REPUBLIC by PLATO book 1-5
references
1) PLATO : THE REPUBLIC translated by Sir Desmond Lee ( 1987 edition)
2) http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Republic-Summaries-and-Commentaries
book 1-5 all sections . Accessed on 7 and 8th of February, 2009.
The dialogue is narrated by Socrates. After a festival Polemarchus and several other men want Socrates and Galucon to join them at their home. There Socrates met Cephalus (Polemarchus’s father) and then they talk two about aging.
Cephalus criticizes those who lament the loss of vigour in old age and says that liberation from passions is pleasant. Socrates questions him if Cephalus’s wealth could be the reason behind his attitude, and then forces him to admit that though true wealth will add to comfort of its possessor, only those who have a good nature will find true peace. Socrates steers the conversation to Justice, and Cephalus says justice is fulfilling your obligations, Socrates refutes by giving an analogy of friend and sword. Then Cephalus leaves and then Polymarchus takes over, saying that justice is giving each man his due and appropriate. But Socrates refutes it. He says that we are not sound in our judgement of friends and enemies. In a society, it may happen that virtuous people might not be our friends. And harming people through justice might make people less virtuous.
At this point Thrasymachus, a sophist jumps into debate. He accuses Socrates of deliberately producing a deadlock by questioning everyone but not providing answers. To this Socrates replies that he does not know what justice is, and asks Thrasymachus for his definition. He, after asking for a fee, replies that justice is the interest of the stronger in a given state. He attempts to do away with justice, and all moral standards, entirely. The stronger make laws and weaker subjects obey those laws, which are actually beneficial to strong. Socrates says that the strong can err and pass laws which are against their interests and benefit the weak.
Thrasymachus says, that strong cannot make mistakes and might is what is right. This is again defeated by proving that a ruler’s chief interest is interest of his subjects, just as a physician’s interest is welfare of his patient. He may get paid for his role, but his main purpose is to rule. Thrasymachus once again compares perfect injustice (Tyranny) and perfect justice (benevolent rule) argues that an unjust man is more intelligent, more powerful, happier then a just man. A tyrant lives a good life, and by sacrifices and prayers he can please the gods as well.
Socrates uses several analogies and rebuts these arguments as well, saying that intelligence is a virtue, and it cannot be associated with injustice. Just and intelligent men will not compete with each other, but only try to perfect what they are doing, unjust and ignorant men will only try to outdo each other, and this precludes any possibility of cooperation between them. This will make them disunited and so injustice cannot be a source of strength. Then he gives a function analogy. A good knife can cut well. Similarly, a good mind can perform its function well (living a good life). Since only just men have good minds, and unjust don’t; only just men are happy. Thrasymachus leaves the debate at this point.
Glaucon expresses doubt over the argument, and plays devil’s advocate, and demands that Socrates should convince him that justice is worthy both as means and as an end. Socrates accepts the challenge. Thrasymachus says that it is good to be unjust and get away without suffering any punishment for being so, and evil to suffer injustice and not be able to do anything about it. Justice is the middle point between these two extremes; it is a legally enforced compromise between doing injustice to others and having injustice done unto oneself. He relates an allegory of a shepherd who discovers a magic ring.
Then, he proposes an experiment in which two men, one perfectly just and the other perfectly unjust, are, in public, perceived antithetically. The unjust one lives a happy life and he can fool people and can bribe Gods as well. Adeimantus supports his brother by poetic and other sources. Socrates says that instead of finding justice for an individual, they should construct an ideal state first and then find what justice is. Since it is easier to look for justice on a large level and then look for corresponding analogies for an individual. Right now, Socrates has destroyed the conventional notion of justice.
Humans need society because they cannot take care of their needs by themselves, and they do not have equal aptitude for doing things. Everybody is well off if they do their natural aptitude the best and take others help in rest of the things. The fundamental needs are food, shelter, and clothing. People should be given different occupations depending upon their talents. Farmers, merchants and traders, wholesalers, retailers, salesmen manual labourers, and so on will be needed in a state. Thus Socrates proposes a division of labour. But Glaucon says that such a state is fit only for pigs. People need art and culture as well. Socrates makes provisions for that also and says that the state would become large and to satisfy its needs it would encroach upon other lands which will give rise to war.
Now, we need properly trained soldiers for defending the state, as citizenry will lack those skills (follows from the fundamental argument for the society). These soldiers will be like a guard dog. Friendly to their own people but fierce towards outsiders. They will be the Guardians of the society. Since their role is so important, we will have to take extra precaution in bringing them up. They will have to be trained philosophically as well as physically. Their education will be purged of any evil influences, and since the current literature is full of tales who show bad, evil immoral activities and Gods (who can do no evil since he is the source of all good) indulging in warfare and petty disputes and machinations (he is omnipotent and omniscient, so he does not need these activities), the current literature should be banned and replaced by literature which glorifies bravery, strength and other qualities which would make an ideal Guardian.
These stories should not show cowardice, triumph of injustice, deceit, conspiracies etc. The reason is that a child’s mind may not be able to differentiate between what is fiction and what is truth, and may take these things to be good and real. After talking about the content Socrates talks about the form (narrative, representational) these stories should take. Since representational form requires a person to enact someone else, which is a kind of deceit, it should also be banned. Even acting or imitating something bad might have corrupting influence on mind. He bans loud laughter as well.
With regard to music, only music which is warlike, encourages bravery, endurance or is prayerful to God should be preserved. Music which encourages emotions or passions should be banned. And only those instruments required to produce this encouraged music should be allowed to be produced. Thereafter Socrates extends these measures to all state arts.
Then he turns to physical education of the Guardians. Their physical education should teach them temperance. Physical training will make them free of any ailment and they will require physician’s very less. Ill and valetudinarian (suffering from incurable physical and mental disease) are to survive on as least medical care as possible, better still they should be allowed to die. Now a state needs rulers, and its rulers should be its best citizens. They would be the very elite.
Socrates then divides society into three groups (He gives an allegory of gold, silver and bronze) and the Guardians are divided into two groups, the rulers and the auxiliaries. Rulers rule the state and auxiliaries aid them. The third group consists of craftsmen. The rulers are the best; they are older experienced men incorruptible to bribery (as they have been selected through a process which has tested them on all accounts in their youth). Auxiliaries will defend and police the state while craftsmen continue the daily business of state. And to ensure that there is a total compliance with the above said order, to ensure that there is no dissidence, there is a need of a one royal lie (myth of metals), which will convince the citizenry that the classification is for their own good.
Those born of gold will become rulers, silver the auxiliaries and bronze the craftsmen, and city would be ruined if someone of wrong metals ever rules the city. It will also ensure that although society is rigid in mobility for adults, the rigidity is not hereditary and if a child of gold is born to bronze parents, it is still possible for that child to become a guardian. The guardians will not be allowed to keep any private property, save the bare essentials, and they will all live together in a housing provided for them by city. Their life will be supported entirely through taxation of producing classes. And once again they will be told a lie, that it is improper for them to handle gold or any other precious metal, as it will corrupt the divine gold in their souls. All these rules will make sure that the guardians are incorruptible.
When Adeimantus objects that such a state will not be of any use to Guardians, Socrates replies that the state is an ideal one where justice might flourish and the whole of the citizenry should be happy (not just one class of people). And happiness should lie in doing one’s duty in a successful manner. The guardians must see that in the third class, which alone is allowed to possess property, extremes of wealth and poverty are avoided as it could cause laziness and laxity towards duties. They may refuse or be unable to do work (due to lack of money to purchase proper tools).
Socrates then turns towards defending such a state. He says that the superior military training of guardians will ensure success in war. And as they themselves will not be keen to keep wealth, the spoils of war can be given to those who form an alliance with us. They will then fight with us rather than against us, Socrates says, and unity and cohesion will protect us from internal strife.
The size of the city should be limited; otherwise it may become big enough to disturb the governance under current system. Above all the education system should be protected as everything depends upon it.
The city will not require too many laws as the wise Guardians can formulate and take appropriate decisions according to situations as and when they arise. Also the promotion and demotion from one class to other should be carried out smoothly. Religious arrangements are to be left to the Oracle at Delphi which was normally consulted before the foundation of the city.
After the city is complete, and it is the best city created, Socrates looks for virtues (it should contain all as it is the best one). He finds wisdom in the Guardians, who are the most educated, experienced. Courage is to be found in auxiliaries, as they are the ones who defend the city. Moderation is found all over in the fact that there is no dispute over who should rule the city and who will be ruled.
Finally the philosophers decide that justice in a city will be the fact that each class should do its assigned task and not interfere or deprive other classes of their function. Everybody should do the job that they are best suited for. Since rewards and happiness lie in performing the function, nobody should be denied his function. When we protect a member of a given class by upholding his “rights” as a matter of course, or we protect him by securing his “rights” in the event that someone attempts, by whatever means, to deprive him of his “rights,” then we have effected justice and may recognize it as justice in the state.
And if ever injustice occurs, when one class forcibly captures or deprives the functions of the other, it may lead to disunity and threaten then existence of the state. Therefore, justice in society would lie in each men and class doing what it is best adapted to. And, since the nature of the State and the nature of the individual are analogous, Socrates argues, the nature of justice must also be analogous. Thus he applies his earlier ideas about State justice to the individual. For Socrates, justice in the individual is harmony among the three principles of the soul, achieved by rationality, or reason (the wisest faculty (Guardians)). He sates that the human mind has two opposing parts of mind (reason and desire) and a third one which is ambivalent.
Then he says that there are three parts, reason (corresponding to Guardians and love for knowledge), emotions or spirited element (corresponding to Auxiliaries and love for honour) and desire or passions (corresponding to craftsmen). Now, four virtues in the individual are wisdom (exercising his reason), courage (exercising his emotions or spirit), temperance (permitting his reason to rule over his emotions and desires). And justice is mental harmony, in which reason is permitted to rule over his emotions and desires.
Thus Socrates succeeds in identifying justice at individual and city level. And then to prove that it is better to be just than unjust, he tries to supplement his study by comparing different forms of bad state and bad character, but, Socrates is interrupted and is asked to explain in further detail, how this state will affect the lives of citizens at social level especially with regards to family, children and women. He reluctantly starts giving a description.
He starts by considering the position of women in society. His argument is that whether difference of sex is in itself a proper basis for differentiation of occupation and social function and answers that it is not. The only difference between men and women is one of physical function- one begets the other bears children. Apart from that both can and both should follow the same range of occupations and perform the same functions they should receive the same education to enable them to do so. In this way society will get best value from both. From the sexes, Socrates discusses family and community. He states that the wives and children of the State be held in common. Then a discourse on marriage, population control, and the proper breeding of citizens follows.
Through a deceptive lottery, marriage will most often be permitted to citizens of higher value (guardians). Intercourse to produce progeny will take place on the date of certain festivals, which is similar to periodic mating seasons. And superior progeny are immediately placed in the care of wet nurses, while the inferior or deformed infants are either killed or thrown away. Abortion is legal and at the discretion of the guardians. All the relations are to be replaced by a collective of ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. Wives’ being common does not mean sexual promiscuity as breeding is strictly controlled.
Socrates’s justification for his socialistic system is that, when everything is shared, there is unity: one citizen's individual pain or pleasure is at once collective. And this unites the people even more as the root cause of all differences is the desire to own more than others. But if everything is collective, this desire dies. Socrates says it is possible and men and women can achieve equality through education. As a part o training, the children should be taken to witness wars, where the danger is not too high. He then gives an elaborate description of how they are to conduct themselves on the battlefield.
Glaucon raises doubt about the feasibility of the plan and its effect on social order. He asks Socrates what is wrong with the contemporary states, as against the ideal state. Socrates replies that it is the absence of a philosopher ruler. A just state can never be realised until a philosopher becomes a king or kings turn into philosophers. He then defines who a philosopher is.
He introduces the two faculties of mind. First is knowledge about reality and second is belief in appearances. The philosopher possesses knowledge of the real; the non-philosopher possesses only belief in appearance. The philosopher is lover of knowledge. Knowledge is then distinguished from ignorance and, lastly, from opinion; it emerges as the faculty enabling the philosopher to see his way to true, undifferentiated being, to absolute beauty and the immutable, to the ideal. Opinion, on the other hand, is the domain of the manifest and manifold, of correlatives and opposites, such as light and heavy, soft and hard, etc. And so the philosopher seeks, by definition, knowledge of true being above all else.
As philosopher possesses the knowledge of the Forms as absolutes (If a man can understand the nature of the ideal Forms, then he can be said to understand, through his reason, the true nature of a given Form) and Justice, Goodness, Happiness, the Moral Life—all are absolutes; they may be perceived in their Forms; they are not relative to the times or the changing tides of political favouritism or animosities or “taste” or any sort of the “appearance or belief in appearances.” Thus it is that philosophers should be kings. They are best qualified to rule.
As for the Dionysiacs and current politicians they seem to be passionately involved in their belief in appearances. And their beliefs are always evanescent. These people are in fact simply amateurs in aesthetics and in statecraft, always followers, never leaders.
At this point Thrasymachus, a sophist jumps into debate. He accuses Socrates of deliberately producing a deadlock by questioning everyone but not providing answers. To this Socrates replies that he does not know what justice is, and asks Thrasymachus for his definition. He, after asking for a fee, replies that justice is the interest of the stronger in a given state. He attempts to do away with justice, and all moral standards, entirely. The stronger make laws and weaker subjects obey those laws, which are actually beneficial to strong. Socrates says that the strong can err and pass laws which are against their interests and benefit the weak.
Thrasymachus says, that strong cannot make mistakes and might is what is right. This is again defeated by proving that a ruler’s chief interest is interest of his subjects, just as a physician’s interest is welfare of his patient. He may get paid for his role, but his main purpose is to rule. Thrasymachus once again compares perfect injustice (Tyranny) and perfect justice (benevolent rule) argues that an unjust man is more intelligent, more powerful, happier then a just man. A tyrant lives a good life, and by sacrifices and prayers he can please the gods as well.
Socrates uses several analogies and rebuts these arguments as well, saying that intelligence is a virtue, and it cannot be associated with injustice. Just and intelligent men will not compete with each other, but only try to perfect what they are doing, unjust and ignorant men will only try to outdo each other, and this precludes any possibility of cooperation between them. This will make them disunited and so injustice cannot be a source of strength. Then he gives a function analogy. A good knife can cut well. Similarly, a good mind can perform its function well (living a good life). Since only just men have good minds, and unjust don’t; only just men are happy. Thrasymachus leaves the debate at this point.
Glaucon expresses doubt over the argument, and plays devil’s advocate, and demands that Socrates should convince him that justice is worthy both as means and as an end. Socrates accepts the challenge. Thrasymachus says that it is good to be unjust and get away without suffering any punishment for being so, and evil to suffer injustice and not be able to do anything about it. Justice is the middle point between these two extremes; it is a legally enforced compromise between doing injustice to others and having injustice done unto oneself. He relates an allegory of a shepherd who discovers a magic ring.
Then, he proposes an experiment in which two men, one perfectly just and the other perfectly unjust, are, in public, perceived antithetically. The unjust one lives a happy life and he can fool people and can bribe Gods as well. Adeimantus supports his brother by poetic and other sources. Socrates says that instead of finding justice for an individual, they should construct an ideal state first and then find what justice is. Since it is easier to look for justice on a large level and then look for corresponding analogies for an individual. Right now, Socrates has destroyed the conventional notion of justice.
Humans need society because they cannot take care of their needs by themselves, and they do not have equal aptitude for doing things. Everybody is well off if they do their natural aptitude the best and take others help in rest of the things. The fundamental needs are food, shelter, and clothing. People should be given different occupations depending upon their talents. Farmers, merchants and traders, wholesalers, retailers, salesmen manual labourers, and so on will be needed in a state. Thus Socrates proposes a division of labour. But Glaucon says that such a state is fit only for pigs. People need art and culture as well. Socrates makes provisions for that also and says that the state would become large and to satisfy its needs it would encroach upon other lands which will give rise to war.
Now, we need properly trained soldiers for defending the state, as citizenry will lack those skills (follows from the fundamental argument for the society). These soldiers will be like a guard dog. Friendly to their own people but fierce towards outsiders. They will be the Guardians of the society. Since their role is so important, we will have to take extra precaution in bringing them up. They will have to be trained philosophically as well as physically. Their education will be purged of any evil influences, and since the current literature is full of tales who show bad, evil immoral activities and Gods (who can do no evil since he is the source of all good) indulging in warfare and petty disputes and machinations (he is omnipotent and omniscient, so he does not need these activities), the current literature should be banned and replaced by literature which glorifies bravery, strength and other qualities which would make an ideal Guardian.
These stories should not show cowardice, triumph of injustice, deceit, conspiracies etc. The reason is that a child’s mind may not be able to differentiate between what is fiction and what is truth, and may take these things to be good and real. After talking about the content Socrates talks about the form (narrative, representational) these stories should take. Since representational form requires a person to enact someone else, which is a kind of deceit, it should also be banned. Even acting or imitating something bad might have corrupting influence on mind. He bans loud laughter as well.
With regard to music, only music which is warlike, encourages bravery, endurance or is prayerful to God should be preserved. Music which encourages emotions or passions should be banned. And only those instruments required to produce this encouraged music should be allowed to be produced. Thereafter Socrates extends these measures to all state arts.
Then he turns to physical education of the Guardians. Their physical education should teach them temperance. Physical training will make them free of any ailment and they will require physician’s very less. Ill and valetudinarian (suffering from incurable physical and mental disease) are to survive on as least medical care as possible, better still they should be allowed to die. Now a state needs rulers, and its rulers should be its best citizens. They would be the very elite.
Socrates then divides society into three groups (He gives an allegory of gold, silver and bronze) and the Guardians are divided into two groups, the rulers and the auxiliaries. Rulers rule the state and auxiliaries aid them. The third group consists of craftsmen. The rulers are the best; they are older experienced men incorruptible to bribery (as they have been selected through a process which has tested them on all accounts in their youth). Auxiliaries will defend and police the state while craftsmen continue the daily business of state. And to ensure that there is a total compliance with the above said order, to ensure that there is no dissidence, there is a need of a one royal lie (myth of metals), which will convince the citizenry that the classification is for their own good.
Those born of gold will become rulers, silver the auxiliaries and bronze the craftsmen, and city would be ruined if someone of wrong metals ever rules the city. It will also ensure that although society is rigid in mobility for adults, the rigidity is not hereditary and if a child of gold is born to bronze parents, it is still possible for that child to become a guardian. The guardians will not be allowed to keep any private property, save the bare essentials, and they will all live together in a housing provided for them by city. Their life will be supported entirely through taxation of producing classes. And once again they will be told a lie, that it is improper for them to handle gold or any other precious metal, as it will corrupt the divine gold in their souls. All these rules will make sure that the guardians are incorruptible.
When Adeimantus objects that such a state will not be of any use to Guardians, Socrates replies that the state is an ideal one where justice might flourish and the whole of the citizenry should be happy (not just one class of people). And happiness should lie in doing one’s duty in a successful manner. The guardians must see that in the third class, which alone is allowed to possess property, extremes of wealth and poverty are avoided as it could cause laziness and laxity towards duties. They may refuse or be unable to do work (due to lack of money to purchase proper tools).
Socrates then turns towards defending such a state. He says that the superior military training of guardians will ensure success in war. And as they themselves will not be keen to keep wealth, the spoils of war can be given to those who form an alliance with us. They will then fight with us rather than against us, Socrates says, and unity and cohesion will protect us from internal strife.
The size of the city should be limited; otherwise it may become big enough to disturb the governance under current system. Above all the education system should be protected as everything depends upon it.
The city will not require too many laws as the wise Guardians can formulate and take appropriate decisions according to situations as and when they arise. Also the promotion and demotion from one class to other should be carried out smoothly. Religious arrangements are to be left to the Oracle at Delphi which was normally consulted before the foundation of the city.
After the city is complete, and it is the best city created, Socrates looks for virtues (it should contain all as it is the best one). He finds wisdom in the Guardians, who are the most educated, experienced. Courage is to be found in auxiliaries, as they are the ones who defend the city. Moderation is found all over in the fact that there is no dispute over who should rule the city and who will be ruled.
Finally the philosophers decide that justice in a city will be the fact that each class should do its assigned task and not interfere or deprive other classes of their function. Everybody should do the job that they are best suited for. Since rewards and happiness lie in performing the function, nobody should be denied his function. When we protect a member of a given class by upholding his “rights” as a matter of course, or we protect him by securing his “rights” in the event that someone attempts, by whatever means, to deprive him of his “rights,” then we have effected justice and may recognize it as justice in the state.
And if ever injustice occurs, when one class forcibly captures or deprives the functions of the other, it may lead to disunity and threaten then existence of the state. Therefore, justice in society would lie in each men and class doing what it is best adapted to. And, since the nature of the State and the nature of the individual are analogous, Socrates argues, the nature of justice must also be analogous. Thus he applies his earlier ideas about State justice to the individual. For Socrates, justice in the individual is harmony among the three principles of the soul, achieved by rationality, or reason (the wisest faculty (Guardians)). He sates that the human mind has two opposing parts of mind (reason and desire) and a third one which is ambivalent.
Then he says that there are three parts, reason (corresponding to Guardians and love for knowledge), emotions or spirited element (corresponding to Auxiliaries and love for honour) and desire or passions (corresponding to craftsmen). Now, four virtues in the individual are wisdom (exercising his reason), courage (exercising his emotions or spirit), temperance (permitting his reason to rule over his emotions and desires). And justice is mental harmony, in which reason is permitted to rule over his emotions and desires.
Thus Socrates succeeds in identifying justice at individual and city level. And then to prove that it is better to be just than unjust, he tries to supplement his study by comparing different forms of bad state and bad character, but, Socrates is interrupted and is asked to explain in further detail, how this state will affect the lives of citizens at social level especially with regards to family, children and women. He reluctantly starts giving a description.
He starts by considering the position of women in society. His argument is that whether difference of sex is in itself a proper basis for differentiation of occupation and social function and answers that it is not. The only difference between men and women is one of physical function- one begets the other bears children. Apart from that both can and both should follow the same range of occupations and perform the same functions they should receive the same education to enable them to do so. In this way society will get best value from both. From the sexes, Socrates discusses family and community. He states that the wives and children of the State be held in common. Then a discourse on marriage, population control, and the proper breeding of citizens follows.
Through a deceptive lottery, marriage will most often be permitted to citizens of higher value (guardians). Intercourse to produce progeny will take place on the date of certain festivals, which is similar to periodic mating seasons. And superior progeny are immediately placed in the care of wet nurses, while the inferior or deformed infants are either killed or thrown away. Abortion is legal and at the discretion of the guardians. All the relations are to be replaced by a collective of ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. Wives’ being common does not mean sexual promiscuity as breeding is strictly controlled.
Socrates’s justification for his socialistic system is that, when everything is shared, there is unity: one citizen's individual pain or pleasure is at once collective. And this unites the people even more as the root cause of all differences is the desire to own more than others. But if everything is collective, this desire dies. Socrates says it is possible and men and women can achieve equality through education. As a part o training, the children should be taken to witness wars, where the danger is not too high. He then gives an elaborate description of how they are to conduct themselves on the battlefield.
Glaucon raises doubt about the feasibility of the plan and its effect on social order. He asks Socrates what is wrong with the contemporary states, as against the ideal state. Socrates replies that it is the absence of a philosopher ruler. A just state can never be realised until a philosopher becomes a king or kings turn into philosophers. He then defines who a philosopher is.
He introduces the two faculties of mind. First is knowledge about reality and second is belief in appearances. The philosopher possesses knowledge of the real; the non-philosopher possesses only belief in appearance. The philosopher is lover of knowledge. Knowledge is then distinguished from ignorance and, lastly, from opinion; it emerges as the faculty enabling the philosopher to see his way to true, undifferentiated being, to absolute beauty and the immutable, to the ideal. Opinion, on the other hand, is the domain of the manifest and manifold, of correlatives and opposites, such as light and heavy, soft and hard, etc. And so the philosopher seeks, by definition, knowledge of true being above all else.
As philosopher possesses the knowledge of the Forms as absolutes (If a man can understand the nature of the ideal Forms, then he can be said to understand, through his reason, the true nature of a given Form) and Justice, Goodness, Happiness, the Moral Life—all are absolutes; they may be perceived in their Forms; they are not relative to the times or the changing tides of political favouritism or animosities or “taste” or any sort of the “appearance or belief in appearances.” Thus it is that philosophers should be kings. They are best qualified to rule.
As for the Dionysiacs and current politicians they seem to be passionately involved in their belief in appearances. And their beliefs are always evanescent. These people are in fact simply amateurs in aesthetics and in statecraft, always followers, never leaders.
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