of internal than
of external enemies, and the hour of ruin, both to themselves and to the
rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not
say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the
regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses and
all other matters?

Yes, said Glaucon.

BOOK IV.

Here Adeimantus interposed a question: How would you answer, Socrates,
said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people
miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness; the
city in fact belongs to them, but they are none the better for it;
whereas other men acquire lands, and build large and handsome houses,
and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods
on their own account, and practising hospitality; moreover, as you were
saying just now, they have gold and silver, and all that is usual among
the favourites of fortune; but our poor citizens are no better than
mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard?

Yes, I said; and you may add that they are only fed, and not paid in
addition to their food, like other men; and therefore they cannot, if
they would, take a journey of pleasure; they have no money to spend on
a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is
thought to be happiness; and many other accusations of the same nature
might be added.

But, said he, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge.

You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer?

Yes.

If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall
find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our
guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in
founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one
class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a
State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should
be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice:
and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the
happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State,
not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a
whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State.
Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us
and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colours on the most