94 PLATO
“Yes,” I said, “as long as it comes to light as something differing from the reason-
ing part, the same way it manifested itself as different from the desiring part.”
“But it’s not hard to make that evident,” he said, “since one could see this even in
small children, that they’re full of spiritedness right from birth, while some of them
seem to me never to get any share of reasoning, and most get one at a late time of life.”
“Yes, by Zeus,” I said, “you put it beautifully. And also in animals one could see
that what you’re describing is that way. And in addition to these things, what we cited
from Homer in some earlier place in the conversation will bear witness to it:Striking his chest, he scolded his heart with words.Here Homer has clearly depicted that which reflects on the better and the worse as one
thing rebuking another, that which is irrationally spirited.”
“You’ve said it exactly right,” he said.
“Well, with a lot of effort we’ve managed to swim through these waters, and
we’re tolerably well agreed that the same classes in the city are present in the soul of
each one person, and are equal in number.”
“They are.”
“Isn’t it already a necessary consequence, then, that a private person is wise in the
same manner and by the same means that a city was wise?”
“How else?”
“And the means by which and manner in which a private person is courageous is
that by which and in which a city was courageous, and everything else related to virtue
is the same way for both?”
“Necessarily.”
“So, Glaucon, I imagine we’ll claim also that a man is just in the very same man-
ner in which a city too was just.”
“This too is entirely necessary.”
“But surely we haven’t forgotten somewhere along the way that the city was just
because each of the three classes that are in it do what properly belongs to them.”
“We don’t seem to me to have forgotten that,” he said.
“Therefore we need to remember also that for each of us, that whoever has each
of the things within him doing what properly belongs to it will be just himself and be
someone who does what properly belongs to him.”
“It needs to be remembered very well indeed,” he said.
“Then isn’t it appropriate for the reasoning part to rule, since it’s wise and has
forethought on behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to be obedient to it and
allied with it?”
“Very much so.”
“Then as we were saying, won’t a blending of music with gymnastic exercise
make them concordant, tightening up the one part and nourishing it with beautiful
speeches and things to learn while relaxing the other with soothing stories, taming it
with harmony and rhythm?”
“Exactly so,” he said.
“So once this pair have been nurtured in this way, and have learned and been
educated in the things that truly belong to them, they need to be put in charge of the
desiring part, which is certainly the largest part of the soul in each person and by
nature the most insatiable for money. This part needs to be watched over so that it
doesn’t get filled with the so-called pleasures of the body and, when it becomes big
and strong, not do the things that properly belong to it, but try to enslave and rule overbcde442a
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