Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  There will.

  And among other prizes and rewards the young men who are good in war or other things must be given permission to have sex with the women [b] more often, since this will also be a good pretext for having them father as many of the children as possible.

  That’s right.

  And then, as the children are born, they’ll be taken over by the officials appointed for the purpose, who may be either men or women or both, since our offices are open to both sexes.

  Yes.

  I think they’ll take the children of good parents to the nurses in charge [c] of the rearing pen situated in a separate part of the city, but the children of inferior parents, or any child of the others that is born defective, they’ll hide in a secret and unknown place, as is appropriate.

  It is, if indeed the guardian breed is to remain pure.

  And won’t the nurses also see to it that the mothers are brought to the rearing pen when their breasts have milk, taking every precaution to insure that no mother knows her own child and providing wet nurses if the [d] mother’s milk is insufficient? And won’t they take care that the mothers suckle the children for only a reasonable amount of time and that the care of sleepless children and all other such troublesome duties are taken over by the wet nurses and other attendants?

  You’re making it very easy for the wives of the guardians to have children.

  And that’s only proper. So let’s take up the next thing we proposed. We said that the children’s parents should be in their prime.

  True.

  Do you share the view that a woman’s prime lasts about twenty years [e] and a man’s about thirty?

  Which years are those?

  A woman is to bear children for the city from the age of twenty to the age of forty, a man from the time that he passes his peak as a runner until he reaches fifty-five.

  [461] At any rate, that’s the physical and mental prime for both.

  Then, if a man who is younger or older than that engages in reproduction for the community, we’ll say that his offense is neither pious nor just, for the child he begets for the city, if it remains hidden, will be born in darkness, through a dangerous weakness of will, and without the benefit of the sacrifices and prayers offered at every marriage festival, in which the priests and priestesses, together with the entire city, ask that the children of good and beneficial parents may always prove themselves still better [b] and more beneficial.

  That’s right.

  The same law will apply if a man still of begetting years has a child with a woman of child-bearing age without the sanction of the rulers. We’ll say that he brings to the city an illegitimate, unauthorized, and unhallowed child.

  That’s absolutely right.

  However, I think that when women and men have passed the age of having children, we’ll leave them free to have sex with whomever they wish, with these exceptions: For a man—his daughter, his mother, his [c] daughter’s children, and his mother’s ancestors; for a woman—her son and his descendants, her father and his ancestors. Having received these instructions, they should be very careful not to let a single fetus see the light of day, but if one is conceived and forces its way to the light, they must deal with it in the knowledge that no nurture is available for it.

  That’s certainly sensible. But how will they recognize their fathers and daughters and the others you mentioned? [d]

  They have no way of knowing. But a man will call all the children born in the tenth or seventh month after he became a bridegroom his sons, if they’re male, and his daughters, if they’re female, and they’ll call him father. He’ll call their children his grandchildren, and they’ll call the group to which he belongs grandfathers and grandmothers. And those who were born at the same time as their mothers and fathers were having children they’ll call their brothers and sisters. Thus, as we were saying, the relevant [e] groups will avoid sexual relations with each other. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to have sex with one another if the lottery works out that way and the Pythia8 approves.

  That’s absolutely right.

  This, then, Glaucon, is how the guardians of your city have their wives and children in common. We must now confirm that this arrangement is both consistent with the rest of the constitution and by far the best. Or how else are we to proceed?

  In just that way. [462]

  Then isn’t the first step towards agreement to ask ourselves what we say is the greatest good in designing the city—the good at which the legislator aims in making the laws—and what is the greatest evil? And isn’t the next step to examine whether the system we’ve just described fits into the tracks of the good and not into those of the bad?

  Absolutely.

  Is there any greater evil we can mention for a city than that which tears it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or any greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one? [b]

  There isn’t.

  And when, as far as possible, all the citizens rejoice and are pained by the same successes and failures, doesn’t this sharing of pleasures and pains bind the city together?

  It most certainly does.

  But when some suffer greatly, while others rejoice greatly, at the same things happening to the city or its people, doesn’t this privatization of pleasures and pains dissolve the city? [c]

  Of course.

  And isn’t that what happens whenever such words as “mine” and “not mine” aren’t used in unison? And similarly with “someone else’s”?

  Precisely.

  Then, is the best-governed city the one in which most people say “mine” and “not mine” about the same things in the same way?

  It is indeed.

  What about the city that is most like a single person? For example, when one of us hurts his finger, the entire organism that binds body and soul together into a single system under the ruling part within it is aware of this, and the whole feels the pain together with the part that suffers. That’s [d] why we say that the man has a pain in his finger. And the same can be said about any part of a man, with regard either to the pain it suffers or to the pleasure it experiences when it finds relief.

  Certainly. And, as for your question, the city with the best government is most like such a person.

  Then, whenever anything good or bad happens to a single one of its citizens, such a city above all others will say that the affected part is its [e] own and will share in the pleasure or pain as a whole.

  If it has good laws, that must be so.

  It’s time now to return to our own city, to look there for the features we’ve agreed on, and to determine whether it or some other city possesses them to the greatest degree.

  Then that’s what we must do.

  What about those other cities? Aren’t there rulers and people in them, [463] as well as in ours?

  There are.

  Besides fellow citizens, what do the people call the rulers in those other cities?

  In many they call them despots, but in democracies they are called just this—rulers.

  What about the people in our city? Besides fellow citizens, what do they call their rulers? [b]

  Preservers and auxiliaries.

  And what do they in turn call the people?

  Providers of upkeep and wages.

  What do the rulers call the people in other cities?

  Slaves.

  And what do the rulers call each other?

  Co-rulers.

  And ours?

  Co-guardians.

  Can you tell me whether a ruler in those other cities could address some of his co-rulers as his kinsmen and others as outsiders?

  Yes, many could.

  And doesn’t he consider his kinsman to be his own, and doesn’t he [c] address him as such, while he considers the outsider not to be his own?

  He does.

  What about your guardians? Could any of them consider a co-guardian as an outsider or address him as such?

  There’s
no way he could, for when he meets any one of them, he’ll hold that he’s meeting a brother or sister, a father or mother, a son or daughter, or some ancestor or descendant of theirs.

  You put that very well. But tell me this: Will your laws require them simply to use these kinship names or also to do all the things that go along [d] with the names? Must they show to their “fathers” the respect, solicitude, and obedience we show to our parents by law? Won’t they fare worse at the hands of gods and humans, as people whose actions are neither pious nor just, if they do otherwise? Will these be the oracular sayings they hear from all the citizens from their childhood on, or will they hear something else about their fathers—or the ones they’re told are their fathers—and other relatives?

  The former. It would be absurd if they only mouthed kinship names without doing the things that go along with them. [e]

  Therefore, in our city more than in any other, they’ll speak in unison the words we mentioned a moment ago. When any one of them is doing well or badly, they’ll say that “mine” is doing well or that “mine” is doing badly.

  That’s absolutely true.

  Now, didn’t we say that the having and expressing of this conviction is closely followed by the having of pleasures and pains in common? [464]

  Yes, and we were right.

  Then won’t our citizens, more than any others, have the same thing in common, the one they call “mine”? And, having that in common, won’t they, more than any others, have common pleasures and pains?

  Of course.

  And, in addition to the other institutions, the cause of this is the having of wives and children in common by the guardians?

  That more than anything else is the cause.

  But we agreed that the having of pains and pleasures in common is the greatest good for a city, and we characterized a well-governed city in terms of the body’s reaction to pain or pleasure in any one of its parts. [b]

  And we were right to agree.

  Then, the cause of the greatest good for our city has been shown to be the having of wives and children in common by the auxiliaries.

  It has.

  And, of course, this is consistent with what we said before, for we said somewhere that, if they’re going to be guardians, they mustn’t have private houses, property, or possessions, but must receive their upkeep from the other citizens as a wage for their guardianship and enjoy it in common.9 [c]

  That’s right.

  Then isn’t it true, just as I claimed, that what we are saying now, taken together with what we said before, makes even better guardians out of them and prevents them from tearing the city apart by not calling the same thing “mine”? If different people apply the term to different things, one would drag into his own house whatever he could separate from the others, and another would drag things into a different house to a different wife and children, and this would make for private pleasures and pains [d] at private things. But our people, on the other hand, will think of the same things as their own, aim at the same goal, and, as far as possible, feel pleasure and pain in unison.

  Precisely.

  And what about lawsuits and mutual accusations? Won’t they pretty well disappear from among them, because they have everything in common except their own bodies? Hence they’ll be spared all the dissension that arises between people because of the possession of money, children, [e] and families.

  They’ll necessarily be spared it.

  Nor could any lawsuits for insult or injury justly occur among them, for we’ll declare that it’s a fine and just thing for people to defend themselves against others of the same age, since this will compel them to stay in good physical shape.

  That’s right.

  [465] This law is also correct for another reason: If a spirited person vents his anger in this way, it will be less likely to lead him into more serious disputes.

  Certainly.

  But an older person will be authorized to rule and punish all the younger ones.

  Clearly.

  And surely it’s also obvious that a younger person won’t strike or do any sort of violence to an older one or fail to show him respect in other ways, unless the rulers command it, for there are two guardians sufficient to prevent him from doing such things—shame and fear. Shame will prevent him from laying a hand on his parents, and so will the fear that [b] the others would come to the aid of the victim, some as his sons, some as his brothers, and some as his fathers.

  That’s the effect they’ll have.

  Then, in all cases, won’t the laws induce men to live at peace with one another?

  Very much so.

  And if there’s no discord among the guardians, there’s no danger that the rest of the city will break into civil war, either with them or among themselves.

  Certainly not.

  I hesitate to mention, since they’re so unseemly, the pettiest of the evils the guardians would therefore escape: The poor man’s flattery of the rich, [c] the perplexities and sufferings involved in bringing up children and in making the money necessary to feed the household, getting into debt, paying it off, and in some way or other providing enough money to hand over to their wives and household slaves to manage. All of the various troubles men endure in these matters are obvious, ignoble, and not worth discussing.

  [d] They’re obvious even to the blind.

  They’ll be free of all these, and they’ll live a life more blessedly happy than that of the victors in the Olympian games.

  How?

  The Olympian victors are considered happy on account of only a small part of what is available to our guardians, for the guardians’ victory is even greater, and their upkeep from public funds more complete. The victory they gain is the preservation of the whole city, and the crown of victory that they and their children receive is their upkeep and all the necessities of life. They receive rewards from their own city while they live, and at their death they’re given a worthy burial. [e]

  Those are very good things.

  Do you remember that, earlier in our discussion, someone—I forget who—shocked us by saying that we hadn’t made our guardians happy, that it was possible for them to have everything that belongs to the citizens, yet they had nothing? We said, I think, that if this happened to come up [466] at some point, we’d look into it then, but that our concern at the time was to make our guardians true guardians and the city the happiest we could, rather than looking to any one group within it and molding it for happiness.10

  I remember.

  Well, then, if the life of our auxiliaries is apparently much finer and better than that of Olympian victors, is there any need to compare it to the lives of cobblers, farmers, or other craftsmen? [b]

  Not in my opinion.

  Then it’s surely right to repeat here what I said then: If a guardian seeks happiness in such a way that he’s no longer a guardian and isn’t satisfied with a life that’s moderate, stable, and—as we say—best, but a silly, adolescent idea of happiness seizes him and incites him to use his power to take everything in the city for himself, he’ll come to know the true wisdom of [c] Hesiod’s saying that somehow “the half is worth more than the whole.”11 If he takes my advice, he’ll keep to his own life-style.

  You agree, then, that the women and men should associate with one another in education, in things having to do with children, and in guarding the other citizens in the way we’ve described; that both when they remain in the city and when they go to war, they must guard together and hunt together like dogs and share in everything as far as possible; and that by [d] doing so they’ll be doing what’s best and not something contrary either to woman’s nature as compared with man’s or to the natural association of men and women with one another.

  I agree.

  Then doesn’t it remain for us to determine whether it’s possible to bring about this association among human beings, as it is among animals, and to say just how it might be done?

  You took the words right out of my mou
th.

  [e] As far as war is concerned, I think it’s clear how they will wage it.

  How so?

  Men and women will campaign together. They’ll take the sturdy children with them, so that, like the children of other craftsmen, they can see what they’ll have to do when they grow up. But in addition to observing, they can serve and assist in everything to do with the war and help their mothers [467] and fathers. Haven’t you noticed in the other crafts how the children of potters, for example, assist and observe for a long time before actually making any pots?

  I have indeed.

  And should these craftsmen take more care in training their children by appropriate experience and observation than the guardians?

  Of course not; that would be completely ridiculous.

  [b] Besides, every animal fights better in the presence of its young.

  That’s so. But, Socrates, there’s a considerable danger that in a defeat—and such things are likely to happen in a war—they’ll lose their children’s lives as well as their own, making it impossible for the rest of the city to recover.

  What you say is true. But do you think that the first thing we should provide for is the avoidance of all danger?

  Not at all.

  Well, then, if people will probably have to face some danger, shouldn’t it be the sort that will make them better if they come through it successfully?

  Obviously.

  And do you think that whether or not men who are going to be warriors observe warfare when they’re still boys makes such a small difference that [c] it isn’t worth the danger of having them do it?

  No, it does make a difference to what you’re talking about.

  On the assumption, then, that the children are to be observers of war, if we can contrive some way to keep them secure, everything will be fine, won’t it?

  Yes.

  Well, then, in the first place, their fathers won’t be ignorant, will they, about which campaigns are dangerous and which are not, but rather as [d] knowledgeable about this as any human beings can be?

  Probably so.

  Then they’ll take the children to some campaigns and not to others?