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Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin

of justice.

Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily and

because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if

we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just

and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see

whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very

act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road,

following their interest, which all natures deem to be their

good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force

of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely

given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been

possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According

to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king

of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an

opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock.