Secondly, I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good. And first I will speak of the nature and origin of justice according to the common view of them. If you, please, then, I will revive the argument of Thrasymachus. Setting aside their rewards and results, I want to know what they are in themselves, and how they inwardly work in the soul. For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, to have been charmed by your voice sooner than he ought to have been but to my mind the nature of justice and injustice have not yet been made clear. I wish, he said, that you would hear me as well as him, and then I shall see whether you and I agree. But I am too stupid to be convinced by him. I know, I said, that this is their manner of thinking, and that this was the thesis which Thrasymachus was maintaining just now, when he censured justice and praised injustice. Then the many are of another mind they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided. But why do you ask? Because I want to know in which of the three classes you would place justice? In the highest class, I replied, -among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. And would you not recognize a third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art also the various ways of money-making -these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them? There is, I said, this third class also. Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results? Certainly, I said. Let me ask you now: -How would you arrange goods -are there not some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them? I agree in thinking that there is such a class, I replied. So he said to me: Socrates, do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust? I should wish really to persuade you, I replied, if I could. For Glaucon, who is always the most pugnacious of men, was dissatisfied at Thrasymachus' retirement he wanted to have the battle out.

Socrates - GLAUCON With these words I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion but the end, in truth, proved to be only a beginning.

The republic book