Greek Texts & Translations

We must, of course, believe it.

Are you aware that, according to some, there are as many kinds of laws as there are kinds of constitutions? And how many constitutions are commonly recognized we have recently recounted. ^note Please do not suppose that the problem now raised is one of small importance; rather it is of the highest importance. For we are again ^note faced with the problem as to what ought to be the aim of justice and injustice. The assertion of the people I refer to is this,— 714cthat the laws ought not to aim either at war or at goodness in general, but ought to have regard to the benefit of the established polity, whatever it may be, so that it may keep in power forever and never be dissolved; and that the natural definition of justice is best stated in this way.

In what way?

That justice is “what benefits the stronger.” ^note.

Explain yourself more clearly.

This is how it is:—the laws (they say) in a State are always enacted by the stronger power? Is it not so?

That is quite true.

Do you suppose, then (so they argue), that a democracy 714dor any other government—even a tyrant—if it has gained the mastery, will of its own accord set up laws with any other primary aim than that of securing the permanence of its own authority?

Certainly not.

Then the lawgiver will style these enactments “justice,” and will punish every transgressor as guilty of injustice.

That is certainly probable.

So these enactments will thus and herein always constitute justice.

That is, at any rate, what the argument asserts. 714e

Yes, for this is one of those “agreed claims” concerning government. ^note

What “claims”?

Those which we dealt with before,—claims as to who should govern whom. It was shown that parents should govern children, the older the younger, the high-born the low-born, and (if you remember) there were many other claims, some of which were conflicting. The claim before us is one of these, and we said that ^note—to quote Pindar—“the law marches with nature 715awhen it justifies the right of might.”

Yes, that is what was said then.

Consider now, to which class of men should we entrust our State. For the condition referred to is one that has already occurred in States thousands of times.

What condition?

Where offices of rule are open to contest, the victors in the contest monopolize power in the State so completely that they offer not the smallest share in office to the vanquished party or their descendants; and each party keeps a watchful eye on the other, 715blest anyone should come into office and, in revenge for the former troubles, cause a rising against them. Such polities we, of course, deny to be polities, just as we deny that laws are true laws unless they are enacted in the interest of the common weal of the whole State. But where the laws are enacted in the interest of a section, we call them feudalities ^note rather than polities; and the “justice” they ascribe to such laws is, we say, an empty name. Our reason for saying this is that in your State we shall assign office to a man, not because he is wealthy, 715cnor because he possesses any other quality of the kind—such as strength or size or birth; but the ministration of the laws must be assigned, as we assert, to that man who is most obedient to the laws and wins the victory for obedience in the State,—the highest office to the first, the next to him that shows the second degree of mastery, and the rest must similarly be assigned, each in succession, to those that come next in order. And those who are termed “magistrates” I have now called “ministers” ^note of the laws, not for the sake of coining a new phrase, 715dbut in the belief that salvation, or ruin, for a State hangs upon nothing so much as this. For wherever in a State the law is subservient and impotent, over that State I see ruin impending; but wherever the law is lord over the magistrates, and the magistrates are servants to the law, there I descry salvation and all the blessings that the gods bestow on States.

Aye, by Heaven, Stranger; for, as befits your age, you have keen sight.

Yes; for a man's vision of such objects is at its dullest