Plato : POLITEIA Persons of the dialogue: Socrates - Glaucon - Polemarchus  - Adeimantus - Cephalus - Thrasymachus - Cleitophon Translated by Benjamin Jowett - 77 Pages (Part 3) - Greek fonts Search Plato's works / Plato Anthology / The Greek Word Library = Note by Elpenor

POLITEIA part 3 of 4, 5

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But a further question arises: Is passion different from reason also, or only a kind of reason; in which latter case, instead of three principles in the soul, there will only be two, the rational and the concupiscent; or rather, as the state was composed of three classes, traders, auxiliaries, counsellors, so may there not be in the individual soul a third element which is passion or spirit, and when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason

Yes, he said, there must be a third.

Yes, I replied, if passion, which has already been shown to be different from desire, turn out also to be different from reason.

But that is easily proved: —We may observe even in young children that they are full of spirit almost as soon as they are born, whereas some of them never seem to attain to the use of reason, and most of them late enough.

Excellent, I said, and you may see passion equally in brute animals, which is a further proof of the truth of what you are saying. And we may once more appeal to the words of Homer, which have been already quoted by us,  -  He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul,  -  for in this verse Homer has clearly supposed the power which reasons about the better and worse to be different from the unreasoning anger which is rebuked by it.

Very true, he said.

And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the state exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number.

Exactly.

Must we not then infer that the individual is wise in the same way, and in virtue of the same quality which makes the state wise?

Certainly.

Also that the same quality which constitutes courage in the state constitutes courage in the individual, and that both the state and the individual bear the same relation to all the other virtues?

Assuredly.

And the individual will be acknowledged by us to be just in the same way in which the state is just?

That follows, of course.

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