For these reasons such an one will be more respectable than most people; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him.
I should expect so.
And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in a State for any prize of victory, or other object of honourable ambition; he will not spend his money in the contest for glory; so afraid is he of awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle; in true oligarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money.
Very true.
Can we any longer doubt, then, that the miser and money-maker answers to the oligarchical State?
There can be no doubt.
Next comes democracy; of this the origin and nature have still to be considered by us; and then we will enquire into the ways of the democratic man, and bring him up for judgement.
That, he said, is our method.
Well, I said, and how does the change from oligarchy into democracy arise? Is it not on this wise?—The good at which such a State alms is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable?
What then?