The umpire decides that Come then, I said, and as the general umpire in theatrical [B]contests proclaims the result, do you also decide who in your opinion is first in the scale of happiness, and who second, 291 and in what order the others follow: there are five of them in all—they are the royal, timocratical, oligarchical, democratical, tyrannical.
The decision will be easily given, he replied; they shall be choruses coming on the stage, and I must judge them in the order in which they enter, by the criterion of virtue and vice, happiness and misery.
the best is the happiest and the worst is the most miserable. This is the proclamation of the son of Ariston. Need we hire a herald, or shall I announce, that the son of Ariston [the best] has decided that the best and justest [C]is also the happiest, and that this is he who is the most royal man and king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is also the most miserable, and that this is he who being the greatest tyrant of himself is also the greatest tyrant of his State?
Make the proclamation yourself, he said.
And shall I add, ‘whether seen or unseen by gods and men’?
Let the words be added.
Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is [D]another, which may also have some weight.
What is that?
Proof, derived from the three principles of the soul. The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration.
Of what nature?