victory over self is of all victories the first and best while self-defeat is of all defeats at once the worst and the most shameful. For these phrases signify that a war against self exists within each of us.[1]
ATH. Now let us take the argument back in the reverse direction. Seeing that individually each of us is partly superior to himself and partly inferior, are we to affirm that the same condition of things exists in house and village and State, or are we to deny it?
CLIN. Do you mean the condition of being partly self-superior and partly self-inferior?
ATH. Yes.
CLIN. That, too, is a proper question; for such a condition does most certainly exist, and in States above all. Every State in which the better class is victorious over the populace and the lower classes would rightly be termed "self-superior," and would be praised most justly for a victory of this kind; and conversely, when the reverse is the case.
ATH. Well then, leaving aside the question as to whether the worse element is ever superior to the better (a question which would demand a more lengthy discussion), what you assert, as I now perceive, is this,—that sometimes citizens of one stock. and of one State who are unjust and numerous may combine together and try to enslave by force those who are just but fewer in number, and wherever they prevail such a State would rightly be termed "self-inferior" and bad, but "self-superior" and good wherever they are worsted.
CLIN. This statement is indeed most extraordinary, Stranger; none the less we cannot possibly reject it.
- ↑ Cp. Rep. 430 E ff.: Proverbs xvi. 32.
