and do, even without this magic ring) may be fairly set up as more desirable than that of a just man; and thus injustice may in many cases be preferable to justice, on account of the greater happiness which it brings, and of this every man must judge for himself. The advantage of probity, therefore, according to the sophists, who sometimes reasoned boldly on these points, although at other times they endeavoured to hide the extreme to which their principles carried them, did not centre in itself, but in what was exterior to itself, namely, in the honours and rewards which probity procured for the man who practised it. Probity might be said to consist not in being, but in seeming to be honest. The appearance was quite as good as the reality. By all means, said the sophists, be just and virtuous, if justice and virtue make you happy; but if vice and injustice make another man happy, why should not he too follow the bent of his inclinations? In doing so, he will obey the dictates of his nature, will fulfil the law of his being, just as much as you who pursue a contrary course are obeying the dictates and fulfilling the law of your being.
45. This is precisely the point where Plato enters his dissent, and it was to meet this point that his doctrine of the soul, as made up of three faculties, arranged in the order of superiority and inferiority, and illustrated by the analogous constitution of a social community, was set forth and enforced with all
