family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the
foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or
ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the
natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such
theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with
experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the
motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a
certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of
view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority
under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt
strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men. The divine
right of kings, or more generally of governments, is one of the forms under
which this natural feeling is expressed. Nor again is there any evil which
has not some accompaniment of good or pleasure; nor any good which is free
from some alloy of evil; nor any noble or generous thought which may not be
attended by a shadow or the ghost of a shadow of self-interest or of self-
love. We know that all human actions are imperfect; but we do not
therefore attribute them to the worse rather than to the better motive or
principle. Such a philosophy is both foolish and false, like that opinion
of the clever rogue who assumes all other men to be like himself. And
theories of this sort do not represent the real nature of the State, which
is based on a vague sense of right gradually corrected and enlarged by
custom and law (although capable also of perversion), any more than they
describe the origin of society, which is to be sought in the family and in
the social and religious feelings of man. Nor do they represent the
average character of individuals, which cannot be explained simply on a
theory of evil, but has always a counteracting element of good. And as men
become better such theories appear more and more untruthful to them,
because they are more conscious of their own disinterestedness. A little
experience may make a man a cynic; a great deal will bring him back to a