35. In answer to this Sophistical deduction, Plato argues that justice is not (as this doctrine assumes) an unessential attribute, but is itself the health and organisation of the soul. The semblance of justice, he says, without the reality, is no more a good thing for its possessor than the semblance of order is a good thing in a nation, when all its ranks are in a condition of anarchy and rebellion, or than the appearance of health is a good thing in the human body, when all its organs are really in a state of disease. It is principally for the purpose of showing that virtue must be a reality, and not a sham, that Plato, in his Republic, has drawn a parallel between the soul of man and the political constitution of a state. Just as a state cannot exist unless it is sustained by political justice—that is to say, unless the rightful rulers rule, and are aided by the military, and unless the inferior orders obey—so the individual soul does not truly and healthfully exist unless it is the embodiment of private or personal justice, that is to say, unless reason rules the lower appetites, and is aided in its government by the more heroic passions of our nature. In short, just as a state without justice, that is, without the due subjection of the governed to the governing powers, is a state disorganised, so a soul without justice, that is, without the proper subordination of the inferior to the superior principles of our constitution, is a soul undone. A character which wears the mask without having the substance of virtue is no better, indeed is worse, off
