Plato's definition of a state: "an association of people based upon need"

Socrates is proposing a principle of specialization: that within the state one person should do one job.  Before the establishment of a state, everyone has to do everything for him/herself.  Now there arises a clear division of labor.

city of pigs:  Glaucon raises the objection here that such a simple way of life would certainly not appeal to most people. 

Rise of the Minimal State

    A state, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. Can any other origin of a State be imagined? 
    There can be no other. 
    Then, as we have many wants, and many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State. 
    True, he said. 
    And they exchange with one another, and one gives, and another receives, under the idea that the exchange will be for their good. 
    Very true. 
    Then, I said, let us begin and create in idea a State; and yet the true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention. 
    Of course, he replied. 
    Now the first and greatest of necessities is food, which is the condition of life and existence. 
    Certainly. 
    The second is a dwelling, and the third clothing and the like. 
    True. 
    And now let us see how our city will be able to supply this great demand: We may suppose that one man is a husbandman, another a builder, someone else a weaver -- shall we add to them a shoemaker, or perhaps some other purveyor to our bodily wants? 
    Quite right. 
    The barest notion of a State must include four or five men. 
    Clearly. 
    And how will they proceed? Will each bring the result of his labors into a common stock? -- the individual husbandman, for example, producing for four, and laboring four times as long and as much as he need in the provision of food with which he supplies others as well as himself; or will he have nothing to do with others and not be at the trouble of producing for them, but provide for himself alone a fourth of the food in a fourth of the time, and in the remaining threefourths of his time be employed in making a house or a coat or a pair of shoes, having no partnership with others, but supplying himself all his own wants? 
    Adeimantus thought that he should aim at producing food only and not at producing everything. 
    Probably, I replied, that would be the better way; and when I hear you say this, I am myself reminded that we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations. 
    Very true. 
    And will you have a work better done when the workman has many occupations, or when he has only one? 
    When he has only one. 
    Further, there can be no doubt that a work is spoilt when not done at the right time? 
    No doubt. 
    For business is not disposed to wait until the doer of the business is at leisure; but the doer must follow up what he is doing, and make the business his first object. 
    He must. 

Other Sorts of Citizens Needed for the State

    And if so, we must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things. Undoubtedly. 
    Then more than four citizens will be required; for the husbandman will not make his own plough or mattock, or other implements of agriculture, if they are to be good for anything. Neither will the builder make his tools -- and he, too, needs many; and in like manner the weaver and shoemaker. 
    True. 
    Then carpenters and smiths and many other artisans will be sharers in our little State, which is already beginning to grow? 
    True. 
    Yet even if we add neatherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen, in order that our husbandmen may have oxen to plough with, and builders as well as husbandmen may have draught cattle, and curriers and weavers fleeces and hides -- still our State will not be very large. 
    That is true; yet neither will it be a very small State which contains all these. 
    Then, again, there is the situation of the city -- to find a place where nothing need be imported is well nigh impossible. 
    Impossible. 
    Then there must be another class of citizens who will bring the required supply from another city? 
    There must. 
    But if the trader goes empty-handed, having nothing which they require who would supply his need, he will come back empty-handed. 
    That is certain. 
    And therefore what they produce at home must be not only enough for themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate those from whom their wants are supplied. 
    Very true. 
    Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required? 
    They will. 
    Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants? 
    Yes. 
    Then we shall want merchants? 
    We shall. 
    And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will also be needed, and in considerable numbers? 
    Yes, in considerable numbers. 
    Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State. 
    Clearly they will buy and sell. 
    Then they will need a marketplace, and a moneytoken for purposes of exchange. 
    Certainly. 
    Suppose now that a husbandman or an artisan brings some production to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him -- is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the marketplace? 
    Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In well-ordered States they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell, and
to take money from those who desire to buy. 
    This want, then, creates a class of retail traders in our State. Is not "retailer" the term which is applied to those who sit in the marketplace engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to another are called merchants? 
    Yes, he said. 
    And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labor, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings, "hire" being the name which is given to the price of their labor. 
    True. 
    Then hirelings will help to make up our population? 
    Yes. 
    And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected? 
    I think so. 
    Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State did they spring up? 
    Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else. 
    I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think the matter out, and not shrink from the inquiry. 

What will this minimal State be like?

    Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn and wine and clothes and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barleymeal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. 
    But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. 
    True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish -- salt and olives and cheese -- and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs and peas and beans; and they will roast myrtleberries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. 
    Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? 
    But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. 
    Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style. 

luxurious State:  Human selfishness would necessarily demand that the state expand to allow for more "civilized" comforts.

whole army:  the desire for luxury and comforts leads to expansion of the city and the need for an army of soldiers to protect the society.

natures:  Since defense of the State is of such importance, Plato will argue that the leaders of the army, whom he calls the Guardians, ought also to be the rulers of the society.  

The Luxurious State

    Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which
I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at feverheat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas and tables and other furniture; also dainties and perfumes and incense and courtesans and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety.
We must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses and clothes and shoes; the arts
of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must
be procured. 
    True, he said. 
    Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colors; another will be the votaries of
music -- poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tire-women and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. 
    Certainly. 
    And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before? 
    Much greater. 
    And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough? 
    Quite true. 
    Then a slice of our neighbors' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth? 
    That, Socrates, will be inevitable. 
    And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not? 
    Most certainly, he replied. Then, without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public. 
    Undoubtedly. 
    And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above. 
    Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves? 
    No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State. The principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practice many arts with success. 
    Very true, he said. 
    But is not war an art? 
    Certainly. 
    And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking? 
    Quite true. 
    And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder -- in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities
slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player
who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? 
    No tools will make a man a skilled workman or master of defense, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How, then, will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of
troops? 
    Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price. 
    And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time and skill and art and application will be needed by him? 
    No doubt, he replied. 
    Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling? 
    Certainly. 
    Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city? 
    It will. 
    And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best. 
    We must. 

well-bred dog:  an analogy is made several times in the Republic between the Guardians and pedigree puppies.  In Plato's mind, just as a "noble puppy" can be trained to be both fierce (towards strangers) and gentle (towards those it knows), so too can his guardians.  

Education of the Guardians

    Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching? 
    What do you mean? 
    I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him. 
    All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them. 
    Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well? 
    Certainly. 
    And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? 
    I have. 
    Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. 
    True. 
    And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit? 
    Yes. 
    But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? 
    A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. 
    Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. 
    True, he said. 
    What is to be done, then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? 
    True. 
    He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. 
    I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. 
    Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded. My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. 
    What do you mean? he said. 
    I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. 
    And where do you find them? 
    Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers. 
    Yes, I know. 
    Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities? 
    Certainly not. 
    Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher? 
    I do not apprehend your meaning. 
    The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal. 
    What trait? 
    Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious? 
    The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognize the truth of your remark. 
    And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; your dog is a true philosopher. 
    Why? 
    Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of
knowledge and ignorance? 
    Most assuredly. 
    And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? 
    They are the same, he replied. 
    And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge? 
    That we may safely affirm. 
    Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength? 
    Undoubtedly. 

gymnastics and music: The two aspects of the Guardian's training are gymnastike (physical training) and mousike (training in the arts).

stories:  Plato's focus for the rest of this section is on the specific kinds of stories to which his young Guardians are to be exposed.

Censorship of Poetry

   Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this an inquiry which may be expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our final end --How do justice and injustice grow up in States? for we do not want either to omit what is to the point or to draw out the argument to an inconvenient length. 
    Adeimantus thought that the inquiry would be of great service to us. 
    Then, I said, my dear friend, the task must not be given up, even if somewhat long. 
    Certainly not. 
    Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. 
    By all means. 
    And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? -- and this has two divisions, gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul. 
    True. 
    Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastics afterward? 
    By all means. 
    And when you speak of music, do you include literature or not? 
    I do. 
    And literature may be either true or false? 
    Yes. 
    And the young should be trained in both kinds, and we begin with the false? 
    I do not understand your meaning, he said. 
    You know, I said, that we begin by telling children stories which, though not wholly destitute of truth, are in the main fictitious; and these stories are told them when they are not of an age to learn gymnastics. 
    Very true. 
    That was my meaning when I said that we must teach music before gymnastics. 
    Quite right, he said. 
    You know also that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. 
    Quite true. 
    And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have
when they are grown up? 
    We cannot. 

Censorship of False Stories

    Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad; and we will desire mothers and nurses to tell their children the authorized ones only. Let them fashion the mind with such tales, even more fondly than they mould the body with their hands; but most of those which are now in use must be discarded. 
    Of what tales are you speaking? he said. 
    You may find a model of the lesser in the greater, I said; for they are necessarily of the same type, and there is the same spirit in both of them. 
    Very likely, he replied; but I do not as yet know what you would term the greater. 
    Those, I said, which are narrated by Homer and Hesiod, and the rest of the poets, who have ever been the great storytellers of mankind. 
    But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? 
    A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. 
    But when is this fault committed? 
    Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes -- as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. 
    Yes, he said, that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what are the stories which you mean? 
    First of all, I said, there was that greatest of all lies in high places, which the poet told about Uranus, and which was a bad lie too -- I mean what Hesiod says that Uranus did, and how Cronus retaliated on him. The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons; if possible, they had better be buried in silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a chosen few might hear them in a mystery, and they should sacrifice not a common [Eleusinian] pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; and then the number of the hearers will be very few indeed. 
    Why, yes, said he, those stories are extremely objectionable. 
    Yes, Adeimantus, they are stories not to be repeated in our State; the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous; and that even if he chastises his father when he does wrong, in whatever manner, he will only be following the example of the first and greatest among the
gods. 
    I entirely agree with you, he said; in my opinion those stories are quite unfit to be repeated. 
    Neither, if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in heaven, and of the plots and fightings of the gods against one another, for they are not true. No, we shall never mention the battles of the giants, or let them be embroidered
on garments; and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. If they would only believe us we would tell them that quarrelling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarrel between citizens; this is what old men and old women should begin by telling children;
and when they grow up, the poets also should be told to compose them in a similar spirit. But the narrative of Hephaestus binding Here his mother, or how on another occasion Zeus sent him flying for taking her part when she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods in Homer -- these tales must not be admitted into our State,
whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of
virtuous thoughts. 
    There you are right, he replied; but if anyone asks where are such models to be found and of what tales are you speaking -- how shall we answer him? 
    I said to him, You and I, Adeimantus, at this moment are not poets, but founders of a State: now the founders of a State ought to know the general forms in which poets should cast their tales, and the limits which must be observed by them, but to make the tales is not their business. 
    Very true, he said; but what are these forms of theology which you mean? 
    Something of this kind, I replied: God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric, or tragic, in which the representation is given. 
    Right. 
    And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? 
    Certainly. 
    And no good thing is hurtful? 
    No, indeed. 
    And that which is not hurtful hurts not? 
    Certainly not. 
    And that which hurts not does no evil? 
    No. 
    And can that which does no evil be a cause of evil? 
    Impossible. 
    And the good is advantageous? 
    Yes. 
    And therefore the cause of wellbeing? 
    Yes. 
    It follows, therefore, that the good is not the cause of all things, but of the good only? 
    Assuredly. 
    Then God, if he be good, is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but he is the cause of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to men. For few are the goods of human life, and many are the evils, and the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. 
    That appears to me to be most true, he said. 
    Then we must not listen to Homer or to any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that two casks  "Lie at the threshold of Zeus, full of lots, one of good, the other of evil lots,"  and that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two  "Sometimes meets with evil fortune, at other times with good;" but that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill,  "Him wild hunger drives o'er the beauteous earth." ...    
    I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. 
    Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform -- that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. 
    That will do, he said....

    Then, although we are admirers of Homer, we do not admire the lying dream which Zeus sends to Agamemnon; neither will we praise the verses of Aeschylus in which Thetis says that Apollo at her nuptials "was celebrating in song her fair progeny whose days were to be long, and to know no sickness. And when he had spoken of my lot as in all things blessed of heaven, he raised a note of triumph and cheered my soul. And I thought that the word of Phoebus, being divine and full of prophecy, would not fail. And now he himself who uttered the strain, he who was present at the banquet, and who said this -- he it is who has slain my son." 
    These are the kind of sentiments about the gods which will arouse our anger; and he who utters them shall be refused a chorus; neither shall we allow teachers to make use of them in the instruction of the young, meaning, as we do, that our guardians, as far as men can be, should be true worshippers of the gods and like them. 
    I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.

courageous: the stories that are to be censored here are those which are likely to sap the virtue from the young Guardians---stories that are likely to make them fearful or intemperate, for example.

weepings:  Why do we need to get rid of stories of heroes weeping?  Again, Plato is trying to encourage his Guardians to face death courageously.

rape:  Plato here will permit no stories to be heard of heroes performing immoral acts

wicked men:  even if stories about happy wicked people are true they should censored, since they set a bad example for the Guardians.

Censorship of Immoral Poetry

    SUCH, then, I said, are our principles of theology -- some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upward, if we mean them to honor the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another.

    Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.

    But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other lessons beside these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

    Certainly not, he said.

    And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be real and terrible?

    Impossible.

    Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to revile, but rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors.

    That will be our duty, he said.

    Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages, beginning with the verses

"I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man than rule over all the dead who have come to naught."

We must also expunge the verse which tells us how Pluto feared

"Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals."....

And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death.

    Undoubtedly.

    Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below -- Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them.

    There is a real danger, he said.

    Then we must have no more of them.

    True.

    Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.

    Clearly.

....

    And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous men?

    They will go with the rest.

    But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade.

    Yes; that is our principle.

    And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he had suffered anything terrible?

    He will not.

    Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.

    True, he said.

    And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.

    Assuredly.

    And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him.

    Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.

    Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the like.

    That will be very right....

.....

    And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale of Theseus, son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous, son of Zeus, going forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to declare either that these acts were done by them, or that they were not the sons of God; both in the same breath they shall not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better than men -- sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods.

    Assuredly not....

.....

    But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world below should be treated has been already laid down.

    Very true.

    And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining portion of our subject.

    Clearly so.

    But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my friend.

    Why not?

    Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men; poets and storytellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain -- these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.

    To be sure we shall, he replied.

    But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending.

    I grant the truth of your inference.

    That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.

    Most true, he said.

arguing against ourselves:  Socrates here raises the often heard objection that men and women have different natures and, therefore, should play different roles in the society

Equality of Women

   [Then Glaucon inquired]: What sort of community of women and children is this which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest care? Tell us how these things will be.... 
    Well, I replied, I suppose that I must retrace my steps and say what I perhaps ought to have said before in the proper place. The part of the men has been played out, and now properly enough comes the turn of the women. Of them I will proceed to speak, and the more readily since I am invited by you. 
    For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. 
    True. 

Men and Women Require the Same Type of Education.

    Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design. 
    What do you mean? 
    What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into he's and she's, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and the
suckling of their puppies are labor enough for them? 
    No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker. 
    But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way? 
    You cannot. 
    Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education? 
    Yes. 
    The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastics. Yes. 
    Then women must be taught music and gymnastics and also the art of war, which they must practice like the men? 
    That is the inference, I suppose. 
    I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous. 
    No doubt of it. 
    Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who, in spite of wrinkles and ugliness, continue to frequent the gymnasia. 
    Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous. 
    But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's attainments, both in music and gymnastics, and above all about their wearing armor and riding upon horseback! 
    Very true, he replied. Yet, having begun, we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans, and then the Lacedaemonians, introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation. 
    No doubt. 
    But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye had vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or
seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good. 
    Very true, he replied. 
    First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or cannot share? That will be the best way of commencing the inquiry,
and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion. 
    That will be much the best way. 

....

    Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves? in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended. 
    Why not? he said. 
    Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: "Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature." And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission
was made by us. "And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?" And we shall reply, Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, "Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?" Certainly they should. "But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?" What defence will you make for us, my good sir, against anyone who offers these objections? 
    That is not an easy question to answer when asked suddenly; and I shall and I do beg of you to draw out the case on our side. 
    These are the objections, Glaucon, and there are many others of a like kind, which I foresaw long ago; they made me afraid and reluctant to take in hand any law about the possession and nurture of women and children. 
    By Zeus, he said, the problem to be solved is anything but easy. Why, yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming-bath or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same. 
    Very true. 
    And must not we swim and try to reach the shore -- we will hope that Arion's dolphin or some other miraculous help may save us? 
    I suppose so, he said. 

    Well, then, let us see if any way of escape can be found. We acknowledged -- did we not? -- that different natures ought to have different pursuits, and that men's and women's natures are different. And now what are we saying? -- that different natures ought to have the same pursuits -- this is the inconsistency which is charged upon us. 
    Precisely. 
    Truly, Glaucon, I said, glorious is the power of the art of contradiction! 
    Why do you say so? 
    Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. 
    Yes, he replied, such is very often the case; but what has that to do with us and our argument? 
    A great deal; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal opposition. 
    In what way? Why we valiantly and pugnaciously insist upon the verbal truth, that different natures ought to have different pursuits, but we never considered at all what was the meaning of sameness or difference of nature, or why we distinguished them when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same to the same
natures. 
    Why, no, he said, that was never considered by us. 
    I said: Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an opposition in nature between bald men and hairy men; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely? 
    That would be a jest, he said. 
    Yes, I said, a jest; and why? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the opposition of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature. 
    True. 
    Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures? 
    Certainly. 
    And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits. 
    Very true, he said.
 ......
    You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same? 
    Yes. 
    I should like to ask you a question. 
    What is it? 
    Would you say that all men are equal in excellence, or is one man better than another? 
    The latter. 
    And in the commonwealth which we were founding do you conceive the guardians who have been brought up on our model system to be more perfect men, or the cobblers whose education has been cobbling? 
    What a ridiculous question! 
    You have answered me, I replied: Well, and may we not further say that our guardians are the best of our citizens? 
    By far the best. 
    And will not their wives be the best women? 

    Yes, by far the best. 
    And can there be anything better for the interests of the State than that the men and women of a State should be as good as possible? 
    There can be nothing better. 
    And this is what the arts of music and gymnastics, when present in such a manner as we have described, will accomplish? 
    Certainly. 
    Then we have made an enactment not only possible but in the highest degree beneficial to the State? 
    True. 
    Then let the wives of our guardians strip, for their virtue will be their robe, and let them share in the toils of war and the defense of their country; only in the distribution of labors the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same. And as for the man who laughs at
naked women exercising their bodies from the best of motives, in his laughter he is plucking "a fruit of unripe wisdom," and he himself is ignorant of what he is laughing at, or what he is about; for that is, and ever will be, the best
of sayings, "that the useful is the noble, and the hurtful is the base." 
    Very true. 

necessity of nature:  since male and female Guardians will be working and living together, there is the danger of sexual intimacy among them.  The problem, as we shall see, is that "sloppy breeding" can occur.

regulations:  to regulate childbirth, arranged marriages will have to take place. 

secret:  Plato here employs a noble lie to convince the Guardians that couplings between them are done by lottery.

nurses: The children who are the products of these unions will immediately be placed in a nursery and cared for by nurses. Parents, therefore, won't know who their own children are.

from seeing the light:  children with defects and those that are products of unsanctioned unions will be left to die.

nothing can be better:  the most important good for Plato is the well-being of the State, not of individuals.  Here he makes the argument that the well-being of the State is achieved by maintaining its unity.  The communal raising of children directly contributes to this unity.  

The Guardians' Communal Lifestyle

    Here, then, is one difficulty in our law about women, which we may say that we have now escaped; the wave has not swallowed us up alive for enacting that the guardians of either sex should have all their pursuits in common; to the utility and also to the possibility of this arrangement the consistency of the argument with itself bears
witness. 
    Yes, that was a mighty wave which you have escaped. 
    Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next. 
    Go on; let me see. 
    The law, I said, which is the sequel of this and of all that has preceded, is to the following effect, "that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent." 
    Yes, he said, that is a much greater wave than the other; and the possibility as well as the utility of such a law are far more questionable. 
    I do not think, I said, that there can be any dispute about the very great utility of having wives and children in common; the possibility is quite another matter, and will be very much disputed. 
    I think that a good many doubts may be raised about both. 
    You imply that the two questions must be combined, I replied. Now I meant that you should admit the utility; and in this way, as I thought, I should escape from one of them, and then there would remain only the possibility. 
    But that little attempt is detected, and therefore you will please to give a defence of both. 
    Well, I said, I submit to my fate. Yet grant me a little favor: let me feast my mind with the dream as daydreamers are in the habit of feasting themselves when they are walking alone; for before they have discovered any means of effecting their wishes -- that is a matter which never troubles them -- they would rather not tire themselves by thinking about possibilities; but assuming that what they desire is already granted to them, they proceed with their plan, and delight in detailing what they mean to do when their wish has come true -- that is a way which they have of not doing much good to a capacity which was never good for much. Now I myself am beginning to lose heart, and I should like, with your permission, to pass over the question of possibility at present. Assuming therefore the possibility of the proposal, I shall now proceed to inquire how the rulers will carry out these arrangements, and I shall demonstrate that our plan, if executed, will be of the greatest benefit to the State and to the guardians. First of all, then, if you have no objection, I will endeavor with your help to consider the advantages of the measure; and hereafter the question of possibility. 
    I have no objection; proceed. 
    First, I think that if our rulers and their auxiliaries are to be worthy of the name which they bear, there must be willingness to obey in the one and the power of command in the other; the guardians themselves must obey the laws, and they must also imitate the spirit of them in any details which are intrusted to their care. 
    That is right, he said. 
    You, I said, who are their legislator, having selected the men, will now select the women and give them to them; they must be as far as possible of like natures with them; and they must live in common houses and meet at common meals. None of them will have anything specially his or her own; they will be together, and will be brought up together, and will associate at gymnastic exercises. And so they will be drawn by a necessity of their natures to have intercourse with each other -- necessity is not too strong a word, I think? 
    Yes, he said; necessity, not geometrical, but another sort of necessity which lovers know, and which is far more convincing and constraining to the mass of mankind. 
    True, I said; and this, Glaucon, like all the rest, must proceed after an orderly fashion; in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid. 
    Yes, he said, and it ought not to be permitted. 
    Then clearly the next thing will be to make matrimony sacred in the highest degree, and what is most beneficial will be deemed sacred? 
    Exactly. 
    And how can marriages be made most beneficial? that is a question which I put to you, because I see in your house dogs for hunting, and of the nobler sort of birds not a few. Now, I beseech you, do tell me, have you ever attended to their pairing and breeding? 
    In what particulars? 
    Why, in the first place, although they are all of a good sort, are not some better than others? 
    True. 
    And do you breed from them all indifferently, or do you take care to breed from the best only? 
    From the best. 
    And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age? 
    I choose only those of ripe age. 
    And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate? 
    Certainly. 
    And the same of horses and of animals in general? 
    Undoubtedly. 
    Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species! 
    Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this involve any particular skill? 
    Because, I said, our rulers will often have to practice upon the body corporate with medicines. Now you know that when patients do not require medicines, but have only to be put under a regimen, the inferior sort of practitioner is deemed to be good enough; but when medicine has to be given, then the doctor should be more of a
man. 
    That is quite true, he said; but to what are you alluding? 
    I mean, I replied, that our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects: we were saying that the use of all these things regarded as medicines might be of advantage. 
    And we were very right. 
    And this lawful use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of marriages and births. 
    How so? 
    Why, I said, the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in firstrate condition. Now these goings on must
be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be termed, breaking out into rebellion. 
    Very true. 
    Had we better not appoint certain festivals at which we will bring together the brides and bridegrooms, and sacrifices will be offered and suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets: the number of weddings is a matter which must be left to the discretion of the rulers, whose aim will be to preserve the average of population? There are many other things which they will have to consider, such as the effects of wars and diseases and any similar agencies, in order as far as this is possible to prevent the State from becoming either too large or too small. 
    Certainly, he replied. 
    We shall have to invent some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of our bringing them together, and then they will accuse their own illluck and not the rulers. 
    To be sure, he said. 
    And I think that our braver and better youth, besides their other honors and rewards, might have greater facilities of intercourse with women given them; their bravery will be a reason, and such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible. 
    True. 
    And the proper officers, whether male or female or both, for offices are to be held by women as well as by men -- Yes -- 
    The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be. 
    Yes, he said, that must be done if the breed of the guardians is to be kept pure. 
    They will provide for their nurture, and will bring the mothers to the fold when they are full of milk, taking the greatest possible care that no mother recognizes her own child; and other wetnurses may be engaged if more are required. Care will also be taken that the process of suckling shall not be protracted too long; and the mothers will have no getting up at night or other trouble, but will hand over all this sort of thing to the nurses and attendants. 
    You suppose the wives of our guardians to have a fine easy time of it when they are having children. 
    Why, said I, and so they ought. Let us, however, proceed with our scheme. We were saying that the parents should be in the prime of life? 
    Very true. 

    And what is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty years in a man's? 
    Which years do you mean to include? 
    A woman, I said, at twenty years of age may begin to bear children to the State, and continue to bear them until forty; a man may begin at five-and-twenty, when he has passed the point at which the pulse of life beats quickest, and continue to beget children until he be fifty-five. 
    Certainly, he said, both in men and women those years are the prime of physical as well as of intellectual vigor. Anyone above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing; the child of which he is the father, if it steals into life, will have been conceived under auspices very unlike the sacrifices and prayers, which at each hymeneal priestesses and priests and the whole city will offer, that the new generation may be better and more useful than their good and useful parents, whereas his child will be the offspring of darkness and strange lust. 
    Very true, he replied. 
    And the same law will apply to any one of those within the prescribed age who forms a connection with any woman in the prime of life without the sanction of the rulers; for we shall say that he is raising up a bastard to the State, uncertified and unconsecrated. 
    Very true, he replied. 
    This applies, however, only to those who are within the specified age: after that we will allow them to range at will, except that a man may not marry his daughter or his daughter's daughter, or his mother or his mother's mother; and women, on the other hand, are prohibited from marrying their sons or fathers, or son's son or father's father, and so on in either direction. And we grant all this, accompanying the permission with strict orders to prevent any embryo which may come into being from seeing the light; and if any force a way to the birth, the parents must understand that the offspring of such a union cannot be maintained, and arrange accordingly. 
    That also, he said, is a reasonable proposition. But how will they know who are fathers and daughters, and so
on? 
    They will never know. The way will be this: dating from the day of the hymeneal, the bridegroom who was then married will call all the male children who are born in the seventh and the tenth month afterward his sons, and the female children his daughters, and they will call him father, and he will call their children his grandchildren, and they will call the elder generation grandfathers and grandmothers. All who were begotten at the time when their fathers and mothers came together will be called their brothers and sisters, and these, as I was saying, will be forbidden to intermarry. This, however, is not to be understood as an absolute prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters; if the lot favors them, and they receive the sanction of the Pythian oracle, the law will allow them. 
    Quite right, he replied. 
    Such is the scheme, Glaucon, according to which the guardians of our State are to have their wives and families in common. And now you would have the argument show that this community is consistent with the rest of our polity, and also that nothing can be better -- would you not? 
    Yes, certainly. 
    Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State -- what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? 
    By all means. 
    Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? 
    There cannot. 
    And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains -- where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? 
    No doubt. 
    Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized -- when you have one-half of the world triumphing and the other plunged in grief at the same events happening to the city or the citizens? 
    Certainly. 
    Such differences commonly originate in a disagreement about the use of the terms "mine" and "not mine," "his" and "not his." 
    Exactly so. 
    And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms "mine" and "not mine" in the same way to the same thing? 
    Quite true. 
    Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual -- as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn toward the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering. 
    Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the bestordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe. 
    Then when any one of the citizens experiences any good or evil, the whole State will make his case their own, and will either rejoice or sorrow with him? 
    Yes, he said, that is what will happen in a wellordered State. 
    It will now be time, I said, for us to return to our State and see whether this or some other form is most in accordance with these fundamental principles. 
    Very good. 
    Our State, like every other, has rulers and subjects? 
    True. 
    All of whom will call one another citizens? 
    Of course. 
    But is there not another name which people give to their rulers in other States? 
    Generally they call them masters, but in democratic States they simply call them rulers. 
    And in our State what other name besides that of citizens do the people give the rulers? 
    They are called saviours and helpers, he replied. 
    And what do the rulers call the people? 
    Their maintainers and fosterfathers. 
    And what do they call them in other States? 
    Slaves. 
    And what do the rulers call one another in other States? 
    Fellow-rulers. 
    And what in ours? 
    Fellow-guardians. 
    Did you ever know an example in any other State of a ruler who would speak of one of his colleagues as his friend and of another as not being his friend? 
    Yes, very often. 
    And the friend he regards and describes as one in whom he has an interest, and the other as a stranger in whom he has no interest? 
    Exactly. 
    But would any of your guardians think or speak of any other guardian as a stranger? 
    Certainly he would not; for everyone whom they meet will be regarded by them either as a brother or sister, or father or mother, or son or daughter, or as the child or parent of those who are thus connected with him. 
    Capital, I said; but let me ask you once more: Shall they be a family in name only; or shall they in all their actions be true to the name? For example, in the use of the word "father," would the care of a father be implied and the filial reverence and duty and obedience to him which the law commands; and is the violator of these duties to be regarded as an impious and unrighteous person who is not likely to receive much good either at the hands of God or of man? Are these to be or not to be the strains which the children will hear repeated in their ears by all the citizens about those who are intimated to them to be their parents and the rest of their kinsfolk? 
    These, he said, and none other; for what can be more ridiculous than for them to utter the names of family ties with the lips only and not to act in the spirit of them? 
    Then in our city the language of harmony and concord will be more often heard than in any other. As I was describing before, when anyone is well or ill, the universal word will be "with me it is well" or "it is ill." 
    Most true. 
    And agreeably to this mode of thinking and speaking, were we not saying that they will have their pleasures and pains in common? 
    Yes, and so they will. 
    And they will have a common interest in the same thing which they will alike call "my own," and having this common interest they will have a common feeling of pleasure and pain? 
    Yes, far more so than in other States. 
    And the reason of this, over and above the general constitution of the State, will be that the guardians will have a community of women and children? 
    That will be the chief reason. 
    And this unity of feeling we admitted to be the greatest good, as was implied in our comparison of a well-ordered State to the relation of the body and the members, when affected by pleasure or pain? 
    That we acknowledged, and very rightly. 
    Then the community of wives and children among our citizens is clearly the source of the greatest good to the State? 
    Certainly. 
    And this agrees with the other principle which we were affirming -- that the guardians were not to have houses or lands or any other property; their pay was to be their food, which they were to receive from the other citizens, and they were to have no private expenses; for we intended them to preserve their true character of
guardians. 
    Right, he replied. 
    Both the community of property and the community of families, as I am saying, tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not tear the city in pieces by differing about "mine" and "not mine;" each man dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of his own, where he has a separate wife and children and
private pleasures and pains; but all will be affected as far as may be by the same pleasures and pains because they are all of one opinion about what is near and dear to them, and therefore they all tend toward a common end.