Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/416

Rh justice.—(Plato, Rep., B. iv. pp. 443, 444; pp. 167, 168, 169 in English translation.)

47. You will thus perceive that Plato argues in favour of justice as the true condition of humanity, by looking, not to any external advantages or disadvantages which justice may confer, but by looking to the internal economy of human nature itself, and by showing that justice is nothing more or less than the maintenance of that economy in the order which nature has established, just as bodily health is nothing more or less than the maintenance of the order and arrangement which nature has established among the various organs of our physical framework.

48. The object with which Plato instituted the analogy or comparison between the soul of man and the constitution of a political state was this: it was to show that just as there can be no political state without justice, that is, without a proper balance and subordination being preserved among the different orders of society; so there can be no soul, or true rational life, in man, without justice, i.e., without a proper balance and subordination being preserved among the different parts and principles of the soul. Justice in a man has its analogies on a large scale in justice in a state; and just as the state ceases to be a state and goes to ruin so soon as justice deserts it, i.e., so soon as confusion and insubordination prevail among its ranks; so the soul goes