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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: attribute to them the infamy which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of
the just who are supposed to be unjust.
'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and prose:--
"Virtue," as Hesiod says, "is honourable but difficult, vice is easy and
profitable." You may often see the wicked in great prosperity and the
righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant prophets knock at
rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins of themselves or their
fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and festive games, or with
charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy good or bad by divine help
and at a small charge;--they appeal to books professing to be written by
Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the minds of whole cities, and promise
The Republic |
