has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the
preceding.

How so? he asked.

Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain
pleasures and desires; this is curiously enough implied in the saying of
'a man being his own master;' and other traces of the same notion may be
found in language.

No doubt, he said.

There is something ridiculous in the expression 'master of himself;' for
the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all
these modes of speaking the same person is denoted.

Certainly.

The meaning is, I believe, that in the human soul there is a better and
also a worse principle; and when the better has the worse under control,
then a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of
praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better
principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass
of the worse--in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self
and unprincipled.

Yes, there is reason in that.

And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will
find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you
will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words
'temperance' and 'self-mastery' truly express the rule of the better
part over the worse.

Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true.

Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires
and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in
the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class.

Certainly, he said.

Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are
under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a
few, and those the best born and best educated.

Very true.

These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the
meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and
wisdom of the few.

That I perceive, he said.

Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own
pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a
designation?

Certainly, he replied.

It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons?

Yes.

And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as
to the question who are to rule, that again will be our State?

Undoubtedly.

And the citizens being thus agreed among themselves, in