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both for a community and for a particular person; but when it is to be used, the art of vine-dressing is useful.

It appears so.

And you will say, that when a buckler, a harp, is to be kept, and not to be used, then justice is useful; but when they are to be used, then the military and the musical art.

Of necessity.

And with reference to all other things, when they are to be used, justice is useless, but when they are not to be used, it is useful.

It seems so.

Justice, then, my friend, can be no very important matter, if it is useful only in respect of things which are not to be used. But let us consider this matter. Is not he who is the most dextrous at striking, whether in battle or in boxing, the same likewise in defending himself?

Certainly.

And is not he who is dextrous in warding off and shunning a distemper most dextrous too in bringing it on?

So I imagine.

And he too the best guardian of a camp who can steal the councils and the other operations of the enemy?

Certainly.

Of whatever, then, any one is a good guardian, of that likewise he is a dextrous thief.

It seems so.

If, therefore, the just man be dextrous in guarding money, he is dextrous likewise in stealing.

So it wou'd appear, said he, from this reasoning.

The just man, then, hath appeared to be a sort of thief; and you seem to have learned this from Homer, for he admires Autolycus, the grandfather of Ulysses by his mother, and says that he was distinguished beyond all men for thefts and oaths. It seems then, according to you, and according to Homer and Simonides, that justice is a sort of thieving, for the profit, indeed, of friends and for the hurt of enemies. Did not you say so?

No, by no means — nor, indeed, do I know any longer what I said; yet I still think that justice profits friends and hurts enemies.

But whether do you pronounce such to be friends as seem