previous next

571A - 572B There remains the tyrannical man. Before beginning to describe his origin and character, we must complete our analysis of desire. Among the unnecessary desires, there is a special class which we call lawless or unnatural. It is these which are apt to be aroused in sleep, after over-indulgence in eating or drinking. But when we retire to rest with Desire and Anger in abeyance, and the rational element within us in full play, our dreams are innocent, and much is revealed to us in visions of the night.

οὐ -- διῃρῆσθαι. The psychological foundation of Tyranny, as well as of Oligarchy and Democracy, is Desire; but there are three varieties of Desire, and it is the lowest of these, viz. the Unnecessary and παράνομοι, which Tyranny represents. See VIII 558 D note, and cf. Nettleship Lect. and Rem. II pp. 310—314.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: