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[514a]
“Next,” said I, “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, [514b] able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” “All that I see,” he said. “See also, then, men carrying past the wall [514c] implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images [515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled [515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way [515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, [515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.
“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, [515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when [516a] he came out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see even one of the things that we call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said. “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light [516b] of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light.” “Of course.” “And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting, but in and by itself in its own place.” “Necessarily,” he said. “And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, [516c] and is in some sort the cause of all these things that they had seen.” “Obviously,” he said, “that would be the next step.” “Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, [516d] sequences and co-existences, and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,’”Hom. Od. 11.489 and endure anything rather than opine with them [516e] and live that life?” “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life.” “And consider this also,” said I, “if such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight?” “He would indeed.” “Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners [517a] in 'evaluating' these shadows while his vision was still dim and before his eyes were accustomed to the dark—and this time required for habituation would not be very short—would he not provoke laughter, and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worth while even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him?” “They certainly would,” he said.
“This image then, dear Glaucon, we must apply as a whole to all that has been said, [517b] likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul's ascension to the intelligible region, you will not miss my surmise, since that is what you desire to hear. But God knows whether it is true. But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the idea of good, [517c] and that when seen it must needs point us to the conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful, giving birth in the visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely in private or public must have caught sight of this.” “I concur,” he said, “so far as I am able.” “Come then,” I said, “and join me in this further thought, and do not be surprised that those who have attained to this height are not willing to occupy themselves with the affairs of men, but their souls ever feel the upward urge and [517d] the yearning for that sojourn above. For this, I take it, is likely if in this point too the likeness of our image holds” “Yes, it is likely.” “And again, do you think it at all strange,” said I, “if a man returning from divine contemplations to the petty miseries of men cuts a sorry figure and appears most ridiculous, if, while still blinking through the gloom, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the environing darkness, he is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the images that cast the shadows and to wrangle in debate [517e] about the notions of these things in the minds of those who have never seen justice itself?” “It would be by no men strange,” he said. “But a sensible man,” [518a] I said, “would remember that there are two distinct disturbances of the eyes arising from two causes, according as the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light, and, believing that the same thing happens to the soul too, whenever he saw a soul perturbed and unable to discern something, he would not laugh unthinkingly, but would observe whether coming from a brighter life its vision was obscured by the unfamiliar darkness, or [518b] whether the passage from the deeper dark of ignorance into a more luminous world and the greater brightness had dazzled its vision. And so he would deem the one happy in its experience and way of life and pity the other, and if it pleased him to laugh at it, his laughter would be less laughable than that at the expense of the soul that had come down from the light above.” “That is a very fair statement,” he said.
“Then, if this is true, our view of these matters must be this, that education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions. [518c] What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes.” “They do indeed,” he said. “But our present argument indicates,” said I, “that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul, like the scene-shifting periact in the theater, until the soul is able to endure the contemplation of essence and the brightest region of being. [518d] And this, we say, is the good, do we not?” “Yes.” “Of this very thing, then,” I said, “there might be an art, an art of the speediest and most effective shifting or conversion of the soul, not an art of producing vision in it, but on the assumption that it possesses vision but does not rightly direct it and does not look where it should, an art of bringing this about.” “Yes, that seems likely,” he said. “Then the other so-called virtues of the soul do seem akin to those of the body. [518e] For it is true that where they do not pre-exist, they are afterwards created by habit and practice. But the excellence of thought, it seems, is certainly of a more divine quality, a thing that never loses its potency, but, according to the direction of its conversion, becomes useful and beneficent, [519a] or, again, useless and harmful. Have you never observed in those who are popularly spoken of as bad, but smart men, how keen is the vision of the little soul, how quick it is to discern the things that interest it, a proof that it is not a poor vision which it has, but one forcibly enlisted in the service of evil, so that the sharper its sight the more mischief it accomplishes?” “I certainly have,” he said. “Observe then,” said I, “that this part of such a soul, if it had been hammered from childhood, and had thus been struck free of the leaden weights, so to speak, of our birth [519b] and becoming, which attaching themselves to it by food and similar pleasures and gluttonies turn downwards the vision of the soul—If, I say, freed from these, it had suffered a conversion towards the things that are real and true, that same faculty of the same men would have been most keen in its vision of the higher things, just as it is for the things toward which it is now turned.” “It is likely,” he said. “Well, then,” said I, “is not this also likely and a necessary consequence of what has been said, that neither could men who are uneducated and inexperienced in truth ever adequately [519c] preside over a state, nor could those who had been permitted to linger on to the end in the pursuit of culture—the one because they have no single aim and purpose in life to which all their actions, public and private, must be directed, and the others, because they will not voluntarily engage in action, believing that while still living they have been transported to the Islands of the Blest.” “True,” he said. “It is the duty of us, the founders, then,” said I, “to compel the best natures to attain the knowledge which we pronounced the greatest, and to win to the vision of the good, [519d] to scale that ascent, and when they have reached the heights and taken an adequate view, we must not allow what is now permitted.” “What is that?” “That they should linger there,” I said, “and refuse to go down again among those bondsmen and share their labors and honors, whether they are of less or of greater worth.” “Do you mean to say that we must do them this wrong, and compel them to live an inferior life when the better is in their power?” [519e]
“You have again forgotten, my friend,” said I, “that the law is not concerned with the special happiness of any class in the state, but is trying to produce this condition in the city as a whole, harmonizing and adapting the citizens to one another by persuasion and compulsion, and requiring them to impart to one another any benefit [520a] which they are severally able to bestow upon the community, and that it itself creates such men in the state, not that it may allow each to take what course pleases him, but with a view to using them for the binding together of the commonwealth.” “True,” he said, “I did forget it.” “Observe, then, Glaucon,” said I, “that we shall not be wronging, either, the philosophers who arise among us, but that we can justify our action when we constrain them to take charge of the other citizens and be their guardians. [520b] For we will say to them that it is natural that men of similar quality who spring up in other cities should not share in the labors there. For they grow up spontaneously from no volition of the government in the several states, and it is justice that the self-grown, indebted to none for its breeding, should not be zealous either to pay to anyone the price of its nurture. But you we have engendered for yourselves and the rest of the city to be, as it were, king-bees and leaders in the hive. You have received a better [520c] and more complete education than the others, and you are more capable of sharing both ways of life. Down you must go then, each in his turn, to the habitation of the others and accustom yourselves to the observation of the obscure things there. For once habituated you will discern them infinitely better than the dwellers there, and you will know what each of the ‘idols’ is and whereof it is a semblance, because you have seen the reality of the beautiful, the just and the good. So our city will be governed by us and you with waking minds, and not, as most cities now which are inhabited and ruled darkly as in a dream by men who fight one another [520d] for shadows and wrangle for office as if that were a great good, when the truth is that the city in which those who are to rule are least eager to hold office must needs be best administered and most free from dissension, and the state that gets the contrary type of ruler will be the opposite of this.” “By all means,” he said. “Will our alumni, then, disobey us when we tell them this, and will they refuse to share in the labors of state each in his turn while permitted to dwell the most of the time with one another in that purer world?” [520e] “Impossible,” he said: “for we shall be imposing just commands on men who are just. Yet they will assuredly approach office as an unavoidable necessity, and in the opposite temper from that of the present rulers in our cities.” “For the fact is, dear friend,” said I, “if you can discover a better way of life than office-holding [521a] for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are really rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness—a good and wise life. But if, being beggars and starvelings from lack of goods of their own, they turn to affairs of state thinking that it is thence that they should grasp their own good, then it is impossible. For when office and rule become the prizes of contention, such a civil and internecine strife destroys the office-seekers themselves and the city as well.” [521b] “Most true,” he said. “Can you name any other type or ideal of life that looks with scorn on political office except the life of true philosophers?” I asked. “No, by Zeus,” he said. “But what we require,” I said, “is that those who take office should not be lovers of rule. Otherwise there will be a contest with rival lovers.” “Surely.” “What others, then, will you compel to undertake the guardianship of the city than those who have most intelligence of the principles that are the means of good government and who possess distinctions of another kind and a life that is preferable to the political life?” “No others,” he said. [521c]
“Would you, then, have us proceed to consider how such men may be produced in a state and how they may be led upward to the light even as some are fabled to have ascended from Hades to the gods?” “Of course I would.” “So this, it seems, would not be the whirling of the shell in the children's game, but a conversion and turning about of the soul from a day whose light is darkness to the veritable day—that ascension to reality of our parable which we will affirm to be true philosophy.” “By all means.” “Must we not, then, consider what studies have [521d] the power to effect this?” “Of course.” “What, then, Glaucon, would be the study that would draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being? A thought strikes me while I speak: Did we not say that these men in youth must be athletes of war” “We did.” “Then the study for which we are seeking must have this additional qualification.” “What one?” “That it be not useless to soldiers.” “Why, yes, it must,” he said, “if that is possible.” [521e] “But in our previous account they were educated in gymnastics and music.” “They were, he said. “And gymnastics, I take it, is devoted to that which grows and perishes; for it presides over the growth and decay of the body.” “Obviously.” “Then this cannot be the study [522a] that we seek.” “No.” “Is it, then, music, so far as we have already described it?” “Nay, that,” he said, “was the counterpart of gymnastics, if you remember. It educated the guardians through habits, imparting by the melody a certain harmony of spirit that is not science, and by the rhythm measure and grace, and also qualities akin to these in the words of tales that are fables and those that are more nearly true. But it included no study that tended to any such good as [522b] you are now seeking.” “Your recollection is most exact,” I said; “for in fact it had nothing of the kind. But in heaven's name, Glaucon, what study could there be of that kind? For all the arts were in our opinion base and mechanical.” “Surely; and yet what other study is left apart from music, gymnastics and the arts?” “Come,” said I, “if we are unable to discover anything outside of these, let us take [522c] something that applies to all alike.” “What?” “Why, for example, this common thing that all arts and forms of thought and all sciences employ, and which is among the first things that everybody must learn.” “What?” he said. “This trifling matter,” I said, “of distinguishing one and two and three. I mean, in sum, number and calculation. Is it not true of them that every art and science must necessarily partake of them?” “Indeed it is,” he said. “The art of war too?” said I. “Most necessarily,” he said. [522d] “Certainly, then,” said I, “Palamedes in the play is always making Agamemnon appear a most ridiculous general. Have you not noticed that he affirms that by the invention of number he marshalled the troops in the army at Troy in ranks and companies and enumerated the ships and everything else as if before that they had not been counted, and Agamemnon apparently did not know how many feet he had if he couldn't count? And yet what sort of a General do you think he would be in that case?” “A very queer one in my opinion,” he said, “if that was true.” [522e]
“Shall we not, then,” I said, “set down as a study requisite for a soldier the ability to reckon and number?” “Most certainly, if he is to know anything whatever of the ordering of his troops—or rather if he is to be a man at all.” “Do you observe then,” said I, “in this study what I do?” “What?” “It seems likely [523a] that it is one of those studies which we are seeking that naturally conduce to the awakening of thought, but that no one makes the right use of it, though it really does tend to draw the mind to essence and reality.” “What do you mean?” he said. “I will try,” I said, “to show you at least my opinion. Do you keep watch and observe the things I distinguish in my mind as being or not being conducive to our purpose, and either concur or dissent, in order that here too we may see more clearly whether my surmise is right.” “Point them out,” he said. “I do point them out,” I said, “if you can discern that some reports of our perceptions [523b] do not provoke thought to reconsideration because the judgement of them by sensation seems adequate, while others always invite the intellect to reflection because the sensation yields nothing that can be trusted.” “You obviously mean distant appearances,” he said, “and shadow-painting.” “You have quite missed my meaning,” said I. “What do you mean?” he said. “The experiences that do not provoke thought are those that do not [523c] at the same time issue in a contradictory perception. Those that do have that effect I set down as provocatives, when the perception no more manifests one thing than its contrary, alike whether its impact comes from nearby or afar. An illustration will make my meaning plain. Here, we say, are three fingers, the little finger, the second and the middle.” “Quite so,” he said. “Assume that I speak of them as seen near at hand. But this is the point that you are to consider.” “What?” “Each one of them appears to be [523d] equally a finger, and in this respect it makes no difference whether it is observed as intermediate or at either extreme, whether it is white or black, thick or thin, or of any other quality of this kind. For in none of these cases is the soul of most men impelled to question the reason and to ask what in the world is a finger, since the faculty of sight never signifies to it at the same time that the finger is the opposite of a finger.” “Why, no, it does not,” he said. “Then,” said I, “it is to be expected that such a perception will not provoke or awaken [523e] reflection and thought.” “It is.” “But now, what about the bigness and the smallness of these objects? Is our vision's view of them adequate, and does it make no difference to it whether one of them is situated outside or in the middle; and similarly of the relation of touch, to thickness and thinness, softness and hardness? And are not the other senses also defective in their reports of such things? Or is the operation of each of them as follows? [524a] In the first place, the sensation that is set over the hard is of necessity related also to the soft, and it reports to the soul that the same thing is both hard and soft to its perception.” “It is so,” he said. “Then,” said I, “is not this again a case where the soul must be at a loss as to what significance for it the sensation of hardness has, if the sense reports the same thing as also soft? And, similarly, as to what the sensation of light and heavy means by light and heavy, if it reports the heavy as light, and the light as heavy?” [524b] “Yes, indeed,” he said, “these communications to the soul are strange and invite reconsideration.” “Naturally, then,” said I, “it is in such cases as these that the soul first summons to its aid the calculating reason and tries to consider whether each of the things reported to it is one or two.” “Of course.” “And if it appears to be two, each of the two is a distinct unit.” “Yes.” “If, then, each is one and both two, the very meaning of ‘two’ is that the soul will conceive them as distinct. For if they were not separable, [524c] it would not have been thinking of two, but of one.” “Right.” “Sight too saw the great and the small, we say, not separated but confounded. “Is not that so?” “Yes.” “And for the clarification of this, the intelligence is compelled to contemplate the great and small, not thus confounded but as distinct entities, in the opposite way from sensation.” “True.” “And is it not in some such experience as this that the question first occurs to us, what in the world, then, is the great and the small?” “By all means.” “And this is the origin of the designation “intelligible” for the one, and “visible” for the other.” [524d] “Just so,” he said.
“This, then, is just what I was trying to explain a little while ago when I said that some things are provocative of thought and some are not, defining as provocative things that impinge upon the senses together with their opposites, while those that do not I said do not tend to awaken reflection.” “Well, now I understand,” he said, “and agree.” “To which class, then, do you think number and the one belong?” “I cannot conceive,” he said. “Well, reason it out from what has already been said. For, if unity is adequately seen by itself [524e] or apprehended by some other sensation, it would not tend to draw the mind to the apprehension of essence, as we were explaining in the case of the finger. But if some contradiction is always seen coincidentally with it, so that it no more appears to be one than the opposite, there would forthwith be need of something to judge between them, and it would compel the soul to be at a loss and to inquire, by arousing thought in itself, and to ask, [525a] whatever then is the one as such, and thus the study of unity will be one of the studies that guide and convert the soul to the contemplation of true being.” “But surely,” he said, “the visual perception of it does especially involve this. For we see the same thing at once as one and as an indefinite plurality.” “Then if this is true of the one,” I said, “the same holds of all number, does it not?” “Of course.” “But, further, reckoning and the science of arithmetic are wholly concerned with number.” [525b] “They are, indeed.” “And the qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of truth.” “Beyond anything,” he said. “Then, as it seems, these would be among the studies that we are seeking. For a soldier must learn them in order to marshal his troops, and a philosopher, because he must rise out of the region of generation and lay hold on essence or he can never become a true reckoner.” “It is so,” he said. “And our guardian is soldier and philosopher in one.” “Of course.” “It is befitting, then, Glaucon, that this branch of learning should be prescribed by our law and that we should induce those who are to share the highest functions of state [525c] to enter upon that study of calculation and take hold of it, not as amateurs, but to follow it up until they attain to the contemplation of the nature of number, by pure thought, not for the purpose of buying and selling, as if they were preparing to be merchants or hucksters, but for the uses of war and for facilitating the conversion of the soul itself from the world of generation to essence and truth.” “Excellently said,” he replied. “And, further,” I said, “it occurs to me, now that the study of reckoning has been mentioned, [525d] that there is something fine in it, and that it is useful for our purpose in many ways, provided it is pursued for the sake of knowledge and not for huckstering.” “In what respect?” he said. “Why, in respect of the very point of which we were speaking, that it strongly directs the soul upward and compels it to discourse about pure numbers, never acquiescing if anyone proffers to it in the discussion numbers attached to visible and tangible bodies. For you are doubtless aware [525e] that experts in this study, if anyone attempts to cut up the ‘one’ in argument, laugh at him and refuse to allow it; but if you mince it up, they multiply, always on guard lest the one should appear to be not one but a multiplicity of parts.” “Most true,” he replied.
[526a] “Suppose now, Glaucon, someone were to ask them, ‘My good friends, what numbers are these you are talking about, in which the one is such as you postulate, each unity equal to every other without the slightest difference and admitting no division into parts?’ What do you think would be their answer?” “This, I think—that they are speaking of units which can only be conceived by thought, and which it is not possible to deal with in any other way.” “You see, then, my friend,” said I, “that this branch of study really seems to be [526b] indispensable for us, since it plainly compels the soul to employ pure thought with a view to truth itself.” “It most emphatically does.” “Again, have you ever noticed this, that natural reckoners are by nature quick in virtually all their studies? And the slow, if they are trained and drilled in this, even if no other benefit results, all improve and become quicker than they were?” “It is so,” he said. [526c] “And, further, as I believe, studies that demand more toil in the learning and practice than this we shall not discover easily nor find many of them.” “You will not, in fact.” “Then, for all these reasons, we must not neglect this study, but must use it in the education of the best endowed natures.” “I agree,” he said.
“Assuming this one point to be established,” I said, “let us in the second place consider whether the study that comes next is suited to our purpose.” “What is that? Do you mean geometry,” he said. “Precisely that,” said I. “So much of it,” he said, [526d] “as applies to the conduct of war is obviously suitable. For in dealing with encampments and the occupation of strong places and the bringing of troops into column and line and all the other formations of an army in actual battle and on the march, an officer who had studied geometry would be a very different person from what he would be if he had not.” “But still,” I said, “for such purposes a slight modicum of geometry and calculation would suffice. What we have to consider is [526e] whether the greater and more advanced part of it tends to facilitate the apprehension of the idea of good. That tendency, we affirm, is to be found in all studies that force the soul to turn its vision round to the region where dwells the most blessed part of reality, which it is imperative that it should behold.” “You are right,” he said. “Then if it compels the soul to contemplate essence, it is suitable; if genesis, it is not.” “So we affirm.”
[527a] “This at least,” said I, “will not be disputed by those who have even a slight acquaintance with geometry, that this science is in direct contradiction with the language employed in it by its adepts.” “How so?” he said. “Their language is most ludicrous, though they cannot help it, for they speak as if they were doing something and as if all their words were directed towards action. For all their talk is of squaring and applying and adding and the like, whereas in fact [527b] the real object of the entire study is pure knowledge.” “That is absolutely true,” he said. “And must we not agree on a further point?” “What?” “That it is the knowledge of that which always is, and not of a something which at some time comes into being and passes away.” “That is readily admitted,” he said, “for geometry is the knowledge of the eternally existent.” “Then, my good friend, it would tend to draw the soul to truth, and would be productive of a philosophic attitude of mind, directing upward the faculties that now wrongly are turned earthward.” “Nothing is surer,” he said. [527c] “Then nothing is surer,” said I, “than that we must require that the men of your Fair City shall never neglect geometry, for even the by-products of such study are not slight.” “What are they?” said he. “What you mentioned,” said I, “its uses in war, and also we are aware that for the better reception of all studies there will be an immeasurable difference between the student who has been imbued with geometry and the one who has not.” “Immense indeed, by Zeus,” he said. “Shall we, then, lay this down as a second branch of study for our lads?” “Let us do so,” he said. [527d]
“Shall we set down astronomy as a third, or do you dissent?” “I certainly agree,” he said; “for quickness of perception about the seasons and the courses of the months and the years is serviceable, not only to agriculture and navigation, but still more to the military art.” “I am amused,” said I, “at your apparent fear lest the multitude may suppose you to be recommending useless studies. It is indeed no trifling task, but very difficult to realize that there is in every soul an organ or instrument of knowledge that is purified and kindled afresh [527e] by such studies when it has been destroyed and blinded by our ordinary pursuits, a faculty whose preservation outweighs ten thousand eyes; for by it only is reality beheld. Those who share this faith will think your words superlatively true. But those who have and have had no inkling of it will naturally think them all moonshine. For they can see no other benefit from such pursuits worth mentioning. Decide, then, on the spot, to which party you address yourself.
[528a] Or are you speaking to neither, but chiefly carrying on the discussion for your own sake, without however judging any other who may be able to profit by it?” “This is the alternative I choose,” he said, “that it is for my own sake chiefly that I speak and ask questions and reply.” “Fall back a little, then,” said I; “for we just now did not rightly select the study that comes next after geometry.” “What was our mistake?” he said. “After plane surfaces,” said I, “we went on to solids in revolution before studying them in themselves. [528b] The right way is next in order after the second dimension to take the third. This, I suppose, is the dimension of cubes and of everything that has depth.” “Why, yes, it is,” he said; “but this subject, Socrates, does not appear to have been investigated yet.” “There are two causes of that,” said I: “first, inasmuch as no city holds them in honor, these inquiries are languidly pursued owing to their difficulty. And secondly, the investigators need a director, who is indispensable for success and who, to begin with, is not easy to find, and then, if he could be found, as things are now, seekers in this field would be too arrogant [528c] to submit to his guidance. But if the state as a whole should join in superintending these studies and honor them, these specialists would accept advice, and continuous and strenuous investigation would bring out the truth. Since even now, lightly esteemed as they are by the multitude and hampered by the ignorance of their students as to the true reasons for pursuing them, they nevertheless in the face of all these obstacles force their way by their inherent charm [528d] and it would not surprise us if the truth about them were made apparent.” “It is true,” he said, “that they do possess an extraordinary attractiveness and charm. But explain more clearly what you were just speaking of. The investigation of plane surfaces, I presume, you took to be geometry?” “Yes,” said I. “And then,” he said, “at first you took astronomy next and then you drew back.” “Yes,” I said, “for in my haste to be done I was making less speed. For, while the next thing in order is the study of the third dimension or solids, I passed it over because of our absurd neglect to investigate it, and mentioned next after geometry astronomy, [528e] which deals with the movements of solids.” “That is right,” he said. “Then, as our fourth study,” said I, “let us set down astronomy, assuming that this science, the discussion of which has been passed over, is available, provided, that is, that the state pursues it.” “That is likely,” said he; “and instead of the vulgar utilitarian commendation of astronomy, for which you just now rebuked me, Socrates, I now will praise it on your principles.
[529a] For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study certainly compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to those higher things.” “It may be obvious to everybody except me,” said I, “for I do not think so.” “What do you think?” he said. “As it is now handled by those who are trying to lead us up to philosophy, I think that it turns the soul's gaze very much downward.” “What do you mean?” he said. “You seem to me in your thought to put a most liberal interpretation on the ‘study of higher things,’” [529b] I said, “for apparently if anyone with back-thrown head should learn something by staring at decorations on a ceiling, you would regard him as contemplating them with the higher reason and not with the eyes. Perhaps you are right and I am a simpleton. For I, for my part, am unable to suppose that any other study turns the soul's gaze upward than that which deals with being and the invisible. But if anyone tries to learn about the things of sense, whether gaping up or blinking down, I would never say that he really learns—for nothing of the kind admits of true knowledge—nor would I say that his soul looks up, but down, [529c] even though he study floating on his back on sea or land.”
“A fair retort,” he said; “your rebuke is deserved. But how, then, did you mean that astronomy ought to be taught contrary to the present fashion if it is to be learned in a way to conduce to our purpose?” “Thus,” said I, “these sparks that paint the sky, since they are decorations on a visible surface, we must regard, to be sure, as the fairest and [529d] most exact of material things but we must recognize that they fall far short of the truth, the movements, namely, of real speed and real slowness in true number and in all true figures both in relation to one another and as vehicles of the things they carry and contain. These can be apprehended only by reason and thought, but not by sight; or do you think otherwise?” “By no means,” he said. “Then,” said I, “we must use the blazonry of the heavens as patterns to aid in the study of those realities, just as [529e] one would do who chanced upon diagrams drawn with special care and elaboration by Daedalus or some other craftsman or painter. For anyone acquainted with geometry who saw such designs would admit the beauty of the workmanship, but would think it absurd to examine them seriously in the expectation of finding in them the absolute truth [530a] with regard to equals or doubles or any other ratio.” “How could it be otherwise than absurd?” he said. “Do you not think,” said I, “that one who was an astronomer in very truth would feel in the same way when he turned his eyes upon the movements of the stars? He will be willing to concede that the artisan of heaven fashioned it and all that it contains in the best possible manner for such a fabric; but when it comes to the proportions of day and night, and of their relation to the month, and that of the month to the year, and [530b] of the other stars to these and one another, do you not suppose that he will regard as a very strange fellow the man who believes that these things go on for ever without change or the least deviation—though they possess bodies and are visible objects—and that his unremitting quest the realities of these things?” “I at least do think so,” he said, “now that I hear it from you.” “It is by means of problems, then,” said I, “as in the study of geometry, that we will pursue astronomy too, and [530c] we will let be the things in the heavens, if we are to have a part in the true science of astronomy and so convert to right use from uselessness that natural indwelling intelligence of the soul.” “You enjoin a task,” he said, “that will multiply the labor of our present study of astronomy many times.” “And I fancy,” I said, “that our other injunctions will be of the same kind if we are of any use as lawgivers.
“However, what suitable studies have you to suggest?” “Nothing,” he said, “thus off-hand.” “Yet, surely,” said I, “motion in general provides not one but many forms or species, [530d] according to my opinion. To enumerate them all will perhaps be the task of a wise man, but even to us two of them are apparent.” “What are they?” “In addition to astronomy, its counterpart, I replied.” “What is that?” “We may venture to suppose,” I said, “that as the eyes are framed for astronomy so the ears are framed, for the movements of harmony; and these are in some sort kindred sciences, as the Pythagoreans affirm and we admit, do we not, Glaucon?” “We do,” he said. [530e] “Then,” said I, since the task is, so great, shall we not inquire of them what their opinion is and whether they have anything to add? And we in all this will be on the watch for what concerns us.” “What is that?” “To prevent our fosterlings from attempting to learn anything that does not conduce to the end we have in view, and does not always come out at what we said ought to be the goal of everything, as we were just now saying about astronomy.
[531a] Or do you not know that they repeat the same procedure in the case of harmonies? They transfer it to hearing and measure audible concords and sounds against one another, expending much useless labor just as the astronomers do.” “Yes, by heaven,” he said, “and most absurdly too. They talk of something they call minims and, laying their ears alongside, as if trying to catch a voice from next door, some affirm that they can hear a note between and that this is the least interval and the unit of measurement, while others insist that the strings now render identical sounds, [531b] both preferring their ears to their minds.” “You,” said I, “are speaking of the worthies who vex and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs; but—not to draw out the comparison with strokes of the plectrum and the musician's complaints of too responsive and too reluctant strings—I drop the figure, and tell you that I do not mean these people, but those others whom we just now said we would interrogate about harmony. [531c] Their method exactly corresponds to that of the astronomer; for the numbers they seek are those found in these heard concords, but they do not ascend to generalized problems and the consideration which numbers are inherently concordant and which not and why in each case.” “A superhuman task,” he said. “Say, rather, useful, said I, for the investigation of the beautiful and the good, but if otherwise pursued, useless.” “That is likely,” he said.
“And what is more,” I said, I take it that if the investigation [531d] of all these studies goes far enough to bring out their community and kinship with one another, and to infer their affinities, then to busy ourselves with them contributes to our desired end, and the labor taken is not lost; but otherwise it is vain.” “I too so surmise,” said he; “but it is a huge task of which you speak, Socrates.” “Are you talking about the prelude,” I said, “or what? Or do we not know that all this is but the preamble of the law itself, the prelude of the strain that we have to apprehend? For you surely do not suppose that experts in these matters are reasoners [531e] and dialecticians? “ “No, by Zeus,” he said, “except a very few whom I have met.” “But have you ever supposed,” I said, “that men who could not render and exact an account of opinions in discussion would ever know anything of the things we say must be known?”
[532a] “‘No’ is surely the answer to that too.” “This, then, at last, Glaucon,” I said, “is the very law which dialectics recites, the strain which it executes, of which, though it belongs to the intelligible, we may see an imitation in the progress of the faculty of vision, as we described its endeavor to look at living things themselves and the stars themselves and finally at the very sun. In like manner, when anyone by dialectics attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all perceptions of sense to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist [532b] till he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the good in itself, he arrives at the limit of the intelligible, as the other in our parable, came to the goal of the visible.” “By all means,” he said. “What, then, will you not call this progress of thought dialectic?” “Surely.” “And the release from bonds,” I said, “and the conversion from the shadows to the images that cast them and to the light and the ascent from the subterranean cavern to the world above, and there the persisting inability to look directly at animals and plants and the light of the sun, [532c] but the ability to see the phantasms created by God in water and shadows of objects that are real and not merely, as before, the shadows of images cast through a light which, compared with the sun, is as unreal as they—all this procedure of the arts and sciences that we have described indicates their power to lead the best part of the soul up to the contemplation of what is best among realities, as in our parable the clearest organ in the body was turned to the contemplation of what is brightest [532d] in the corporeal and visible region.” “I accept this,” he said, “as the truth; and yet it appears to me very hard to accept, and again, from another point of view, hard to reject. Nevertheless, since we have not to hear it at this time only, but are to repeat it often hereafter, let us assume that these things are as now has been said, and proceed to the melody itself, and go through with it as we have gone through the prelude. Tell me, then, what is the nature of this faculty of dialectic? [532e] Into what divisions does it fall? And what are its ways? For it is these, it seems, that would bring us to the place where we may, so to speak, rest on the road and then come to the end of our journeying.”
[533a] “You will not be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further, though on my part there will be no lack of goodwill. And, if I could, I would show you, no longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth, as it appears to me—though whether rightly or not I may not properly affirm. But that something like this is what we have to see, I must affirm. Is not that so?” “Surely.” “And may we not also declare that nothing less than the power of dialectics could reveal this, and that only to one experienced in the studies we have described, and that the thing is in no other wise possible?” “That, too,” he said, “we may properly affirm.” “This, at any rate,” said I, “no one will maintain in dispute against us: [533b] that there is any other way of inquiry that attempts systematically and in all cases to determine what each thing really is. But all the other arts have for their object the opinions and desires of men or are wholly concerned with generation and composition or with the service and tendance of the things that grow and are put together, while the remnant which we said did in some sort lay hold on reality—geometry and the studies that accompany it— [533c] are, as we see, dreaming about being, but the clear waking vision of it is impossible for them as long as they leave the assumptions which they employ undisturbed and cannot give any account of them. For where the starting-point is something that the reasoner does not know, and the conclusion and all that intervenes is a tissue of things not really known, what possibility is there that assent in such cases can ever be converted into true knowledge or science?” “None,” said he.
“Then,” said I, “is not dialectics the only process of inquiry that advances in this manner, doing away with hypotheses, up to the first principle itself in order to find confirmation there? And it is literally true that when the eye of the soul is sunk [533d] in the barbaric slough of the Orphic myth, dialectic gently draws it forth and leads it up, employing as helpers and co-operators in this conversion the studies and sciences which we enumerated, which we called sciences often from habit, though they really need some other designation, connoting more clearness than opinion and more obscurity than science. ‘Understanding,’ I believe, was the term we employed. But I presume we shall not dispute about the name [533e] when things of such moment lie before us for consideration.” “No, indeed,” he said. “Are you satisfied, then,” said I, “as before, to call the first division science, [534a] the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth conjecture or picture-thought—and the last two collectively opinion, and the first two intellection, opinion dealing with generation and intellection with essence, and this relation being expressed in the proportion: as essence is to generation, so is intellection to opinion; and as intellection is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to image-thinking or surmise? But the relation between their objective correlates and the division into two parts of each of these, the opinable, namely, and the intelligible, let us dismiss, Glaucon, lest it involve us in discussion many times as long as the preceding.” [534b] “Well,” he said, “I agree with you about the rest of it, so far as I am able to follow.” “And do you not also give the name dialectician to the man who is able to exact an account of the essence of each thing? And will you not say that the one who is unable to do this, in so far as he is incapable of rendering an account to himself and others, does not possess full reason and intelligence about the matter?” “How could I say that he does?” he replied. “And is not this true of the good likewise—that the man who is unable to define in his discourse and distinguish and abstract from all other things the aspect or idea of the good, [534c] and who cannot, as it were in battle, running the gauntlet of all tests, and striving to examine everything by essential reality and not by opinion, hold on his way through all this without tripping in his reasoning—the man who lacks this power, you will say, does not really know the good itself or any particular good; but if he apprehends any adumbration of it, his contact with it is by opinion, not by knowledge; and dreaming and dozing through his present life, before he awakens here [534d] he will arrive at the house of Hades and fall asleep for ever?” “Yes, by Zeus,” said he, “all this I will stoutly affirm.” “But, surely,” said I, “if you should ever nurture in fact your children whom you are now nurturing and educating in word, you would not suffer them, I presume, to hold rule in the state, and determine the greatest matters, being themselves as irrational as the lines so called in geometry.” “Why, no,” he said. “Then you will provide by law that they shall give special heed to the discipline that will enable them to ask and answer questions in the most scientific manner?” [534e] “I will so legislate,” he said, “in conjunction with you.” “Do you agree, then,” said I, “that we have set dialectics above all other studies to be as it were the coping-stone—and that no other higher kind of study could rightly be placed above it, [535a] but that our discussion of studies is now complete” “I do,” he said.
“The distribution, then, remains,” said I, “to whom we are to assign these studies and in what way.” “Clearly,” he said. “Do you remember, then, the kind of man we chose in our former selection of rulers?” “Of course,” he said. “In most respects, then,” said I, “you must suppose that we have to choose those same natures. The most stable, the most brave and enterprising are to be preferred, and, so far as practicable, the most comely. But in addition [535b] we must now require that they not only be virile and vigorous in temper, but that they possess also the gifts of nature suitable to this type of education.” “What qualities are you distinguishing?” “They must have, my friend, to begin with, a certain keenness for study, and must not learn with difficulty. For souls are much more likely to flinch and faint in severe studies than in gymnastics, because the toil touches them more nearly, being peculiar to them and not shared with the body.” “True,” he said. “And [535c] we must demand a good memory and doggedness and industry in every sense of the word. Otherwise how do you suppose anyone will consent both to undergo all the toils of the body and to complete so great a course of study and discipline?” “No one could,” he said, “unless most happily endowed.” “Our present mistake,” said I, “and the disesteem that has in consequence fallen upon philosophy are, as I said before, caused by the unfitness of her associates and wooers. They should not have been bastards but true scions.” “What do you mean?” he said. “In the first place,” [535d] I said, “the aspirant to philosophy must not limp in his industry, in the one half of him loving, in the other shunning, toil. This happens when anyone is a lover of gymnastics and hunting and all the labors of the body, yet is not fond of learning or of listening or inquiring, but in all such matters hates work. And he too is lame whose industry is one-sided in the reverse way.” “Most true,” he said. “Likewise in respect of truth,” I said, “we shall regard as maimed [535e] in precisely the same way the soul that hates the voluntary lie and is troubled by it in its own self and greatly angered by it in others, but cheerfully accepts the involuntary falsehood and is not distressed when convicted of lack of knowledge, but wallows in the mud of ignorance as insensitively as a pig.”
[536a] “By all means,” he said. “And with reference to sobriety,” said I, “and bravery and loftiness of soul and all the parts of virtue, we must especially be on our guard to distinguish the base-born from the true-born. For when the knowledge necessary to make such discriminations is lacking in individual or state, they unawares employ at random for any of these purposes the crippled and base-born natures, as their friends or rulers.” “It is so indeed,” he said. “But we,” I said, “must be on our guard in all such cases, [536b] since, if we bring men sound of limb and mind to so great a study and so severe a training, justice herself will have no fault to find with us, and we shall preserve the state and our polity. But, if we introduce into it the other sort, the outcome will be just the opposite, and we shall pour a still greater flood of ridicule upon philosophy.” “That would indeed be shameful,” he said. “Most certainly,” said I: “but here again I am making myself a little ridiculous.” “In what way?” [536c] “I forgot,” said I, “that we were jesting, and I spoke with too great intensity. For, while speaking, I turned my eyes upon philosophy, and when I saw how she is undeservedly reviled, I was revolted, and, as if in anger, spoke too earnestly to those who are in fault.” “No, by Zeus, not too earnestly for me as a hearer.” “But too much so for me as a speaker,” I said. “But this we must not forget, that in our former selection we chose old men, but in this one that will not do. For we must not take Solon's word for it [536d] that growing old a man is able to learn many things. He is less able to do that than to run a race. To the young belong all heavy and frequent labors.” “Necessarily,” he said.
“Now, all this study of reckoning and geometry and all the preliminary studies that are indispensable preparation for dialectics must be presented to them while still young, not in the form of compulsory instruction.” “Why so?” “Because,” said I, [536e] “a free soul ought not to pursue any study slavishly; for while bodily labors performed under constraint do not harm the body, nothing that is learned under compulsion stays with the mind.” “True,” he said. “Do not, then, my friend, keep children to their studies by compulsion [537a] but by play. That will also better enable you to discern the natural capacities of each.” “There is reason in that,” he said. “And do you not remember,” I said, “that we also declared that we must conduct the children to war on horseback to be spectators, and wherever it may be safe, bring them to the front and give them a taste of blood as we do with whelps?” “I do remember.” “And those who as time goes on show the most facility in all these toils and studies and alarms are to be selected and enrolled on a list.” [537b] “At what age?” he said. “When they are released from their prescribed gymnastics. For that period, whether it be two or three years, incapacitates them for other occupations. For great fatigue and much sleep are the foes of study, and moreover one of our tests of them, and not the least, will be their behavior in their physical exercises.” “Surely it is,” he said. “After this period,” I said, “those who are given preference from the twenty-year class will receive greater honors than the others, [537c] and they will be required to gather the studies which they disconnectedly pursued as children in their former education into a comprehensive survey of their affinities with one another and with the nature of things.” “That, at any rate, he said, is the only instruction that abides with those who receive it.” “And it is also,” said I, “the chief test of the dialectical nature and its opposite. For he who can view things in their connection is a dialectician; he who cannot, is not.” “I concur,” he said. “With these qualities in mind,” I said, [537d] “it will be your task to make a selection of those who manifest them best from the group who are steadfast in their studies and in war and in all lawful requirements, and when they have passed the thirtieth year to promote them, by a second selection from those preferred in the first, to still greater honors, and to prove and test them by the power of dialectic to see which of them is able to disregard the eyes and other senses and go on to being itself in company with truth. And at this point, my friend, the greatest care is requisite.” “How so?” he said. “Do you not note,” [537e] said I, “how great is the harm caused by our present treatment of dialectics?” “What is that?” he said. “Its practitioners are infected with lawlessness.” “They are indeed.” “Do you suppose,” I said, “that there is anything surprising in this state of mind, and do you not think it pardonable?” “In what way, pray?” he said. “Their case,” said I, “resembles that of a supposititious son reared in abundant wealth and a great and numerous family [538a] amid many flatterers, who on arriving at manhood should become aware that he is not the child of those who call themselves his parents, and should I not be able to find his true father and mother. Can you divine what would be his feelings towards the flatterers and his supposed parents in the time when he did not know the truth about his adoption, and, again, when he knew it? Or would you like to hear my surmise?” “I would.”
“Well, then, my surmise is,” I said, “that he would be more likely to honor [538b] his reputed father and mother and other kin than the flatterers, and that there would be less likelihood of his allowing them to lack for anything, and that he would be less inclined to do or say to them anything unlawful, and less liable to disobey them in great matters than to disobey the flatterers—during the time when he did not know the truth.” “It is probable,” he said. “But when he found out the truth, I surmise that he would grow more remiss in honor and devotion to them and pay more regard to the flatterers, whom he would heed [538c] more than before and would henceforth live by their rule, associating with them openly, while for that former father and his adoptive kin he would not care at all, unless he was naturally of a very good disposition.” “All that you say,” he replied, “would be likely to happen. But what is the pertinency of this comparison to the novices of dialectic?” “It is this. We have, I take it, certain convictions from childhood about the just and the honorable, in which, in obedience and honor to them, we have been bred as children under their parents.” [538d] “Yes, we have.” “And are there not other practices going counter to these, that have pleasures attached to them and that flatter and solicit our souls, but do not win over men of any decency; but they continue to hold in honor the teachings of their fathers and obey them?” “It is so” “Well, then,” said I, “when a man of this kind is met by the question,‘What is the honorable?’ and on his giving the answer which he learned from the lawgiver, the argument confutes him, and by many and various refutations upsets his faith [538e] and makes him believe that this thing is no more honorable than it is base, and when he has had the same experience about the just and the good and everything that he chiefly held in esteem, how do you suppose that he will conduct himself thereafter in the matter of respect and obedience to this traditional morality?” “It is inevitable,” he said, “that he will not continue to honor and obey as before.” “And then,” said I, “when he ceases to honor these principles and to think that they are binding on him, and cannot discover the true principles, [539a] will he be likely to adopt any other way of life than that which flatters his desires?” “He will not,” he said. “He will, then, seem to have become a rebel to law and convention instead of the conformer that he was.” “Necessarily.” “And is not this experience of those who take up dialectics in this fashion to be expected and, as I just now said, deserving of much leniency?” “Yes, and of pity too,” he said. “Then that we may not have to pity thus your thirty-year-old disciples, must you not take every precaution when you introduce them to the study of dialectics?” “Yes, indeed,” he said. “And is it not [539b] one chief safeguard not to suffer them to taste of it while young? For I fancy you have not failed to observe that lads, when they first get a taste of disputation, misuse it as a form of sport, always employing it contentiously, and, imitating confuters, they themselves confute others. They delight like spies in pulling about and tearing with words all who approach them.” “Exceedingly so,” he said. “And when they have themselves confuted many and been confuted by many, [539c] they quickly fall into a violent distrust of all that they formerly held true; and the outcome is that they themselves and the whole business of philosophy are discredited with other men.” “Most true,” he said. “But an older man will not share this craze,” said I, “but rather choose to imitate the one who consents to examine truth dialectically than the one who makes a jest and a sport of mere contradiction, [539d] and so he will himself be more reasonable and moderate, and bring credit rather than discredit upon his pursuit.” “Right,” he said. “And were not all our preceding statements made with a view to this precaution our requirement that those permitted to take part in such discussions must have orderly and stable natures, instead of the present practice of admitting to it any chance and unsuitable applicant?” “By all means,” he said.
“Is it enough, then, to devote to the continuous and strenuous study of dialectics undisturbed by anything else, as in the corresponding discipline in bodily exercises, [539e] twice as many years as were allotted to that?” “Do you mean six or four?” he said. “Well,” I said, “set it down as five. For after that you will have to send them down into the cave again, and compel them to hold commands in war and the other offices suitable to youth, so that they may not fall short of the other type in experience either. And in these offices, too, they are to be tested to see whether they will remain steadfast under diverse solicitations [540a] or whether they will flinch and swerve.” “How much time do you allow for that?” he said. “Fifteen years,” said I, “and at the age of fifty those who have survived the tests and approved themselves altogether the best in every task and form of knowledge must be brought at last to the goal. We shall require them to turn upwards the vision of their souls and fix their gaze on that which sheds light on all, and when they have thus beheld the good itself they shall use it as a pattern for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves [540b] throughout the remainder of their lives, each in his turn, devoting the greater part of their time to the study of philosophy, but when the turn comes for each, toiling in the service of the state and holding office for the city's sake, regarding the task not as a fine thing but a necessity; and so, when each generation has educated others like themselves to take their place as guardians of the state, they shall depart to the Islands of the Blest and there dwell. And the state shall establish public memorials [540c] and sacrifices for them as to divinities if the Pythian oracle approves or, if not, as to divine and godlike men.” “A most beautiful finish, Socrates, you have put upon your rulers, as if you were a statuary.” “And on the women too, Glaucon,” said I; “for you must not suppose that my words apply to the men more than to all women who arise among them endowed with the requisite qualities.” “That is right,” he said, “if they are to share equally in all things with the men as we laid it down.” [540d] “Well, then,” said I, “do you admit that our notion of the state and its polity is not altogether a daydream, but that though it is difficult, it is in a way possible and in no other way than that described—when genuine philosophers, many or one, becoming masters of the state scorn the present honors, regarding them as illiberal and worthless, but prize the right [540e] and the honors that come from that above all things, and regarding justice as the chief and the one indispensable thing, in the service and maintenance of that reorganize and administer their city?” “In what way?” he said. “All inhabitants above the age of ten,” I said, [541a] “they will send out into the fields, and they will take over the children, remove them from the manners and habits of their parents, and bring them up in their own customs and laws which will be such as we have described. This is the speediest and easiest way in which such a city and constitution as we have portrayed could be established and prosper and bring most benefit to the people [541b] among whom it arises.” “Much the easiest,” he said, “and I think you have well explained the manner of its realization if it should ever be realized.” “Then,” said I, “have we not now said enough about this state and the corresponding type of man—for it is evident what our conception of him will be?” “It is evident,” he said, “and, to answer your question, I think we have finished.”