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holding, we too weren’t looking at the thing itself but were gazing off into the distance
somewhere, which is probably the very reason it escaped our notice.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“Like this,” I said: “it seems to me that although we’ve been saying it and hear-
ing it all along, we haven’t learned from our own selves that we were in a certain way
saying it.”
“That’s a long prologue for someone who’s eager to hear,” he said.
“Well then, hear whether I mean anything after all,” I said.
“Because from the beginning the thing we’ve set down as what we needed to do
all through everything when we were founding the city, this, it seems to me, or else
some form of this, is justice. Surely we set down, and said often, if you remember, that
each one person needed to pursue one of the tasks that are involved in the city, the one
to which his nature would be naturally best adapted.”
“We did say that.”
“And surely we’ve heard it said by many others that doing what’s properly one’s
own and not meddling in other people’s business is justice, and we’ve said it often
ourselves.”
“We have said that.”
“This, then, my friend,” I said, “when it comes about in a certain way, is liable to
be justice, this doing what’s properly one’s own. Do you know where I find an indica-
tion of this?”
“No, tell me,” he said.
“It seems to me,” I said, “that the thing that’s left over in the city from the ones
we’ve considered—moderation, courage, and wisdom—is what provided all of them
with the power to come into being in it and provides their preservation once they’ve
come into being, for as long as it’s in it. And in fact we were claiming that justice would
be what was left over from them if we were to find the three.”
“And that is necessary,” he said.
“And certainly,” I said, “if one had to judge which of these would do our city the
most good by coming to be present in it, it would be hard to decide whether it’s the
agreement of opinion of the rulers and ruled, or the preservation of a lawful opinion that
arises in the soldiers about what things are and aren’t to be feared, or the judgment and
guardianship present in the rulers, or whether it’s this that does it the most good by
being in it, in a child and a woman and a slave and a free person and a craftsman and a
ruler and one who’s ruled, the fact that each of them, being one person, did what was
properly his own and didn’t meddle in other people’s business.”
“It’s hard to decide,” he said; “how could it not be?”
“Therefore, it seems that, with a view to a city’s virtue, the power that comes from
each person’s doing what’s properly his own in it is a match for its wisdom and moder-
ation and courage.”
“Very much so,” he said.
“And wouldn’t you place justice as a match for these as to a city’s virtue?”
“Absolutely so.”
“Then consider whether it will seem that way in this respect too: will you assign
the judging of lawsuits in the city to the rulers?”
“Certainly.”
“And will they judge them with their sights on anything else besides this, that
each party not have another’s property or be deprived of his own?”
“No, only on that.”
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