one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.
Undoubtedly..
Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not
must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object.
He must.
And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when
Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time?
No doubt.
For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer
among us which are adapted to different occupations.
Very true.
And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one?
When he has only one.
and not at producing everything.
Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures
employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants?
Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only
to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining three-fourths of his time be
husbandman, for example, producing for four, and labouring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing
right.
The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.
Clearly.
And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labours into a common stock?--the individual
great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, some one else a weaver--shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants?
Quite
which is the condition of life and existence.
Certainly.
The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like.
True.
And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this
let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.
Of course, he replied.
Now the first and greatest of necessities is food,
termed a State.
True, he said.
And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good.
Very true.
Then, I said,
persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is
the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined?
There can I be no other.
Then, as we have many wants, and many
am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.
I have reflected, said Adeimantus, and am anxious that you should proceed.
A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of
State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.
Yes, far more easily.
But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I
said, is an excellent proposal.
And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also.
I dare say.
When the
that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them.
That, he
True, he replied.
And is not a State larger than an individual?
It is.
Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore
our enquiry?
I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.
could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser--this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune.
Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to
to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger-- if they were the same and he
very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one
