enquiry), Which are the happier—­those who lead the justest, or those who lead the pleasantest life? and they replied, Those who lead the pleasantest—­that would be a very strange answer, which I should not like to put into the mouth of the Gods.  The words will come with more propriety from the lips of fathers and legislators, and therefore I will repeat my former questions to one of them, and suppose him to say again that he who leads the pleasantest life is the happiest.  And to that I rejoin:—­O my father, did you not wish me to live as happily as possible?  And yet you also never ceased telling me that I should live as justly as possible.  Now, here the giver of the rule, whether he be legislator or father, will be in a dilemma, and will in vain endeavour to be consistent with himself.  But if he were to declare that the justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would enquire, if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in life which the law approves, and which is superior to pleasure.  For what good can the just man have which is separated from pleasure?  Shall we say that glory and fame, coming from Gods and men, though good and noble, are nevertheless unpleasant, and infamy pleasant?  Certainly not, sweet legislator.  Or shall we say that the not-doing of wrong and there being no wrong done is good and honourable, although there is no pleasure in it, and that the doing wrong is pleasant, but evil and base?

Cleinias:  Impossible.

Athenian:  The view which identifies the pleasant and the pleasant and the just and the good and the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency.  And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than pleasure.  But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only, and that injustice, which seems opposed to justice, when contemplated by the unjust and evil man appears pleasant and the just most unpleasant; but that from the just man’s point of view, the very opposite is the appearance of both of them.

Cleinias:  True.

Athenian:  And which may be supposed to be the truer judgment—­that of the inferior or of the better soul?

Cleinias:  Surely, that of the better soul.

Athenian:  Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved, but also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?

Cleinias:  That seems to be implied in the present argument.

Athenian:  And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument has proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more useful lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making them do what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.