|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: Why so?
You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is
a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city,
however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the
other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there
are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if
you treated them all as a single State. But if you deal with them as many,
and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will
always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State,
while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in
her, will be the greatest of States, I do not mean to say in reputation or
The Republic |
