theme,metaphor,work_id,dictionary,provenance,id,created_at,updated_at,reviewed_on,comments,text,context
"","""There are as many species of soul as there are of republics: five of each.""",7762,"",Reading,23175,2013-11-11 20:59:14 UTC,2013-11-11 20:59:14 UTC,,"","Letter XXXIII
Although there is but one principle of virtue, those of vice are infinite; of which there are four which deserve to be mentioned. There are as many species of soul as there are of republics: five of each. That which is above described is one.
(p. 189)",""
"","""These false and boasting reasonings, denominating modesty to be stupidity; temperance, unmanliness; moderation, rusticity; decent expence, illiberality; thrust them all out disgracefully, and expel them their territories, and lead in in triumph insolence and anarchy, and luxury and impudence, with encomiums and applauses, shining with a great retinue, and crowned with crowns.""",7762,"",Reading,23178,2013-11-11 21:04:26 UTC,2013-11-11 21:04:26 UTC,,"","Let us consider now the character of a democratical man, and how he arises out of that parsimonious one who, under the oligarchy, was trained up by his father in his manners. Such a one by force governs his own pleasures, which are expensive, and tend not to making money, and are called unnecessary. Eating, so far as conduces to preserve life, health, and a good habit of body, is a pleasure of the necessary kind: but the desire of these things beyond these purposes, is capable of being curbed in youth; and, being hurtful to the body and to the soul, with reference to her attaining wisdom and temperance, may be called unnecessary: in the same manner we shall say of venereal desires, and others. We just now denominated a drone the man who was full of such desires and pleasures; but the oligarchic man, him who was under the necessary ones. The democratic appears to arise from the oligarchic man in this manner:--When a young man, bred up without proper instruction, and in a parsimonious manner, comes to taste the honey of the drones, and associates with those vehement: and terrible creatures, who are able to procure pleasures every way diversified, from every quarter; thence imagine there is the beginning of a change in him, from the oligarchic to the democratic. And as the city was changed by the assistance of an alliance from without, with one party of it, with which it was of kin, shall not the youth be changed in the same manner, by the assistance of one species of desires from without, to another within him, which resembles it, and is akin to it? By all means. If any assistance be given to the oligarchic party within him, by his father, or the others of his family, admonishing and upbraiding him, then truly arises sedition and opposition, and a fight within him, with himself. Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic; some of the desires are destroyed, others retire, on the rise of a certain modesty in the soul of the youth, and he is again rendered somewhat decent. Again, when some desires retire, there are others akin to them, which grow up, and through inattention to the father's instructions, become both many and powerful, draw towards intimacies among themselves, and generate a multitude, seize the citadel or the soul of the youth, finding it evacuated of noble learning and pursuits, and of true reasoning, which are the best watchmen and guardians in the understandings of men beloved of the gods; and then false and boasting reasonings and opinions, rushing up in their stead, possess the same place in such a one. These false and boasting reasonings, denominating modesty to be stupidity; temperance, unmanliness; moderation, rusticity; decent expence, illiberality; thrust them all out disgracefully, and expel them their territories, and lead in in triumph insolence and anarchy, and luxury and impudence, with encomiums and applauses, shining with a great retinue, and crowned with crowns. Insolence they denominate education; anarchy, liberty; luxury, magnificence; and impudence, manhood. In this manner, a youth bred up with the necessary desires changes into the licentiousness and remissness of the unnecessary and unprofitable pleasures; his life is not regulated by any order, but deeming it pleasant, free, and happy, he puts all laws whatever on a level; like the city, he is fine and variegated, and many men and women too would desire to imitate his life, as he hath in him a great many patterns of republics and of manners.
(pp. 195-8)",Book VIII
"","""Those desires which heretofore were only loose from their slavery in sleep, when he was yet under the laws and his father, when under democratic government, now when he is tyrannized over by his passions, shall be equally as loose when he is awake, and from no horrid slaughter or deed shall he abstain; but the tyrant within him, living without any restraint of law and government, shall lead him on to every mad attempt.""",7762,Inhabitants,Reading,23179,2013-11-11 21:06:40 UTC,2013-11-11 21:06:40 UTC,,"","Recollect now what kind of man we said the democratic one was; educated from his infancy under a parsimonious father, who valued the avaricious desires alone; but being afterwards conversant with those who are more refined, running into their manner, and all sort of insolence, from a detestation of his father's parsimony; however, having a better natural temper than those who corrupt him, and being drawn opposite ways, he settles into a manner in the middle of both, and participating moderately, as he imagines, of each of them, he leads a life neither illiberal nor licentious, becoming a democratic man from an aristocratic. His son is educated in his manners, but the same things happening to him as to his father, he is drawn into all kinds of licentiousness, which is termed, however, by those who draw him off, the most complete liberty. His father, the domestics, and others, are aiding to those desires which are in the middle: but when the tyrant-makers have no hopes of retaining the youth in their power any other way, they contrive to excite in him a certain love, which presides over the indolent desires, and such as minister readily to their pleasures; and when other desires make a noise about him, full of their odours and perfumes, and crowns and wines, and the pleasures of the most dissolute kind, then truly he is surrounded with madness as a life guard, and that president of the soul rages with phrenzy, till he kills all modesty, is cleansed of temperance, and filled with additional madness. This is the formation of a tyrannical man. After this there are feastings among them, and revellings, banquetting, and mistresses, and all such things as may be expected where the tyrants love, drunkenness, and madness, govern all in the soul. After this there is borrowing and pillaging of substance, and searching for every thing which they are able, by rage and phrenzy, deceit and violence, to carry off; pilfering and beguiling parents. When the substance of father and mother fails, he will break into houses, rob in the streets, rifle temples. Those desires which heretofore were only loose from their slavery in sleep, when he was yet under the laws and his father, when under democratic government, now when he is tyrannized over by his passions, shall be equally as loose when he is awake, and from no horrid slaughter or deed shall he abstain; but the tyrant within him, living without any restraint of law and government, shall lead him on to every mad attempt. Such as these establish as tyrant, the man who among them hath himself most of the tyrant, and in greatest strength within his own soul. If the city relucts, he shall bring in other young people, and chastise his formerly beloved mother and father country, as the Cretans say. But liberty and true friendship the tyrannic disposition never tasted. Let us finish then our worst man. He will be awake such as we described him asleep, and he who appears the most wicked, shall really be the most wretched; as many men as many minds; as city is to city, as to virtue and happiness, so will man be to man; kingly government is the best, and tyranny is the worst. No city is more wretched than that which is under tyranny, nor any more happy than that under regal power. Both the city and the tyrant shall be slavish, poor, timorous; and you will find more lamentations and groans, weepings and torments, than in any other city. We should not merely conjecture about matters of such importance, but most thoroughly enquire into them, by reasoning of this kind, for the enquiry is concerning the most important matter, a good life and a bad.
(pp. 204-6)",""
"","""The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of contention, and so he becomes a haughty and ambitious man.""",7762,"",Reading,23181,2013-11-11 21:12:56 UTC,2013-11-11 21:12:56 UTC,,"","What now shall the man be, correspondent to this republic? He will be arrogant and rough towards inferiors; mild towards equals, but extremely submissive to governors; fond of dignity and the magistracy, but thinking that political management, and military performances, not eloquence, nor any such thing, should entitle him to them: while young he may despise money, but the older he grows the more he will value it, because he is of the covetous temper, and not sincerely affected to virtue and reason. Such an ambitious youth resembles such a city, and is formed somehow in this manner:--His father, a worthy man, in an ill-regulated city, shuns honours, and magistracies, and law-suits, and all public business, that, as he can do no good, he may have no trouble. The son hears his mother venting her indignation, and complaining that she is neglected among other women, because her husband is not in the magistracy, nor attentive to the making of money; that he is unmanly and remiss, and such other things as wives are apt to cant over concerning such husbands. The domestics too privately say the same things to the sons, stimulating them to be more of men than their father, and more attentive to their money. When they go abroad they hear the same things, and see that those who mind their own affairs are called simple, and such as mind not their affairs are commended. The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of contention, and so he becomes a haughty and ambitious man.--We have now the second republic, and the second man.
(pp. 191-2)",Book VIII
"","""When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance.""",7762,Empire,Reading,23182,2013-11-11 21:14:18 UTC,2013-11-11 21:14:18 UTC,,"","This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4)",Book VIII
"","""He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters.""",7762,Empire and Inhabitants,Reading,23183,2013-11-11 21:16:32 UTC,2013-11-11 21:16:32 UTC,,INTEREST.,"This is oligarchy. Now let us consider the man who resembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this manner:--The ambitious man, has a son, who emulates his father, and follows his steps; afterwards he dashes on the city, as on a rock, wasting his substance in the office of a general, or some other principal magistracy; then falling into courts of justice, destroyed by sycophants, stripped of his dignities, disgraced, and losing all his substance. When he has thus suffered, and lost his substance, in a terror he pushes headlong from the throne of his soul that ambitious disposition; and, being humbled by his poverty, turns to the making of money, lives sparingly and meanly, and applying to work, scrapes together substance. He then seats in that throne the avaricious disposition, and makes it a mighty king within himself, decked out with Persian crowns, bracelets, and scepters. Having placed the virtuous and ambitious disposition low on the ground, he reasons on nothing but how lesser substance shall be made greater, admires and honours nothing but riches and rich people. This is the change from an ambitious youth to a covetous one, and this is the oligarchic man.
(pp. 193-4)",Book VIII