364, 365 E: —in perfection, ib. 361: —more profitable than injustice, 4. 445; 9. 589 foll.; superior to injustice, 9. 589; final triumph of, ib. 580; 10. 612, 613: —in the state, 2. 369; 4. 431; the same in the individual and the state, 4. 435 foll., 441 foll.: —absolute justice, 5. 479 E; 6. 501 B; 7. 517 E.
Justice. [The search for justice is the groundwork or foundation of the Republic, which commences with an enquiry into its nature and ends with a triumphant demonstration of the superior happiness enjoyed by the just man. In the First Book several definitions of justice are attempted, all of which prove inadequate. Glaucon and Adeimantus then intervene:—mankind regard justice as a necessity, not as a good in itself, or at best as only to be practised because of the temporal benefits which flow from it: can Socrates prove that it belongs to a higher class of goods? Socrates in reply proposes to construct an ideal state in which justice will be more easily recognised than in the individual. Justice is thus discovered to be the essential virtue of the state, (a thesis afterwards enlarged upon by Aristotle [Pol. i. 2, § 16; iii. 13, § 3]), the bond of the social organization, and, like temperance in the Laws [3. 696, 697; 4. 709 E], rather the accompaniment or condition of the virtues than a virtue in itself [cp. Introduction, p. lxiii]. Expressed in an outward or political form it becomes the great principle which has been already enunciated (i. 322), ‘that every man shall do his own work;’ on this Plato bases the necessity of the division into classes which underlies the whole fabric of the ideal state (4. 433 foll.; Tim. 17 C). Thus we are led to acknowledge the happiness of the just; for he alone reflects in himself this vital principle of the state (4. 445). The final proof is supplied by a comparison of the perfect state with actual forms of government. These, like the individuals who correspond to them, become more and more miserable as they recede further from the ideal, and the climax is reached (9. 587) *when the tyrant is shown by the aid of arithmetic to have ‘729 times less pleasure