Politics   

instant of time,' which, according to Socrates, is the sign of perfect
unity in a state. For the word 'all' is ambiguous. If the meaning be
that every individual says 'mine' and 'not mine' at the same time,
then perhaps the result at which Socrates aims may be in some degree
accomplished; each man will call the same person his own son and the
same person his wife, and so of his property and of all that falls to
his lot. This, however, is not the way in which people would speak who
had their had their wives and children in common; they would say 'all'
but not 'each.' In like manner their property would be described as
belonging to them, not severally but collectively. There is an obvious
fallacy in the term 'all': like some other words, 'both,' 'odd,'
'even,' it is ambiguous, and even in abstract argument becomes a
source of logical puzzles. That all persons call the same thing mine
in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is
impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a
unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to
the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the
least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own,
hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself
concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations,
everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects
another to fulfill; as in families many attendants are often less
useful than a few. Each citizen will have a thousand sons who will not
be his sons individually but anybody will be equally the son of
anybody, and will therefore be neglected by all alike. Further, upon
this principle, every one will use the word 'mine' of one who is
prospering or the reverse, however small a fraction he may himself be
of the whole number; the same boy will be 'so and so's son,' the son
of each of the thousand, or whatever be the number of the citizens;
and even about this he will not be positive; for it is impossible to
know who chanced to have a child, or whether, if one came into
existence, it has survived. But which is better- for each to say
'mine' in this way, making a man the same relation to two thousand or
ten thousand citizens, or to use the word 'mine' in the ordinary and
more restricted sense? For usually the same person is called by one
man his own son whom another calls his own brother or cousin or
kinsman- blood relation or connection by marriage either of himself or
of some relation of his, and yet another his clansman or tribesman;
and how much better is it to be the real cousin of somebody than to be
a son after Plato's fashion! Nor is there any way of preventing
brothers and children and fathers and mothers from sometimes
recognizing one another; for children are born like their parents, and
they will necessarily be finding indications of their relationship to
one another. Geographers declare such to be the fact; they say that in
part of Upper Libya, where the women are common, nevertheless the
children who are born are assigned to their respective fathers on the
ground of their likeness. And some women, like the females of other
animals- for example, mares and cows- have a strong tendency to
produce offspring resembling their parents, as was the case with the
Pharsalian mare called Honest.
Part IV
Other evils, against which it is not easy for the authors of such a
community to guard, will be assaults and homicides, voluntary as well
as involuntary, quarrels and slanders, all which are most unholy acts
when committed against fathers and mothers and near relations, but not
equally unholy when there is no relationship. Moreover, they are much
more likely to occur if the relationship is unknown, and, when they
have occurred, the customary expiations of them cannot be made. Again,
how strange it is that Socrates, after having made the children
common, should hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should
permit love and familiarities between father and son or between
brother and brother, than which nothing can be more unseemly, since
even without them love of this sort is improper. How strange, too, to
forbid intercourse for no other reason than the violence of the