Note 20 — Chapter XXXVI · REPUBLIC — REMARKS ON ITS MAIN THESIS.
Reading edition
Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Plat. Rep. p. lvii. “Quo facto deinceps ad gravissimam totius sermonis partem ita transitur, ut inter colloquentes conveniat, justitiæ vim et naturam eo modo esse investigandam, ut emolumentorum atque commodorum ex eâ redundantium nulla plané ratio habeatur.”
This is not strictly exact, for Plato claims on behalf of justice not only that the performance of it is happy in itself, but also that it entails an independent result of ulterior happiness. But he dwells much less upon the second point; which indeed would be superfluous if the first could be thoroughly established. Compare Cicero, Tusc. Disput. v. 12-34, and the notes on Mr. James Harris’s Three Treatises, p. 351 seq., wherein the Stoical doctrine — Πάντα αὑτοῦ ἕνεκα πράττειν — is explained.