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350 object is to show what justice is, and the result of his inquiry is, that justice is in fact the true nature, the true constitution of the soul. It is not something which appertains to the soul as an accidental quality, or as a property which can be assumed or laid aside at pleasure without affecting the innermost life of our intelligent nature. It is, on the contrary, the very essence of the soul. It denotes the equipoise which must be preserved among the different principles of our nature, if that nature is to remain true to itself, and fulfil the functions for which it was designed. And hence, inasmuch as justice is merely another word for the true nature of the soul, and inasmuch as the true nature of a thing is merely another word for the virtue of that thing, justice is to be regarded as emphatically the virtue of the soul.

39. Plato says that this doctrine of justice will be best understood, and that its truth will become more apparent, when we consider it upon a great scale. He says, that by knowing what justice is when we see it as the virtue of a state, we shall more clearly understand what it is when represented as the virtue of an individual. We can readily understand how a state or society of men must go to ruin