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Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about

men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest

misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy,

and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when

undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's

gain-these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them

to sing and say the opposite.

To be sure we shall, he replied.

But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain

that you have implied the principle for which we have been all

along contending.

I grant the truth of your inference.

That such things are or are not to be said about men is a

question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what

justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor,

whether he seem to be just or not.

Most true, he said.