Page 698 sur 1391

Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she

has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep.

What makes you say that? I replied.

Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends

the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the

good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the

rulers of states, if they are true rulers, never think of their

subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own

advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you

in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that

justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to

say, the interest of the ruler and stronger, and the loss of the

subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for the unjust

is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and

his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his

happiness, which is very far from being their own. Consider

further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a loser

in comparison with the unjust.