therefore I ought rather to put the same question to some legislator. And
if he replies 'The pleasant,' then I should say to him, 'O my father, did
you not tell me that I should live as justly as possible'? and if to be
just is to be happy, what is that principle of happiness or good which is
superior to pleasure? Is the approval of gods and men to be deemed good
and honourable, but unpleasant, and their disapproval the reverse? Or is
the neither doing nor suffering evil good and honourable, although not
pleasant? But you cannot make men like what is not pleasant, and therefore
you must make them believe that the just is pleasant. The business of the
legislator is to clear up this confusion. He will show that the just and
the unjust are identical with the pleasurable and the painful, from the
point of view of the just man, of the unjust the reverse. And which is the
truer judgment? Surely that of the better soul. For if not the truth, it
is the best and most moral of fictions; and the legislator who desires to
propagate this useful lie, may be encouraged by remarking that mankind
have believed the story of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth, and therefore he
may be assured that he can make them believe anything, and need only
consider what fiction will do the greatest good. That the happiest is also
the holiest, this shall be our strain, which shall be sung by all three
choruses alike. First will enter the choir of children, who will lift up
their voices on high; and after them the young men, who will pray the God
Paean to be gracious to the youth, and to testify to the truth of their
words; then will come the chorus of elder men, between thirty and sixty;
and, lastly, there will be the old men, and they will tell stories
enforcing the same virtues, as with the voice of an oracle. 'Whom do you
mean by the third chorus?' You remember how I spoke at first of the
restless nature of young creatures, who jumped about and called out in a
disorderly manner, and I said that no other animal attained any perception
of rhythm; but that to us the Gods gave Apollo and the Muses and Dionysus
to be our playfellows. Of the two first choruses I have already spoken,