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nydus/The Republic of PlatoPublic
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Table of Contents

BOOK V.

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 physician5 may be said to have the same nature.

True.

Whereas the physician and the carpenter have different natures?

Certainly.

And

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