[279] Plato, Republic, ix. pp. 575-576.
The city has thus passed by four stages, from best to worse. Question — How are Happiness and Misery apportioned among them?
We have thus gone through the four successive depravations which our perfect city will undergo — timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, despotism. Step by step we have passed from the best to the worst — from one extreme to the other. As is the city, so is the individual citizen — good or bad: the despotic city is like the despotic individual, — and so about the rest. Now it remains to decide whether in each case happiness and misery is proportioned to good and evil: whether the best is the happiest, the worst the most miserable, — and so proportionally about the intermediate.[280] On this point there is much difference of opinion.[281]
[280] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 576 D.
[281] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 576 C. τοῖς δὲ πολλοῖς πολλὰ καὶ δοκεῖ.
Misery of the despotised city.
If we look at the condition of the despotised city, it plainly exhibits the extreme of misery; while our model city presents the extreme of happiness. Every one in the despotised city is miserable, according to universal admission, except the despot himself with his immediate favourites and guards. To be sure, in the eyes of superficial observers, the despots with these few favourites will appear perfectly happy and enviable. But if we penetrate beyond this false exterior show, and follow him into his interior, we shall find him too not less miserable than those over whom he tyrannises.[282]
[282] Plato, Republic, ix. p. 577 A.
Supreme Misery of the despotising individual.
What is true of the despotised city, is true also of the despotising individual.[283] The best parts of his mind are under subjection to the worst: the rational mind is trampled down by the appetitive mind, with its insane and unsatisfied cravings. He is full of perpetual perturbation, anxiety, and fear; grief when he fails, repentance even after he has succeeded. Speaking of his mind as a whole, he never does what he really wishes for the rational element, which alone can ensure satisfaction to the whole mind, and guide to the attainment of his real wishes, is enslaved by furious momentary impulses.[284] The man of despotical mind is thus miserable; and most of all miserable, the more completely he succeeds in subjugating his fellow-citizens and becoming a despot in reality. Knowing himself to be hated by everyone, he lives in constant fear of enemies within as well as enemies without, against whom he can obtain support only by courting the vilest of men as partisans.[285] Though greedy of all sorts of enjoyment, he cannot venture to leave his city, or visit any of the frequented public festivals. He lives indoors like a woman, envying those who can go abroad and enjoy these spectacles.[286] He is in reality the poorest and most destitute of men, having the most vehement desires, which he can never satisfy.[287] Such is the despot who, not being master even of himself, becomes master of others: in reality, the most wretched of men, though he may appear happy to superficial judges who look only at external show.[288]