{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/plato/rep/rep0104.htm","path":"cla/plato/rep/rep0104.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/rep/rep0104.htm","text":"Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice?\nHe said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.\nI should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were now saying that I ought to return a return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.\nTrue.\nThen when the person who asks me is not in his right mind I am by no means to make the return?\nCertainly not.\nWhen Simonides said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case?\nCertainly not; for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend and never evil.\nYou mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt,--that is what you would imagine him to say?\nYes.\nAnd are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?\nTo be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him-- that is to say, evil.\nSimonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt.\nThat must have been his meaning, he said.\nBy heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us?\nHe would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies.\nAnd what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?\nSeasoning to food.\nAnd what is that which justice gives, and to whom?\nIf, Socrates, we are to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies.\nThat is his meaning then?\nI think so.\nAnd who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness?\nThe physician.\nOr when they are on a voyage, amid the perils of the sea?\nThe pilot.\nAnd in what sort of actions or with a view to what result is the just man most able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friends?\nIn going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other.\nBut when a man is well, my dear Polemarchus, there is no need of a physician?\nNo.\nAnd he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot?\nThen in time of peace justice will be of no use?\nI am very far from thinking so.\nYou think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war?\nLike husbandry for the acquisition of corn?\nOr like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes,--that is what you mean?\nAnd what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?\nIn contracts, Socrates, justice is of use.\nAnd by contracts you mean partnerships?\nExactly.\nBut is the just man or the skilful player a more useful and better partner at a game of draughts?\nThe skilful player.\nAnd in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder?\nQuite the reverse.\nThen in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man?\nIn a money partnership.\nYes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?\nCertainly.\nAnd when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better?\nThen what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred?\nWhen you want a deposit to be kept safely.\nYou mean when money is not wanted, but allowed to lie?\nPrecisely.\nThat is to say, justice is useful when money is useless?\nThat is the inference.\nAnd when you want to keep a pruning-hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state; but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser?\nClearly.\nAnd when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician?\nAnd so of all the other things;--justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful?\nThen justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow?\nAnd he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one?\nAnd he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy?\nThen he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?\nThat, I suppose, is to be inferred.\nThen if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.\nThat is implied in the argument.\nThen after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that\nHe was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.\nAnd so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however `for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,'--that was what you were saying?\nNo, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words.\nWell, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming?\nSurely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.\nYes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?\nThat is true.\nThen to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True.\nAnd in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good?\nBut the good are just and would not do an injustice?\nThen according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no wrong?\nNay, Socrates; the doctrine is immoral.\nThen I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust?\nI like that better.\nBut see the consequence:--Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; but, if so, we shall be saying the very opposite of that which we affirmed to be the meaning of Simonides.\nVery true, he said: and I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words `friend' and `enemy.'\nWhat was the error, Polemarchus? I asked.\nWe assumed that he is a friend who seems to be or who is thought good.\nAnd how is the error to be corrected?\nWe should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.\nYou would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies?\nAnd instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?\nYes, that appears to me to be the truth.\nBut ought the just to injure any one at all?\nUndoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies.\nWhen horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated?\nThe latter.\nDeteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?\nYes, of horses.\nAnd dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?\nOf course.\nAnd will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?\nAnd that human virtue is justice?\nTo be sure.\nThen men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?\nThat is the result.\nBut can the musician by his art make men unmusical?\nOr the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?\nImpossible.\nAnd can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking general can the good by virtue make them bad?\nAssuredly not.\nAny more than heat can produce cold?\nIt cannot.\nOr drought moisture?\nClearly not.\nNor can the good harm any one?\nAnd the just is the good?\nThen to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust?\nI think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.\nThen if a man says that justice consists in the repayment of debts, and that good is the debt which a man owes to his friends, and evil the debt which he owes to his enemies,--to say this is not wise; for it is not true, if, as has been clearly shown, the injuring of another can be in no case just.\nI agree with you, said Polemarchus.\nThen you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer?\nI am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said.\nShall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be?\nWhose?\nI believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is `doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.'\nMost true, he said.\nYes, I said; but if this definition of justice also breaks down, what other can be offered?\nSeveral times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him.","title":"SOCRATES - POLEMARCHUS","type":"page"}