles do their own business or attain the pleasure which is
natural to them. When not attaining, they compel the other parts of the
soul to pursue a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more
distant they are from philosophy and reason, the more distant they will
be from law and order, and the more illusive will be their pleasures.
The desires of love and tyranny are the farthest from law, and those
of the king are nearest to it. There is one genuine pleasure, and two
spurious ones: the tyrant goes beyond even the latter; he has run away
altogether from law and reason. Nor can the measure of his inferiority
be told, except in a figure. The tyrant is the third removed from the
oligarch, and has therefore, not a shadow of his pleasure, but the
shadow of a shadow only. The oligarch, again, is thrice removed from
the king, and thus we get the formula 3 x 3, which is the number of a
surface, representing the shadow which is the tyrant's pleasure, and
if you like to cube this 'number of the beast,' you will find that the
measure of the difference amounts to 729; the king is 729 times more
happy than the tyrant. And this extraordinary number is NEARLY equal
to the number of days and nights in a year (365 x 2 = 730); and is
therefore concerned with human life. This is the interval between a good
and bad man in happiness only: what must be the difference between them
in comeliness of life and virtue!

Perhaps you may remember some one saying at the beginning of our
discussion that the unjust man was profited if he had the reputation of
justice. Now that we know the nature of justice and injustice, let us
make an image of the soul, which will personify his words. First of all,
fashion a multitudinous beast, having a ring of heads of all manner of
animals, tame and wild, and able to produce and change them at pleasure.
Suppose now another form of a lion, and another of a man; the second
smaller than the first, the third than the second; join them together
and cover them with a human skin, in which they are completely
concealed. When this has been done, let us tell the supporter of
injustice that he is feeding up the beasts and starving the man. The
maintainer of justice, on the other hand, is trying to strengthen the
man; he is nourishing t