Adeimantus Objects: The Ship of State

And Adeimantus said, Socrates, no one could argue against what you say here. But in truth this is what happens each time to those who hear what you are now saying: through inexperience in asking and answering, they think that at each question they are led on a little by the argument, and that when the small steps are gathered together at the end of the discussion, a great error comes to light, contrary to what was said at first; and just as those unskilled at checkers are shut in by the skilled players and have no move left to make, so they too, in the end, are shut in and have nothing to say, defeated by this other kind of game, played not with counters but with words; and yet the truth is no more on that side for all this. I say this with an eye to the present case. For now someone might say that in argument he cannot contradict you at each separate point as it is asked, but that in fact he sees that those who set out for philosophy and do not, having taken it up for the sake of an education, drop it while still young, but linger at it longer, become for the most part quite odd, not to say thoroughly wicked, while even those who seem the most decent are nevertheless affected in just this way by the very pursuit you praise, and become useless to their cities.

And I, hearing this, said, Do you think, then, that those who say this are lying?

I do not know, he said, but I would gladly hear what you think.

Then you may hear that to me they seem to be speaking the truth.

How then, he said, can it be right to say that cities will not cease from evils until philosophers rule in them — the very men we agree are useless to them?

You are asking, I said, a question that needs an answer given through an image.

And you, he said, are not in the habit, I suppose, of speaking in images.

Very well, I said; are you mocking me, after landing me in an argument so hard to prove? Listen, then, to the image, so that you may see all the more how clumsily I make my comparisons. For so harsh is the treatment the most decent men have suffered at the hands of their cities, that no single other thing has suffered the like, but one must gather it together out of many things, making a comparison and speaking in their defense, just as painters do who mix together goat-stags and other such creatures in their paintings. For imagine something of this sort happening, whether concerning many ships or one: a shipowner who surpasses everyone on the ship in size and strength, but who is somewhat deaf and likewise sees only a little, and whose knowledge of seafaring is much the same; and sailors quarreling with one another over the steering, each thinking that he ought to steer, though he has never learned the craft, nor can point to a teacher of his own, nor to a time when he learned it; who, besides, claim that it cannot even be taught, and are ready to cut to pieces anyone who says it can; while they themselves are forever crowding around the shipowner himself, begging him and doing everything so that he will hand the helm over to them; and sometimes, when they fail to persuade him and others succeed instead, they either kill the others or throw them off the ship, and having bound the noble shipowner with mandrake, or with drink, or by some other means, they rule the ship, making use of what is aboard, and drinking and feasting they sail just as such men are likely to; and besides this they praise as a real seaman, a skilled pilot, a master of the ways of a ship, whoever is clever at lending a hand in getting them control, whether by persuading or by forcing the shipowner, while they blame as useless whoever is not of this sort, and have no notion at all of the true pilot — that he must of necessity attend to the year, the seasons, the sky, the stars, the winds, and everything that belongs to his craft, if he is truly to be fit to command a ship, while as for how he is to steer whether or not some wish it, they do not think one can acquire the craft and the practice of that at the same time as the pilot's craft. With such things happening aboard ships, do you not think that the man who is truly fit to pilot would in fact be called a stargazer, a babbler, and useless to them, by those sailing in ships equipped in this way?

Very much so, said Adeimantus.

I do not think, I said, that you need the image gone over point by point to see that it is like the disposition of cities toward true philosophers, but that you understand what I mean.

Very much so, he said.

First, then, take that man who wonders that philosophers are not honored in cities: teach him the image, and try to persuade him that it would be far more astonishing if they were.

I will teach him, he said.

And tell him also that you speak the truth, that the most decent of those engaged in philosophy are useless to the many; but bid him blame, for this uselessness, those who fail to make use of them, and not the decent men themselves. For it is not in the nature of things that a pilot should beg the sailors to be ruled by him, nor that the wise should go to the doors of the rich; whoever put it so cleverly was lying, and the truth stands thus by nature: whether a rich man or a poor man falls ill, it is necessary for him to go to the doors of physicians, and for everyone who needs to be ruled to go to the doors of the man able to rule, and not for the ruler — the one who is genuinely of some use — to beg the ruled to submit to his rule. But you will not go wrong in likening the political rulers of today to the sailors we were just describing, and those whom they call useless and sky-babblers to the true pilots.

Quite right, he said.

For these reasons, then, and among such people, it is not easy for the best pursuit to win a good reputation from those who pursue the opposite; but by far the greatest and strongest slander falls upon philosophy because of those who claim to pursue such things — the very men you say the accuser of philosophy has in mind, when he says that most of those who go in for it are thoroughly wicked, and the most decent of them useless, and I admitted that you spoke the truth. Was that not so?

How Philosophic Natures Are Corrupted

Yes.

Have we not, then, gone through the cause of the uselessness of the decent?

Very much so.

Do you want us to go through, next, the necessity behind the wickedness of the many, and to try — if we can — to show that philosophy is not responsible for this either?

By all means.

Let us listen, then, and speak, recalling the point at which we went through the nature — what sort a man who is to be noble and good must of necessity be born with. And leading the way for him, if you recall, was truth first of all, which he had to pursue wholly and in every way, or else, being an impostor, have no part whatever in true philosophy.

Yes, that was how it was said.

Now, is not this one point sharply contrary to what is currently believed about him?

Very much so, he said.

Then shall we not be making a reasonable defense in saying that the one who is truly a lover of learning is by nature driven to strive toward what is, and would not linger over the many particular things that are merely believed to be, but would press on and not grow dull nor abandon his erotic love until he had laid hold of the nature of each thing itself with the part of the soul fit to grasp such a thing — and it is the kindred part that is fit for it — and, having drawn near to it and mingled with what truly is, having begotten intellect and truth, he would know and would truly live and be nourished, and only thus would his travail cease, but not before?

As reasonable as could be, he said.

What then? Will he have any part in loving falsehood, or, quite the opposite, in hating it?

Hating it, he said.

With truth leading, then, I do not suppose we would ever say that a chorus of evils follows in her train.

How could it?

But instead a sound and just character, followed also by moderation.

Correct, he said.

And indeed, what need is there to force myself back to the beginning and marshal the rest of the philosophic nature's chorus all over again? For you remember, I suppose, that courage, magnificence, quickness to learn, and memory turned out to belong to these natures; and with you taking us up on the point that, while everyone would be compelled to agree with what we say, still, if he let the arguments go and looked instead at the actual men the argument is about, he would say he sees some of them useless and most of them bad with every kind of badness — examining the cause of this slander, we have now come to just this point, why ever it is that the many are bad, and it is for this reason that we have again taken up the nature of true philosophers and defined it of necessity.

That is so, he said.

We must look, then, I said, at the ways this nature is corrupted — how it is destroyed in most who have it, while some small part escapes, the ones people call not wicked, exactly, but useless — and after that, in turn, at the natures that imitate it and install themselves in its pursuit: what sorts of souls they are that arrive at a pursuit for which they are unworthy and which is beyond them, and that, striking false notes in many ways, have fastened upon philosophy, everywhere and among all men, the reputation you speak of.

And which corruptions, he said, do you mean?

I will try, I said, to go through them for you, if I am able. Now this much, I think, everyone will grant us: that such a nature, possessing all the qualities we prescribed just now, if it is to become a philosopher in the full sense, is born among men only seldom, and only in a few cases. Or do you not think so?

Indeed I do.

Consider, then, in the case of these few, how many and how great are the ways of ruin.

What are they?

The most astonishing thing to hear of all is that each single one of the qualities we praised in that nature destroys the soul that possesses it, and tears it away from philosophy. I mean courage, moderation, and everything we went through.

Strange to hear, he said.

And besides these, I said, all the things called good also corrupt it and tear it away — beauty, wealth, bodily strength, powerful connections of kin in the city, and everything akin to these; for you grasp the type of thing I mean.

I do, he said; and I would gladly learn more precisely what you mean.

Grasp the matter correctly as a whole, then, I said, and it will appear quite clear to you, and what was said earlier about them will no longer seem strange.

How, then, he said, do you bid me proceed?

Concerning any seed, I said, or any growing thing, whether one of those in the earth or one of the animals, we know this — that when a thing fails to meet with the nourishment proper to it, or with its right season, or its right place, then the more vigorous it is, the more it falls short of what befits it; for I suppose what is bad stands more opposed to what is good than to what is not good.

How could it not?

It stands to reason, then, I think, that the best nature, when it lights on nurture more foreign to it, comes off worse than a poor one does.

It does.

Well then, Adeimantus, I said, shall we not say the same of souls — that those of the best natural gifts, meeting with bad upbringing, become exceptionally bad? Or do you suppose that great wrongdoing and sheer, unmixed wickedness arise from a poor nature rather than from a vigorous one ruined by its nurture, and that a feeble nature will ever be the cause of anything great, whether for good or for ill?

No, he said, but rather as you describe it.

The Great Beast: The Crowd as Educator

Now the nature of the philosopher that we laid down, if it happens, I think, to meet with the learning that suits it, must of necessity grow to arrive at every virtue; but if it is sown and reared in unsuitable soil and tended there, it must arrive, in turn, at every opposite, unless some god comes to its aid. Or do you too suppose, as most people do, that certain young men are corrupted by sophists, and that private sophists corrupt them to any degree worth mentioning, and not rather that the very men who say this are themselves the greatest sophists of all, and educate most completely, turning out young and old, men and women, into just the sort of people they want?

When, exactly? So he asked.

Whenever, I said, great numbers of people sit crowded together in assemblies, law courts, theaters, army camps, or some other public gathering of the multitude, and with a great deal of noise find fault with some of what is said or done, and praise other parts of it, both to excess, shouting and clapping, and, besides them, the very rocks and the place they are in echo back and double the din of blame and praise. In such a situation, as the saying goes, what heart do you think a young man has? Or what private education [would] hold out in him, one that will not be swamped by blame and praise of that sort and go off, borne along on the current wherever it may carry it, so that he calls the same things fine and shameful as they do, pursues the same things as they do, and becomes such a person himself?

Quite inevitably, Socrates, he said.

And yet, I said, we have not yet mentioned the greatest necessity.

What sort? So he said.

The one these educators and sophists apply in deed, when they fail to persuade with words. Or do you not know that they punish whoever is not persuaded with loss of civic rights, fines, and death?

Very much so indeed, he said.

So what other sophist, or what private arguments running counter to these, do you think will prevail?

None, I think, he said.

No indeed, I said, and even to attempt it is great folly. For no character schooled toward virtue apart from the education these men give is coming to be, has come to be, or ever will come to be — no human one, at any rate, my friend; the divine, though, let us except from the argument, as the old saying goes — for you must know well that in such a condition of constitutions, whenever anything is preserved and turns out as it should, you will not be wrong to say that it was a god's portion that preserved it.

Nor do I think otherwise, he said.

Then let this be your view as well, I said, in addition to what we have said.

What sort of thing?

Each of the hired private individuals — the ones these men call sophists and regard as rivals in their craft — teaches nothing but these very opinions of the many, the ones they hold whenever they are gathered together, and calls this wisdom; it is just as if someone were studying the moods and appetites of a great, strong beast being reared — how to approach it and how to handle it, when it is fiercest or gentlest and from what causes, and the sounds it is accustomed to make in each case, and what sounds, spoken by another, tame it or make it savage — and, having learned all this by living with it over a long time, were to call it wisdom, and, having put it together as a craft, were to turn to teaching it, knowing nothing in truth about which of these opinions and appetites is fine or shameful, or good or bad, or just or unjust, but were to apply all these names according to the opinions of the great creature, calling the things it delights in good and the things that vex it bad, having no other account of them, but calling the necessary things just and fine, without ever having seen, or being able to show anyone else, how far the necessary differs in truth from the good. A man like that, by Zeus, would he not seem to you an absurd educator?

He does, he said.

Does he seem to you, then, to differ at all from this man — the one who counts it wisdom to have made out the temper and the pleasures of the many and motley crowd when they come together, whether in painting, or in music, or indeed in politics? For whenever someone associates with these people, displaying his poetry or some other piece of craftsmanship, or a service to the city, and makes the many his masters over and above what is necessary, it is what they call the Diomedean necessity that compels him to do whatever they praise; but as for these things being also good and fine in truth, have you ever yet heard one of them give an account of that which was not laughable?

I think not, he said, and I don't expect I ever shall.

So, having taken all this to heart, recall that other point — the beautiful itself and not the many beautiful things, or each thing itself and not the many particular things: is there any way a multitude will put up with it, or think that such a thing is?

Not in the least, he said.

So it is impossible, I said, for a multitude to be philosophic.

Impossible.

And so those who philosophize must necessarily be blamed by them.

Necessarily.

And by these private individuals too, all those who, associating with the crowd, desire to please it.

Clearly.

Given all this, then, what salvation do you see for a philosophic nature, such that it remains in its pursuit and comes through to its end? Consider it from what came before. For we have agreed that ease in learning, memory, courage, and magnificence belong to this nature.

Yes.

So won't such a person, right from childhood, be first in everything, especially if his body too grows to match his soul?

Why wouldn't he be? So he said.

I think, then, that when he grows older, his relatives and fellow citizens will want to make use of him for their own affairs.

Of course.

So they will grovel before him, begging and honoring him, staking their claim in advance on the power that is going to be his and flattering it before it comes.

That's certainly how it tends to happen, he said.

So what do you think, I said, such a person will do in circumstances like these, especially if he happens to belong to a great city, and in it to be rich and well-born, and on top of that good-looking and tall? Won't he be filled with impossible hope, believing that he will be capable of managing the affairs of both Greeks and barbarians, and on the strength of this exalt himself, puffed up with pretension and an empty conceit devoid of intellect?

Very much so, he said.

Now if someone quietly approaches a person disposed like this and tells him the truth — that he has no intellect in him, though he needs it, and that it cannot be acquired unless one serves as a slave to acquiring it — do you think it easy for him to listen, surrounded by so many evils?

Far from it, he said.

But if, then, I said, because of his good nature and his kinship with such arguments, he perceives something of this and bends and is drawn toward philosophy, what do we think those people will do — the ones who believe they are losing the use of him and his companionship? Will they not do every deed and say every word, both about him, so that he won't be persuaded, and toward the one persuading him, so that he won't be able to succeed, plotting against him privately and bringing him into public contests?

Quite inevitably, he said.

Is there any way, then, that such a person will philosophize?

Not at all.

So do you see, I said, that we were not wrong to say that the very parts of a philosophic nature themselves, when they fall into bad rearing, are in a way responsible for its falling away from its pursuit, along with the so-called goods — wealth and all such equipment?

No indeed, he said, but it was said rightly.

This, then, my good man, I said, is the ruin and corruption, so great and of such a kind, that befalls the best nature for the best pursuit — a nature that is rare enough on its own, as we say. And indeed it is from these men that those who work the greatest evils on cities, and on private people, arise — and also those who work the greatest goods, whenever they happen to be swept in that direction instead; but a small nature never accomplishes anything great, for a private person or for a city.

Very true, he said.

Unworthy Suitors of Philosophy

These men, then, falling away in this manner — the very men to whom she belongs most — leave philosophy deserted and unwed, and themselves live a life neither fitting nor true, while she, like an orphan bereft of her kin, is invaded by others unworthy of her, who disgrace her and fasten reproaches on her, the very reproaches you yourself say the revilers bring, that of those who keep her company some are worth nothing, and most of them deserve a great many ills.

Yes indeed, he said, that is exactly what is said.

With good reason, I said. For other little men, seeing this ground growing empty, yet full of fine names and pretensions, gladly leap out of their crafts into philosophy — just as men who escape from prison flee into a temple — those, that is, who happen to be the cleverest at their own petty craft. For all the same, even with philosophy in such a state, her prestige remains grander than that of the other crafts, and it is this that many men reach for — men stunted in their natures, who, just as their bodies have been maimed by their crafts and their trades, so too have had their souls broken and battered by their menial labor — or is that not inevitable?

Very much so, he said.

Do you think, then, I said, that it is any different to see them from seeing some bald little smith who has come into money — lately freed from his fetters, washed at the baths, wearing a brand-new cloak, got up like a bridegroom, about to marry his master's daughter because of his master's poverty and want of friends?

It is not at all different, he said.

What sort of things, then, are such men likely to beget? Not bastard and paltry ones?

Quite inevitable.

What then? When men unworthy of education draw near to her and consort with her unworthily, what sort of thoughts and opinions shall we say they beget? Is it not, in truth, fitting to call them sophistries, containing nothing genuine, and touching nothing [worthy] of true practical wisdom?

Absolutely, he said.

A very small remnant, then, I said, Adeimantus, is left of those who keep company with philosophy as she deserves — perhaps some noble and well-bred character, overtaken by exile, who for lack of corrupters has stayed true to his nature and remained with her; or when a great soul is born in a small city and, thinking the city's affairs beneath it, looks past them; and here and there some naturally gifted man might come to her from another craft, having rightly come to despise it. And there might also be the bridle of our friend Theages, one fit to hold a man back; for in Theages's case everything else stands ready for his falling away from philosophy, but the poor health of his body, barring him from political life, holds him fast. As for my own case — the divine sign — it is not worth mentioning; for it has come to perhaps one other person, or to no one at all, among those before me. And those who have come to belong to this small number, and have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and who have, moreover, seen well enough the madness of the many, and that, one might almost say, no one does anything sound concerning the business of cities, nor is there any ally with whom a man might go to the aid of justice and come through alive, but rather, like a man who has fallen among wild beasts, neither willing to share in their wrongdoing nor able, alone, to hold out against all their savagery, he would perish before he could do any good to his city or his friends, and so prove useless to himself and to others — taking all this into account by reasoning, he keeps quiet and attends to his own affairs, as one who, in a storm of dust and hail driven before the wind, steps aside behind a wall, and, seeing the others filled with lawlessness, is content if somehow he himself can remain pure of injustice and unholy deeds, both living out his life here and, when his release from it comes, departing with fair hope, gracious and kindly.

What City Would Suit the Philosopher

And yet, he said, it would be no small thing he had accomplished when he departed.

Nor the greatest, I said, if he has not found a fitting constitution — for in one that fits, he himself will grow more and, along with his own concerns, will preserve those of the community as well.

As for philosophy, then — why it has incurred slander, and that it has incurred it unjustly — I think that has been adequately stated, unless you yourself still have something more to say.

But, he said, I have nothing more to say about this — yet which of the constitutions now current do you say is fitting for it?

Not any whatsoever, I said, but this is exactly what I charge: that none of the constitutions now existing is worthy of a philosophic nature — and that is why it is twisted and altered, just as foreign seed sown in another soil tends, once overpowered, to fade into the native growth, so too this kind, as things stand now, does not hold to its own power but falls away into an alien character; but if it should obtain the best constitution, just as it is itself the best, then it will show that this nature was in truth divine, while the rest — both of natures and of pursuits — are merely human. It is plain, then, that after this you will ask what this constitution is.

You have guessed wrong, he said, for that is not what I meant, but whether this is the constitution we went through in founding our city, or a different one.

In other respects, I said, it is this one; but this very point was made even then — that there would always need to be present in the city something that holds the same account of the constitution that you, the lawgiver, held when you laid down the laws.

It was indeed said, he replied.

But it was not made sufficiently clear, I said, from fear of the very things which you, by taking hold of them, have shown to make its demonstration long and difficult — since what is left is not the easiest thing in the world to go through either.

What sort of thing?

In what way a city that takes up philosophy will not be destroyed. For all great things are indeed precarious, and, as the saying goes, fine things are truly difficult.

But all the same, he said, let the proof be brought to completion, once this point has been made clear.

It is not unwillingness, I said, but, if anything, inability that will stand in the way — and since you are here, you will at least see my eagerness. Observe, even now, how eagerly and how recklessly I am about to say that a city must take up this pursuit in the opposite way from how it does now.

How?

Now, I said, those who even take it up — being young men, just out of childhood, in the interval between household management and money-making — come close to its hardest part and then break off, these being the ones counted the most philosophic — and by hardest I mean the part concerning arguments — while afterward, if, when others pursue it, they are invited and are willing to become listeners, they think it a great thing, supposing that it ought to be practiced only as a side matter; and toward old age, except for a few, they are extinguished far more thoroughly than the Heraclitean sun, in that they never kindle again.

But how ought it to be? So he asked.

Just the opposite: while they are still lads and boys they should take up an education and a philosophy suited to their years, and take very good care of their bodies during the time when these are sprouting and growing toward manhood, thereby acquiring a servant for philosophy; and as their age advances, when the soul begins to come to its maturity, they should intensify its exercises; and when their strength gives out and they are past political and military service, then at last they should be turned loose to graze and do nothing else except as a side matter — those, that is, who mean to live happily and, when they have died, to crown the life they have lived with the portion that befits it there.

You truly seem to me, he said, to speak eagerly at any rate, Socrates; I think, however, that most of those listening will resist all the more eagerly, and will not be persuaded in the least, beginning with Thrasymachus.

Do not set me at odds with Thrasymachus, I said, now that we have just become friends — not that we were enemies before. For we will not relax our effort in the least, until we either persuade both him and the others, or achieve something of use for that life to come, whenever, being born again, they happen upon such arguments.

You have named a short time indeed, he said.

For no time at all, I said — that is, compared with all time. However, it is no wonder that most people do not believe what is said, for they have never yet seen the thing now described actually occur, but rather have seen only such sayings as are deliberately made to resemble one another, and not, as now, coinciding by sheer chance. But a man made equal to virtue and, so far as possible, fully assimilated to it in both deed and word, holding power in some other such city, they have never yet seen — neither one such man nor several. Or do you think they have?

Persuading the Many: The Painter of Constitutions

Not in the least.

Nor again, my dear fellow, have they become adequate listeners to noble, free discourse — of the kind that strains after truth by every means for the sake of knowing it — while merely saluting from a distance whatever is clever and contentious and aims at nothing beyond reputation and rivalry, whether in the courts or in private company.

Not of these either, he said.

It was for just this reason, I said — foreseeing it even then — that we spoke as we did, however much we feared to, compelled by the truth: that neither a city nor a constitution, nor a man either, will ever become perfect until some necessity of chance compels these few philosophers — who are not wicked, though now called useless — whether they wish it or not, to take care of a city, and the city to be obedient to them, or until, upon the sons of those now holding power or kingship, or upon those men themselves, a true erotic love of true philosophy falls from some divine inspiration. Now that either one of these things, or both, should happen is impossible — for that, I say, no one has any argument. For in that case we should justly be laughed at for saying things no better than wishful prayers. Or is that not so?

So it is.

If, then, it is a necessity that men supreme in philosophy should take charge of a city — whether that has already happened in the boundless time now past, or is even now the case in some barbarian place, far off and beyond our view, or will come to be hereafter — on this point we are ready to contend by argument: that the constitution we have described has come to be, and is, and will indeed come to be, whenever this Muse becomes mistress of a city. For it is not impossible for it to come to be, nor are we saying impossible things — though that it is difficult is something we too admit.

So it seems to me too, he said.

But will you say, I said, that the many, for their part, do not think so?

Perhaps, he said.

My dear fellow, I said, do not accuse the many so harshly. They will have quite a different opinion, if, instead of contending for victory, you show them — in a spirit of reassurance, clearing away the slander against the love of learning — which men you mean by philosophers, and if you distinguish, just as you did a moment ago, their nature and their pursuit, so that they do not suppose you mean the men they have in mind. Or, even if they should view it that way [and you will say they would take on a different opinion and answer differently], do you suppose that anyone who is himself free of envy and gentle would be harsh toward one who is not harsh, or envious of one who is not envious? For I will say it before you do: I think a nature so harsh as that arises in only a few people, not in the multitude.

I too, of course, share that belief, he said.

Then do you also agree with this: that those responsible for the many being harshly disposed toward philosophy are the outsiders who have burst in where they do not belong, reviling one another, behaving contentiously, and always making their arguments about persons — doing what is least fitting for philosophy?

Very much so, he said.

For surely, Adeimantus, a man whose mind is truly fixed on the things that are has no leisure to look down at human business, to quarrel with people and be filled with envy and ill will; instead, looking at and contemplating things that are ordered and always constant, that neither wrong one another nor are wronged by one another, but are all in order and according to reason, he imitates them and assimilates himself to them as much as he can. Or do you think there is any way that a man who keeps admiring company with something will fail to imitate it?

Impossible, he said.

Then, keeping company with what is divine and orderly, the philosopher becomes orderly and divine, so far as is possible for a man — though slander is plentiful in every quarter.

Yes, altogether so.

Now if some necessity should come upon him, I said, to practice putting what he sees there into human characters — both privately and publicly — and not merely to shape himself alone, do you think he will turn out to be a poor craftsman of moderation and justice and popular virtue as a whole?

Least of all, he said.

But if the many should come to perceive that what we say about him is true, will they then be harsh with the philosophers, and disbelieve us when we say that a city could never be happy in any other way, unless it were painted by those painters who use the divine pattern?

They will not be harsh, he said, if indeed they perceive it. But what manner of sketching do you mean?

Taking the city and the characters of men, I said, as if they were a tablet, they would first wipe it clean — which is not at all an easy thing to do; but in any case you know that they would immediately differ from everyone else on this very point: that they would be unwilling to lay a hand on either a private person or a city, or to write laws, until they had either received it clean or made it clean themselves.

And rightly so, he said.

Then after this, do you think they would sketch in outline the form of the constitution?

What else?

Then, I think, as they filled in the work, they would glance frequently in each direction — toward what is by nature just and fine and moderate, and all such things, and again toward that other image they were producing in men, blending and mixing from human ways of life the very likeness of a man, taking their measure from that quality which Homer too, when it arises in men, called godlike and god-resembling.

Rightly so, he said.

And I think they would rub out one part and paint in another, until they had made human characters as dear to the gods as could possibly be.

It would certainly be the most beautiful painting, he said.

Are we then, I said, in some way persuading those men whom you said were coming at us up in arms, that the painter of constitutions we were praising to them at the time — the one because of whom they grew angry with us, since we were handing cities over to him — is a painter of just this kind, and are they, now that they hear this, growing somewhat gentler?

Yes, much gentler, he said, if they are in their right minds.

For how indeed will they have grounds to dispute it? Will they dispute that philosophers are lovers of what is and of truth?

That would be absurd, he said.

Or will they dispute that their nature — the one we went through — is akin to the best?

Not that either.

What then? Will such a nature, if it meets with the practices proper to it, not become perfectly good and philosophic, if any nature ever will? Or will he rather say it is those men, the ones we ruled out?

Surely not.

Will they then still grow savage when we say that, until the philosophic kind becomes master of a city, there will be no rest from evils for either the city or the citizens, nor will the constitution we have been telling as a tale in speech ever reach its completion in deed?

Perhaps less so, he said.

Do you want us, then, I said, to say not that they have become less harsh, but that they have become altogether gentle and are persuaded, so that, if nothing else, they may at least agree out of shame?

Certainly, he said.

Let these men, then, I said, be taken as persuaded of this — but will anyone contend, on this next point, that the offspring of kings or of potentates could not turn out to be philosophic in their natures?

Not a single person, he said.

But can anyone say that, once such men have come to be, there is a great necessity for them to be corrupted? That it is difficult for them to be preserved, we too agree — but is there anyone who would dispute that, in all time, out of all such men, not a single one could ever be preserved?

How could there be?

But surely, I said, one man, if he proves sufficient and has a city obedient to him, could accomplish everything that is now disbelieved.

For one is enough, he said.

For surely, I said, when a ruler establishes the laws and practices we have gone through, it is not, I take it, impossible for the citizens to be willing to carry them out.

Not in the slightest.

But then, is it anything to marvel at, or anything impossible, that what seems right to us should seem right to others as well?

The Greatest Study, and What the Good Is Not

I do not think so myself, he said.

And yet, as I think, we discussed sufficiently before this that our proposals are the best, if indeed they can be realized.

Yes, sufficiently so.

Now then, it seems, this is how matters stand for us regarding our legislation: what we propose is best, if it could come to be, but difficult to bring about — not impossible, however.

So it does, he said.

Then, since this has at last, with difficulty, reached its conclusion, must we not now say what remains after it — in what way, and out of what studies and practices, the saviors of the constitution will be found among us, and at what age each will take up each of these?

We must indeed say it, he said.

It was no cleverness on my part, I said, that made me pass over earlier the difficulty of the possession of women, and child-bearing, and the establishment of the rulers — I knew how invidious the wholly true arrangement is, and how hard to bring about; for now, nonetheless, the need to go through it has come. And the matters of the women and children have now been settled, but the matter of the rulers must be taken up again as if from the beginning. We said, if you remember, that they must be shown to be lovers of their city, tested in pleasures and pains, and must be seen not casting out this conviction in toils, nor in fears, nor in any other change of fortune — or else the one unable to hold to it must be rejected, while the one who comes through everywhere unspoiled, like gold tested in fire, must be set up as a ruler, and must be given honors and prizes, both in life and after death. Such, more or less, were the things said, while the argument slipped sideways and veiled itself, afraid to stir what now lies before us.

What you say is most true, he said — I do remember.

Yes, my friend, I said, I shrank from saying what has now been dared — but let this much now be dared: that our most exact guardians must be established as philosophers.

So let it be said, he said.

Understand, then, how naturally there will be few such men for you — for the nature we described as needing to belong to them rarely wants its parts to grow together in the same person; for the most part it grows up scattered.

How, he said, do you mean?

You know that quick learners, men of good memory, keen-witted, sharp, and whatever else goes along with these, are not apt to be born at once both vigorous and magnificent in mind, of the sort willing to live in an orderly way, with quiet and steadiness; rather, such quick men are carried by their sharpness wherever they happen to go, and all their steadiness deserts them.

What you say is true, he said.

Now these steady characters in turn, the ones not easily changed, which one would rather rely on as trustworthy, and which in war are not easily moved by fears, do the same thing again with respect to learning — they are sluggish and slow to learn, as if benumbed, and they are filled with sleep and yawning whenever there is need to work hard at anything of that sort.

That is so, he said.

But we say that a man must have a good and fine share of both — or else he must be given no share, either of the most exact education, or of honor, or of rule.

Rightly so, he said.

Then do you not think this will be rare?

How could it not?

He must be tested, then, in the toils and fears and pleasures we spoke of before, and further — this we now say, what we passed over then — he must be exercised in many studies too, while we watch whether that nature will be able to bear even the greatest studies, or whether it will play the coward, as those who play the coward in other things do.

It is indeed fitting, he said, to look at it this way. But which studies do you call the greatest?

You remember, I suppose, I said, that when we had distinguished three kinds of soul, we worked out, concerning justice and moderation and courage and wisdom, what each one is.

If I did not remember, he said, I would rightly deserve not to hear what remains.

And do you remember, too, what was said about them beforehand?

What was that?

We said, I believe, that to see them in the finest way there was another, longer road, by going round which they would become plain — though it was possible to attach to them proofs consistent with what had been said before. And you said that was enough, and so what was said then fell short, as it seemed to me, of exactness; but whether it was satisfactory to you, you yourselves would be the ones to say.

But to me, at least, he said, it seemed adequate — and indeed it seemed so to the others too.

But, my friend, I said, a measure of such things that falls short of what is by anything at all is not really adequate — for nothing incomplete is the measure of anything. But sometimes some people think that things are already good enough, and that there is no need to inquire further.

Yes indeed, he said, many people feel this way, out of laziness.

But this is a feeling, I said, that a guardian of the city and its laws needs least of all.

So it would seem, he said.

The longer road, then, my friend, I said, such a man must travel, and he must labor no less in learning than in physical training — or else, as we just said, he will never reach the end of the greatest and most fitting study.

What, he said, are these not the greatest things — is there something greater still than justice and the other things we discussed?

Something greater, I said — and of these very things it is not an outline that we must look at, as we do now; rather, we must not pass over the most finished working of them out. Or is it not absurd that, over other matters of little worth, we strain ourselves to do everything so that they will be as exact and as pure as possible, while for the greatest matters we do not think that the greatest exactness is due as well?

Very much so, he said, [the thought is a worthy one] — but as for this greatest study you speak of, and what it concerns, do you think, he said, that anyone would let you off without asking what it is?

Hardly, I said — but do ask, you too. At any rate you have heard it not just once or twice — but now either you do not recognize it, or you mean to make trouble for me by picking a quarrel with it. And I think it is rather this — since you have often heard that the form of the good is the greatest study, the one by whose further use just things, and everything else too, become useful and beneficial. And now you know well enough that this is what I am about to say, and, further, that we do not know it adequately; but if we do not know it, then, however well we might know everything else without it, you know that it does us no good at all — just as it would do no good to possess anything at all without the good. Or do you think there is any advantage in possessing every possession there is, if it is not a good one? Or in understanding everything else without the good, while understanding nothing that is fine and good?

No, by Zeus, not I, he said.

But surely you also know this much: that to the many the good seems to be pleasure, while to the more sophisticated, it is practical wisdom.

How could I not?

And you know too, my friend, that those who hold this view are unable to say which practical wisdom they mean, but in the end are forced to say it is the practical wisdom of the good.

Yes indeed, he said, and ridiculously so.

How could it not be, I said, when, after reproaching us for not knowing the good, they turn around and speak to us as though we did know it? For they say it is the practical wisdom of the good, as if we in turn understood what they mean whenever they utter the word good.

That is very true, he said.

But what about those who define the good as pleasure? Are they perhaps any less full of confusion than the others? Or are these people too not forced to admit that there are bad pleasures?

Very much so.

It follows, I think, that they end up admitting that the same things are both good and bad. Isn't that so?

Of course.

So is it not clear that there are great and many disputes about it?

How could there not be?

But what of this? Is it not clear that, with things just and fine, many would choose the things that merely seem so, even ⟨if⟩ they are not, and would nonetheless practice, and possess, and be thought to have them; but with good things, it is no longer enough for anyone to possess what merely seems good — instead they seek what really is good, and here, at last, everyone already disdains mere opinion?

Very much so, he said.

That which every soul pursues, and for the sake of which it does everything, divining that it is something real, yet at a loss, unable to grasp well enough what it actually is, or to make use of the sort of stable belief about it that it has about other things, and because of this missing whatever benefit there was in those other things as well — about something so important and so great, shall we then say that even those best men in the city, to whom we shall entrust everything, must be left in the dark?

Least of all, he said.

I think, at any rate, I said, that just things and fine things, so long as it is not known in what way they are good, will have got themselves no very valuable guardian in the man who does not know this — and I divine that no one will know them adequately before he knows that.

Yes, you divine rightly, he said.

Then will our constitution be perfectly ordered, if such a guardian oversees it — one who has knowledge of these things?

The Sun, Offspring of the Good

Necessarily, he said. But you yourself, Socrates, do you say that the good is knowledge, or pleasure, or something else besides these?

You there, my good man, I said, it has for a long time now been obvious that what satisfies other people about these matters would not satisfy you.

For it does not seem right to me either, Socrates, he said, that someone who has worked at these questions for so long should be able to report what others hold, but not what he holds himself.

And what of that? I said — do you think it right to speak as if one knew about things one does not know?

Not at all as one who knows, he said — but as one who supposes, wishing to say what he believes.

And what of that? I said — have you not noticed that opinions without knowledge are all ugly? The best of them are blind — or do men who hold something true but have no intellect strike you as any different from blind men who take the right road?

Not at all, he said.

Do you want, then, to look at ugly things, blind and crooked, when it's possible to hear bright and beautiful ones from others?

In the name of Zeus, Socrates, said Glaucon, do not stop now, just when you seem to be at the end. For it will satisfy us if you go through the good the same way you went through justice and moderation and the rest.

It will certainly satisfy me too, my friend, I said — but I'm afraid I won't be able to, and in my eagerness I'll make a fool of myself and provoke laughter. But, my blessed friends, let us for now leave aside just what the good itself is — for it seems to me more than the present impulse can reach, even to arrive at what I now think about it — but I am willing to speak about what appears to be the offspring of the good and most like it, if that is agreeable to you; if not, we shall let it go.

Well, speak, he said — you can pay back the account of the father another time.

I would wish, I said, to be able to pay it back myself, and for you to receive it in full, rather than, as now, only the interest. But receive, then, this interest and offspring of the good itself. Be careful, though, that I don't somehow deceive you without meaning to, paying out a counterfeit account of the interest.

We will be careful, he said, as far as we can — just speak.

Only once I've come to an agreement with you, I said, and reminded you of what was said before, and of what has already been said many times on other occasions.

What sort of things? So he asked.

There are many beautiful things, I said, and many good things, and we say that each set of them is so, and we distinguish them by an account.

We do indeed say that.

And also the beautiful itself and the good itself — and in the same way, concerning everything we then posited as many, we turn back and, positing a single form for each on the assumption that it is one, address each as what it is.

That is so.

And we say that the many are seen but not thought, while the forms, in turn, are thought but not seen.

Absolutely.

With what part of ourselves, then, do we see the things that are seen?

With sight, he said.

And is it not, I said, by hearing that we hear the things that are heard, and by the other senses all the things that are perceptible?

Of course.

Have you noticed, then, I said, how the craftsman of the senses made the power of seeing and being seen by far the most costly of all?

Not really, he said.

Well, consider it this way. Is there anything else, of a different kind, that hearing and voice need in addition, so that the one may hear and the other be heard — which, if it isn't present as a third thing, the one won't hear and the other won't be heard?

Of nothing, he said.

And I think, I said, that many of the other senses too — not to say none of them — need nothing of this kind. Or can you name one?

I certainly cannot, he said.

But don't you realize that sight and the visible do need something?

How so?

Sight being present in the eyes, I said, and the one who has it trying to use it, and color being present in the objects — unless a third kind of thing, whose nature is specifically fitted for this very purpose, is also present — you know that sight will see nothing, and the colors will remain invisible.

And what, he said, is this thing you mean?

What you call light, I said.

What you say is true, he said.

It is in no small measure, then, that the sense of seeing and the power of being seen have been yoked together by a more honored yoke than the other pairings, if indeed light is not without honor.

But indeed, he said, it's far from being without honor.

Which of the gods in heaven, then, can you point to as responsible for this, whose light lets our sight see in the best way, and the things seen be seen?

The very one you would name, he said, and everyone else too — for clearly you're asking about the sun.

Is sight, then, related by nature to this god in the following way?

How do you mean?

Sight itself is not the sun, nor is that in which it comes to be — what we call the eye.

No, indeed not.

But I think it is the most sunlike of the organs concerned with the senses.

By far.

And doesn't it possess the power it has as something dispensed from the sun, like an inflow?

Certainly.

Then is it not also true of the sun, that it is not sight, but, being the cause of sight, is seen by this very sight?

That is so, he said.

Say, then, I said, that this is what I mean by the offspring of the good, which the good begot as its analogue: what the good itself is, in the intelligible region, in relation to intellect and the things thought, this same thing is, in the visible region, in relation to sight and the things seen.

How do you mean? Go through it for me still further, he said.

Eyes, I said — you know that when someone turns them no longer toward things whose colors the light of day covers, but toward things lit by the gleams of night, they grow dim and seem nearly blind, as if clear sight were not present in them?

Very much so, he said.

But when, I think, they turn toward things the sun shines on, they see clearly, and the same eyes plainly have sight present in them.

Of course.

In just this way, then, think of the soul too: when it fixes itself on that which is illuminated by truth and what is, it apprehends and knows it and appears to possess intellect; but when it fixes on that which is mixed with darkness — that which comes to be and passes away — it forms opinion and grows dim, shifting its opinions up and down, and again resembles something without intellect.

So it does resemble that.

Say, then, that this thing — which supplies truth to the things known, and renders to the knower his power — is the form of the good; and conceive of it as the cause of knowledge and of truth, and as itself something known; and, beautiful though both of these are, knowledge and truth, you will judge rightly in holding that it is other than they, and still more beautiful than they; and as for knowledge and truth: just as there it was right to think light and sight sunlike, but not right to hold either to be the sun, so here too it is right to think both of these goodlike, but not right to hold either of them to be the good — rather, the condition of the good must be honored still more highly.

You are describing an inconceivable beauty, he said, if it provides knowledge and truth, and yet is itself beyond these in beauty — for surely you don't mean that it is pleasure.

Hush, I said — rather, go on examining its image still further in this way.

How do you mean?

You will say, I think, that the sun provides the things that are seen not only with the power to be seen, but also with their becoming and growth and nourishment, though it is not itself becoming.

How could it not?

Say, then, likewise, that for the things known, not only is their being known granted by the good, but their existence and their being are added to them by it as well, though the good itself is not being — rather, it stands still beyond being, surpassing it in seniority and power.

And Glaucon, quite comically, said, by Apollo, what a supernatural extravagance.

You are to blame, I said, for forcing me to say what I think about it.

And do not stop at all, he said — if nothing else, at least go through the likeness to the sun again, in case you are leaving something out.

Well, I said, I'm certainly leaving out a great deal.

Then don't leave out even a small part, he said.

I think, I said, that I'll leave out a great deal — but still, as much as is possible for now, I won't willingly leave anything out.

Please don't, he said.

The Divided Line

Understand, then, I said, as we are saying, that there are two of them, and that the one rules over the kind and region of the intelligible, while the other, in turn, over the visible — I avoid saying the heaven, so that I may not seem to you to be quibbling about the name. But in any case, do you grasp these as two kinds, visible and intelligible?

I have them.

So then, take a line cut into two unequal segments, and cut each of the two segments again by the same ratio — the segment of the visible kind and that of the intelligible — and you will have them, in respect of clarity and obscurity relative to one another, so that in the visible the one segment is images — and by images I mean, first of all, shadows, then reflections in water and in whatever is close-grained, smooth, and bright, and everything of that sort — if you follow.

But I do follow.

Now set down the other segment as that which this resembles: the living things around us, the whole class of what grows, and the whole class of what is manufactured.

I set it down, he said.

Would you also be willing to say, I said, that it has been divided with respect to truth and untruth, so that as the opinable is to the knowable, so the likeness is to that which it resembles?

I would indeed, he said, very much so.

Now consider, in turn, how the intelligible must be divided.

How?

In this way — in the one part of it the soul, using as images the things imitated before, is compelled to inquire from hypotheses, proceeding not toward a first principle but toward a conclusion, while in the other part, in turn — the part that goes toward an unhypothesized first principle — it goes from a hypothesis, and without the images the other part uses, makes its way by means of the forms themselves, through themselves.

What you are saying, he said, I did not follow well enough.

But let me try again, I said; for once I have said certain things first, you will understand more easily. For I think you know that those who occupy themselves with geometry, calculation, and such things posit the odd and the even, the figures, the three kinds of angles, and other things akin to these in each branch, treating them as known — having made these into hypotheses, they no longer think it worthwhile to give any account of them, either to themselves or to others, on the ground that they are evident to everyone — and starting from these, going through the remaining steps, they arrive, consistently, at that very thing toward which they set out to inquire.

Quite so, he said — that much I know.

And also that they make further use of visible shapes and construct their arguments about them, thinking not about these but about those things which they resemble — making their arguments for the sake of the square itself and its diagonal, not for the sake of this one which they draw — and so with everything else in the same way: these very things which they mold and draw, of which there are also shadows and images in water, they now use, in turn, as images, while seeking to see those things themselves which one could not see otherwise than by understanding.

That is true, he said.

This, then, is what I called the intelligible kind — that the soul is compelled to use hypotheses in its inquiry into it, not proceeding toward a first principle, on the ground that it is unable to step above the hypotheses, but using as images those very things which are copied by the things below, and which, set beside those, are regarded and honored as being clear and evident.

I understand, he said, that you mean what falls under geometry and its sister crafts.

Now understand that by the other segment of the intelligible I mean this: that which argument itself takes hold of by the power of dialectic, treating its hypotheses not as first principles but truly as hypotheses — as footholds and springboards — so that, going as far as the unhypothesized, to the first principle of the whole, and having grasped it, and then again holding on to the things that hang from it, it thus descends to a conclusion, making no use whatsoever of anything perceptible, but of the forms themselves, through themselves, into themselves, and ends in forms.

I understand, he said — not fully, for you seem to me to be describing quite a task — but that you wish to mark off as clearer what is studied by the knowledge of dialectic concerning being and the intelligible, than what is studied by the so-called crafts, for which hypotheses are first principles, and those who study them are compelled to view them by understanding rather than by the senses; yet because they do not ascend to a first principle in their examination, but proceed from hypotheses, they seem to you not to possess intellect about these things, even though they are intelligible together with a first principle. And you seem to me to call the condition of geometers and such people understanding, but not intellect, treating understanding as something between opinion and intellect.

You have grasped it most adequately, I said. And for me, take these four states arising in the soul corresponding to the four segments — reason for the topmost, understanding for the second, and assign belief to the third and imagination to the last — and arrange them in proportion, considering that just as the things they are set over share in truth, so these states share in clarity.

I understand, he said, and I agree, and I arrange them as you say.

Book VII

The Cave

After this, I said, compare our nature — in respect of education and its lack — to a condition like the following. Picture people in a dwelling underground, shaped like a cave, with its entrance open toward the light and running the length of the whole cave; people who have lived there since childhood, chained by the legs and by the neck, so that they stay in place and see only what is straight in front of them, unable to turn their heads around in a circle because of the chain; with light reaching them from a fire burning above and far off behind them; and between the fire and the prisoners, a path running along above, and alongside this path, picture a low wall built up, like the screens showmen set up in front of the audience, above which they display their marvels.

I see, he said.

Now picture people carrying alongside this wall all sorts of objects that project above it, and statues of men and figures of other animals worked in stone and wood and every kind of material, and, as you would expect, some of the carriers talking and others silent.

You are describing a strange image, he said, and strange prisoners.

Like us, I said; for in the first place, do you think such people would have seen anything of themselves or of one another besides the shadows the fire throws on the wall of the cave facing them?

How could they, he said, if they were compelled to hold their heads motionless throughout their lives?

And what about the things carried past? Isn't it the same with them?

What else?

If, then, they were able to talk with one another, don't you think they would take whatever they saw to be the real things?

Necessarily.

And what if the prison also had an echo coming from the wall facing them? Do you think that, whenever one of those passing by spoke, they would take what was speaking to be anything but the shadow passing by?

No, by Zeus, not I, he said.

Then surely, I said, such people would take nothing to be true except the shadows of the manufactured objects.

Quite necessarily, he said.

Consider, then, I said, what their release and cure from both the chains and their folly would be like, if something of this sort were to happen to them by nature: whenever one of them was released and compelled suddenly to stand up, turn his neck, walk, and look up toward the light, and in doing all this felt pain, and because of the glare was unable to make out clearly the things whose shadows he had until then been seeing, what do you think he would say, if someone told him that before he had been seeing nothing but nonsense, but now, being nearer to what is and turned toward things more fully real, he was seeing more correctly, and, further, if that person, pointing to each of the things passing by, were to compel him by questioning to say what it is? Don't you think he would be at a loss, and consider what he formerly saw more true than what is now being shown to him?

Far more so, he said.

And then, if someone compelled him to look directly at the light itself, wouldn't his eyes hurt, and wouldn't he flee, turning away toward the things he is able to see clearly, and consider these to be really clearer than what is being shown to him?

So it is, he said.

And if, I said, someone dragged him away from there by force, up the rough, steep ascent, and did not let him go before hauling him out into the light of the sun, wouldn't he suffer pain and resent being dragged, and when he came to the light, wouldn't he find his eyes so full of glare that he could not see even one of the things now said to be true?

No, he said — not suddenly, at least.

He would need time to grow accustomed, I imagine, if he is going to see the things above. And first he would most easily make out shadows, and after that the reflections of people and of other things in water, and later the things themselves; and from these he would more easily gaze, by night, at the things in the sky and at the sky itself, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day at the sun and the sun's light.

How could he not?

Last of all, I think, he would be able to look upon the sun — not its images in water or in some place not its own, but the sun itself, by itself, in its own region — and see what it is like.

Necessarily, he said.

And after this he would go on to reason that this is the one that provides the seasons and the years, and governs everything in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all the things they used to see.

Clearly, he said, that is what he would come to after those earlier stages.

Well then? Don't you think that, recalling his first dwelling, and the wisdom there, and his former fellow prisoners, he would count himself fortunate for the change and pity them?

Very much so.

And if there were honors and praises among them at that time, from one another, and prizes for the one who saw most sharply the things passing by, and who best remembered which of them were accustomed to pass earlier, which later , and which together, and who from these was most able to divine what was about to come, do you think he would be desirous of such things and envy those among them who were honored and held power, or would he rather have felt what Homer describes, and want badly to work the soil as a hired hand to another man, one with no land of his own, and to endure anything whatsoever, rather than hold those opinions and live in that way?

Yes, he said, I think he would accept enduring anything at all, rather than live in that way.

And consider this too, I said. If such a person went back down and sat again in the same seat, wouldn't he have his eyes full of darkness, coming suddenly from the sun?

Certainly, he said.

And if he had to compete again in judging those shadows against the men who had been prisoners all along, while his eyes were still dim, before they had settled — and the time needed to grow accustomed were not at all short — wouldn't he become a laughingstock, and wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes ruined, and that it isn't even worth trying to go up? And the one who tried to release them and lead them up — if they could somehow get their hands on him and kill him — wouldn't they kill him?

Indeed they would, he said.

Reading the Cave: The Turning of the Soul

This image, then, I said, dear Glaucon, must be attached, the whole of it, to what was said before — likening the region revealed through sight to the dwelling of the prison, and the light of the fire within it to the power of the sun; and if you take the upward ascent and the viewing of what is above as the soul's journey up into the intelligible place, you will not be wide of my own expectation, at any rate, since that is what you are eager to hear. God, I suppose, knows whether it happens to be true. What appears to me, at any rate, appears like this: in the realm of the knowable, the form of the good is seen last, and only with difficulty, but once seen, one must conclude that it is, for all things, the cause of everything right and beautiful — in the visible realm giving birth to light and to the lord of light, and being itself sovereign in the intelligible realm, providing truth and intellect — and that whoever intends to act sensibly, whether in private or in public, must see it.

I think so too, he said, so far as I am able.

Come, then, I said, join me in believing this too, and do not be surprised that those who have reached that point are unwilling to engage in human affairs, but their souls are always eager to spend their time above — for that is reasonable, I suppose, if indeed this too holds according to the image we described before.

That is reasonable, he said.

But what about this? Do you think it at all surprising, I said, if someone who has come from divine contemplations to human evils behaves awkwardly and looks quite ridiculous, still dim-sighted, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the darkness around him is forced to contend in the courts, or somewhere else, about the shadows of justice, or about the statues of which they are the shadows, and to dispute about how these things are understood by people who have never yet seen justice itself?

Not at all surprising, he said.

But anyone with intellect, I said, would remember that disturbances of the eyes are of two kinds and come from two causes — when they pass from light into darkness, and from darkness into light. And if he thought that the same things happen to the soul too, then whenever he saw a soul disturbed and unable to see something clearly, he would not laugh unthinkingly, but would consider whether, coming from a brighter life, it has been darkened through unfamiliarity, or whether, coming from greater ignorance into a brighter place, it has been filled with a dazzling glare — and so he would count the one happy for its condition and its life, and pity the other, and if he wanted to laugh at it, his laughter would be less absurd than laughter at the soul that has come down from above, out of the light.

You put that very reasonably, he said.

We must, then, I said, think something like this about these matters, if this is true: that education is not what it is claimed to be by those who profess to teach it. They say, I suppose, that although knowledge is not present in the soul, they put it in — as if putting sight into blind eyes.

So they do say, he said.

But the present argument, I said, indicates that this power is already present in each person's soul, and also the instrument by which each person comes to understand — just as, if the eye could not turn from darkness toward brightness except together with the whole body, so too it must be turned around, together with the whole soul, away from becoming, until it becomes able to bear looking at being, and at the brightest part of being; and this, we say, is the good. Isn't that so?

Yes.

Of this, then, I said, there would be a craft — the craft of this turning around, of how it will be turned most easily and most effectively — not a craft of implanting sight in it, but one that, since it already has sight but is not turned the right way and is not looking where it should, contrives to bring this about.

So it seems, he said.

The other things called virtues of the soul, then, do look to be close to those of the body—for in truth they are not present beforehand, but are later implanted by habits and exercises—but the virtue of thought, it seems, turns out to be something more divine than anything else, and it never loses its power, but through the turning around becomes useful and beneficial, or, again, useless and harmful. Or have you not noticed yet, concerning people said to be wicked but clever, how keenly their little soul sees, and how sharply it makes out the things it has turned toward, since its sight is not poor at all, but is forced to serve vice — so that the sharper it sees, the more evils it works?

Certainly, he said.

This, however, I said — this element of such a nature — if it were hammered at from childhood and so cut free of the leaden weights, akin to becoming, which grow onto it through eating and pleasures and gluttonies of that kind and turn the soul's vision downward — if, released from these, it were turned around toward the things that are true, then this same faculty in these same people would see those things most sharply, just as it now sees the things it is turned toward.

Compelling the Philosophers to Go Back Down

Likely enough, he said.

What then? Isn't this likely, I said, and indeed necessary from what we've said before: that neither the uneducated, who have no experience of truth, could ever adequately govern a city, nor those who are allowed to spend their whole lives in education — the first because they have no single mark in life at which they must aim in doing everything they do, in private and in public, and the second because they will not act willingly, believing that while still alive they have already settled in the Isles of the Blessed?

True, he said.

It is our task, then, I said, as founders, to compel the best natures to arrive at the study which we said before was the greatest, to see the good and to make that ascent, and once they have ascended and seen enough, not to allow them what is now allowed them.

What is that?

To remain there, I said, and not be willing to go back down again to those prisoners, nor to share in the labors and honors among them, whether these be of less or of greater account.

Then, he said, shall we be doing them an injustice, making them live worse when a better life is possible for them?

You're forgetting again, my friend, I said, that the law's concern is not that any one class in a city should fare exceptionally well, but that this should come about in the city as a whole — fitting the citizens together by persuasion and by compulsion, making them share with one another whatever benefit each is able to confer on the community, and itself producing such men in the city, not so as to let each turn wherever he wishes, but so as to make full use of them for binding the city together.

True, he said — for I had forgotten.

Consider then, Glaucon, I said, that we will not be doing an injustice to the philosophers who arise among us either, but will be saying just things to them, when we compel them to care for the others as well and to guard them. For we will say that those who become such in other cities reasonably take no part in the labors within them, since they spring up of their own accord, against the will of the constitution under which each grows; and it is just that what grows of itself, owing nourishment to no one, should not be eager to pay anyone back the price of its upbringing; but you we have begotten, for yourselves and for the rest of the city alike, as leaders and kings, as though in a hive of bees, educated better and more completely than those others, and better able to take part in both. Each of you, then, must go down in turn to dwell together with the others, and grow accustomed to observing the things in the dark; for once accustomed, you will see a thousand times better than those there, and will know what each of the images is, and of what, through having seen the truth about beautiful things and just things and good things. And so the city will be governed by us and by you in waking reality and not in a dream, unlike most cities today, which are governed by men shadow-fighting against one another and quarreling over ruling as though it were some great good. But the truth, I think, is something like this: in the city where those who are to rule are least eager to rule, that city must of necessity be governed best and with the least civil strife, while the one that gets the opposite kind of rulers is governed in the opposite way.

Certainly, he said.

Do you think, then, that our nurslings will disobey us when they hear this, and will be unwilling each to do their share of the work in the city in turn, wishing instead to spend the greater part of their time dwelling with one another in the pure region?

Impossible, he said — for we will be laying just commands on just men. Beyond all doubt, each of them will go to rule as to something necessary, the very opposite of those who now rule in each city.

That is how it stands, my friend, I said: if you can discover a life better than ruling for those who are going to rule, then a well-governed city is possible for you; for only in that city will the truly rich rule — rich not in gold, but in what the happy person must be rich in, a good and sensible life. But if men who are poor and hungry for private goods go into public affairs, thinking that from there they must seize the good, it is not possible; for then ruling becomes something fought over, and such a war, being internal and domestic, destroys both them and the rest of the city.

Very true, he said.

Do you know of any other life, then, I said, that looks down on political offices besides that of true philosophy?

No, by Zeus, he said.

And yet those who go to it must not be lovers of ruling — otherwise the rival lovers will fight over it.

How could it be otherwise?

Whom else, then, will you compel to go to the guardianship of the city, except those who have the most practical wisdom about the things through which a city is governed best, and who have other honors and a better life than the political one?

No others, he said.

What Draws the Soul Upward: Number

Do you want us, then, to consider this right away — in what way such men will come into being, and how one will lead them up into the light, just as some are said to have ascended from Hades to the gods?

How could I not want it? So he said.

This, then, as it seems, would not be the turning of a potsherd, but a turning around of the soul from a kind of day that is really night, toward the true day — a rising up to what is — which we shall say is true philosophy.

Certainly.

Then is it not necessary to consider which of our studies has such a power?

How could it not be?

What, then, Glaucon, would be a study that draws the soul from becoming toward being? And here is what I have in mind as I ask it — did we not say that these men, while young, must of necessity be athletes of war?

We did say that.

So the study we are seeking must attend to this as well, in addition to that other requirement.

Which one?

That it not be useless to men of war.

It must indeed, he said, if that is possible.

Now, earlier in our discussion, they were educated by us in gymnastic and music .

That was so, he said.

And gymnastic, I think, has to do with what comes to be and passes away; for it presides over the growth and decay of the body.

So it appears.

This, then, would not be the study we are seeking.

No, it would not.

But is it music, then, as much of it as we went through before?

But that, he said, was the counterpart of gymnastic, if you remember — training the guardians by habits, imparting through harmony a certain harmoniousness, not knowledge, and through rhythm a certain rhythmicality, and having, in its stories too, other habits akin to these, both the stories that were mythical and those that were more true; but as for a study leading toward the sort of thing you are now seeking, there was none in it.

You remind me most accurately, I said — for in truth it had nothing of the kind. But, my good Glaucon, what could such a thing be? For all the crafts, I suppose, seemed to be vulgar—

How could they not? And yet what other study is left, apart from music and gymnastic and the crafts?

Come, I said, if we have nothing further to grasp outside of these, let us take up something that extends over all of them.

Which is that?

Something like this common thing, which all crafts and all forms of understanding and knowledge make use of — which indeed everyone must learn first of all.

Which is that? So he asked.

This humble thing, I said — distinguishing one from two from three; in a word, I mean number and calculation. Or is that not how things stand with them — that every craft and every branch of knowledge is compelled to partake of them?

Very much so, he said.

And is not the craft of war, I said, one of them?

Quite necessarily, he said.

At any rate, I said, Palamedes always makes Agamemnon out to be utterly ridiculous as a general in the tragedies. Or have you not noticed that he claims to have discovered number, and so to have set the army's ranks in order at Troy and counted the ships and everything else — implying that before this all was uncounted, and that Agamemnon, it seems, did not even know how many feet he had, if he really did not know how to count? And yet what sort of general do you think he would be?

A strange one, he said, for my part, if that were true.

Shall we not, then, I said, set down as a necessary study for a man of war the ability to calculate and count?

Most of all, he said, if he is going to understand anything at all about the ranks — or rather, if he is even to be a human being.

Do you notice, I said, the same thing about this study that I do?

Which is that?

It looks as though it is by nature one of the studies we are seeking, one of those that lead toward reason, yet no one uses it rightly, suited as it entirely is to draw the soul toward being.

What, he said, do you mean?

I will try, I said, to make clear what seems to me to be so. For as to what I distinguish in my own mind as leading where we say and as not leading — join me in looking, and either agree or say no, so that we may see this more clearly too, whether it is as I surmise.

Show me, he said.

Then I am showing you, I said, if you can make it out — on the one hand, the things among our perceptions that do not summon reason to examine them, since they are judged well enough by perception itself, and on the other hand, the things that entirely summon it to examine them, since perception does nothing sound there.

You obviously mean the things that appear at a distance, he said, and things done in shadow-painting.

You have not quite hit on what I mean, I said.

What sort of thing, he said, do you mean?

The things that do not summon, I said, are those that do not at the same time pass over into the opposite perception; and I set down as summoning those that do pass over, whenever the perception reveals this no more than its opposite, whether it strikes us from nearby or from a distance. You will grasp what I mean more clearly in this way. These, we say, would be three fingers — the smallest, the second, and the middle one.

Certainly, he said.

Think of me, then, as speaking of them as seen from nearby. But consider this about them for me.

What is that?

Each of them appears alike, I suppose, as a finger, and in this respect it makes no difference at all whether it is seen in the middle or at the end, whether it is white or black, whether it is thick or thin, and everything of that sort. For in all these cases, the soul of ordinary people is not compelled to ask reason what a finger actually is — since sight never signals to it, at the same time, that a finger is the opposite of a finger.

No, indeed not, he said.

Then, I said, it stands to reason that such a case would not be apt to summon reason, or to awaken it.

Reasonably so.

But what of this? Does sight see their largeness and smallness well enough, and does it make no difference to it whether one of them lies in the middle or at the end? And does touch likewise perceive thickness and thinness, or softness and hardness, well enough? And do the other perceptions not reveal such things deficiently? Or does each of them work like this — the perception stationed over the hard is compelled to be stationed over the soft as well, and it reports to the soul that, as it perceives it, hard and soft are the same thing?

That is so, he said.

Then, I said, is it not necessary that in such cases, again, the soul be at a loss — as to what this perception means by hard, if it calls the same thing soft as well; and as to what light and heavy are, if it signifies that the heavy is light and the light is heavy?

Yes indeed, he said — these reports are strange to the soul, and in need of examination.

It stands to reason, then, I said, that in such cases the soul first summons calculation and reason and tries to examine whether each of the things reported to it is one or two.

How could it not?

Then if it appears as two, does each of the two appear as distinct and as one?

Yes.

If, then, each is one, but both together are two, it will conceive the two as separate — for it would not conceive two as inseparable, but rather as one.

Rightly.

Yet, we say, sight also saw the large and the small, but not as separate — rather as something blended together. Is that not so?

Yes.

And in order to get clarity here, reason in turn was compelled to see the large and the small, not blended together but distinguished — the opposite of what sight did.

True.

Then is it not from somewhere here that it first occurs to us to ask what, then, the large and the small actually are?

Absolutely.

And so indeed we called the one intelligible, and the other visible.

The Mathematical Studies: Arithmetic, Geometry, and Solids

Most rightly, he said.

This, then, is just what I was trying to say a moment ago: that some things summon the understanding while others do not, defining as summoning whatever falls upon perception together with its own opposite, and whatever does not do this as not rousing reason.

I understand now, he said, and it seems so to me.

What then? To which of the two do number and the one seem to belong?

I do not see it, he said.

But reason it out, I said, from what has already been said. For if the one is adequately seen just by itself, or grasped by some other perception, it would not draw the soul toward being, as we said in the case of the finger; but if some opposite is always seen along with it at the same time, so that it appears no more one than its opposite, there would then be need of something to judge between them, and in that case the soul would be compelled to be at a loss and to inquire, stirring the notion within itself, and to ask what the one itself really is, and thus the study of the one would be among the things that lead and turn the soul toward the vision of being.

But surely, he said, the sight of it has this feature not least; for we see the same thing at once as one and as unlimited in multitude.

Then if this is true of the one, I said, does not all number undergo the same thing?

How could it not?

But surely calculation and arithmetic are wholly concerned with number.

Very much so.

And these plainly lead toward truth.

Yes, extraordinarily so.

Then it would seem to be among the studies we are seeking; for the man of war must learn these for the sake of his formations, while the philosopher must learn them because he has to rise up out of becoming and lay hold of being, or else never become skilled in calculation.

That is so, he said.

And our guardian happens to be both a man of war and a philosopher.

Of course.

It would then be a fitting study, Glaucon, to establish by law, and to persuade those who are to share in the greatest things in the city to go in for calculation and to take hold of it, not in a layman's way, but until they arrive, by reason itself, at the contemplation of the nature of numbers, not for the sake of buying and selling, practicing it as merchants or shopkeepers do, but for the sake of war, and for the soul's own ease in turning from becoming to truth and being.

You put it very well, he said.

And indeed, I said, now that the study of calculations has been mentioned, I also notice how subtle it is and how useful to us in many ways for what we want, if one pursues it for the sake of knowing rather than for the sake of peddling.

In what way? So he asked.

In this way — what we were just saying, that it strongly leads the soul upward somewhere and compels it to discourse about the numbers themselves, in no way accepting it if someone offers for discussion numbers that have visible or tangible bodies. For you know, I suppose, that those who are clever in these matters, if someone attempts to cut the one itself in argument, laugh at him and will not accept it, but if you break it into fractions, they multiply it, taking care that the one should never appear to be not one but many parts.

Most true, he said.

What then do you think, Glaucon, if someone should ask them, "You wonderful men, what numbers are you talking about, in which the one is such as you maintain — each one equal to every other, differing not even slightly, and having no part within itself?" What do you think they would answer?

This is what I, at any rate, think they would say: that they are speaking of things which admit only of being thought, and which cannot be handled in any other way.

You see then, my friend, I said, that this study really does seem to be necessary for us, since it plainly compels the soul to use reason itself upon truth itself?

And indeed, he said, it certainly does that.

And what of this? Have you already observed this, that those who are by nature good at calculation are born quick, so to speak, at all studies, while the slow, if they are trained and exercised in this, even if they gain no other benefit, still all make progress, at least, toward becoming quicker than they themselves were?

It is so, he said.

And indeed, as I think, you would not easily find many studies that give the learner and practitioner more toil than this.

No, indeed not.

For all these reasons, then, this study must not be abandoned, but those of the best natures must be educated in it.

I agree, he said.

Let this, then, be settled as one point for us; and let us consider, as a second, whether what comes next after it is at all fitting for us.

Which is that? Or do you mean geometry, he said?

That very thing, I said.

So far as it bears on warfare, he said, it is clear that it is fitting; for in setting up camps, and seizing positions, and massing and extending an army, and in all the other formations that armies take up in the actual battles and on the march, a man would differ from himself according as he is a geometer or not.

But still, I said, for purposes of that sort a small portion of geometry and calculation would suffice; what we must examine is whether the greater part of it, going on further, tends toward that — toward making it easier to discern the form of the good. And we say that everything tends toward that same point which compels the soul to turn around toward that region in which is the most blessed part of being, which it must by every means behold.

You are right, he said.

Then if it compels the soul to contemplate being, it is fitting; but if it compels it to contemplate becoming, it is not fitting.

So we say, at any rate.

Then this, at least, I said, is something no one with even a little experience of geometry will dispute with us — that this knowledge is entirely the opposite of what those who practice it say about it in their accounts.

How is that? So he asked.

They speak, I suppose, in a very ridiculous way, though they cannot help it; for as though they were doing something and making all their arguments for the sake of action, they talk of "squaring," and "applying," and "adding," and use all such expressions, when in fact the whole study is pursued for the sake of knowledge.

Yes, entirely so, he said.

Then must not this further be agreed?

What is that?

That it is knowledge of what always is, and not of anything that at some time comes to be and passes away.

That is readily agreed, he said; for geometrical knowledge is knowledge of what always is.

Then, my noble friend, it would draw the soul toward truth, and would produce a philosopher's understanding, so as to hold above what we now wrongly hold below.

As much as possible, he said.

Then, I said, it must be enjoined as strongly as possible that those in your beautiful city shall in no way hold themselves apart from geometry. For even its by-products are not small.

What are they? So he asked.

Those you mentioned yourself, I said, the ones concerning war, and then, for all studies too, in respect of taking them in better — we know, I suppose, that it makes the whole and entire difference whether a man has laid hold of geometry or not.

The whole difference indeed, by Zeus, he said.

Shall we then set this down as a second study for the young?

Let us set it down, he said.

And what of this? Shall we set down astronomy as a third? Or does it not seem so to you?

It does to me, at any rate, he said; for to be more keenly sensitive about the seasons, and the months, and the years, is fitting not only for farming and seafaring, but no less for generalship.

You are a pleasant fellow, I said, in that you seem afraid of the multitude, lest you should seem to be prescribing useless studies. But in fact it is no trifle, though it is hard to believe, that in these studies a certain instrument of the soul of each person is purified and rekindled, after it has been destroyed and blinded by other pursuits, though it is worth more to have it preserved than ten thousand eyes; for by it alone is truth seen. Now to those who agree with this, you will seem to speak marvelously well, but those who have never in any way perceived it will naturally think you are saying nothing; for they see no benefit from these studies worth mentioning. Consider then, right away, which of the two you are addressing; or whether you are addressing neither, but are making these arguments chiefly for your own sake, though you would not begrudge it to anyone else either, if someone were able to derive some benefit from them.

That is what I choose, he said, to speak and to ask and to answer chiefly for my own sake.

Go back, then, I said; for just now we did not correctly take up what comes next after geometry.

How did we take it? So he asked.

After the plane, I said, we took up the solid already in revolution, before taking the solid itself by itself; but the correct order is to take up the third dimension right after the second. This, I suppose, has to do with the dimension of cubes, and whatever partakes of depth.

It is indeed, he said; but this, Socrates, does not yet seem to have been discovered.

The causes are twofold, I said; because no city holds these studies in honor, they are pursued feebly, being difficult as they are, and those who pursue them need a director, without whom they would not discover anything — a director who, in the first place, is difficult to come by, and then, even once he has come to be, as things now stand, those who are inquiring into these matters, thinking too highly of themselves, would not be persuaded by him. But if the whole city were to direct the inquiry together, holding these studies in honor, then those men would be persuaded, and these matters, sought continuously and intently, would become clear as they really are; since even now, dishonored and cut short as they are by the many, and pursued by inquirers who have no account to give of their usefulness, they nevertheless, against all this, grow by force of their own charm, and it would be nothing surprising if they should come to light.

And indeed, he said, their charm is truly exceptional. But tell me more clearly what you were just saying. For you were setting down the study of the plane as geometry, I suppose.

Yes, I said.

Then, he said, at first you put astronomy after this, but afterward you drew back.

In hurrying, I said, to go quickly through everything, I am only going more slowly; for since the method of the dimension of depth, because of the ridiculous state of its inquiry, comes next in order, I passed over it and spoke of astronomy right after geometry, though astronomy is itself a motion involving depth.

Astronomy and Harmonics

You are right, he said.

Then, I said, let us set down astronomy as a fourth study, assuming that the study now neglected will be there for us, if a city pursues it.

That is reasonable, he said. And the very point you rebuked me for just now, Socrates — praising astronomy crudely — I now praise it in the way you take it up ; for it seems clear to everyone that this at least compels the soul to look upward and leads it from the things here to that place.

Perhaps, I said, it is clear to everyone except me; for it does not seem so to me.

But how so? So he asked.

The way those who lead people up toward philosophy handle it now makes the soul look very much downward.

What, he said, do you mean?

You seem to me, I said, to take no mean view in your own mind of what the study of things above is; for you are apt to suppose that if a person craned his neck to gaze at decorations on a ceiling and made out something there, he would be studying it with reason and not with his eyes. Perhaps, then, you think rightly, and I foolishly. For I, in turn, am unable to consider anything else as making the soul look upward except that study which concerns being and the invisible; and if someone, gaping upward or squinting downward, tries to learn any of the things perceived by the senses, I say he never learns it at all — for he has no knowledge of such things — and that his soul looks not upward but downward, even if he does his learning while swimming on his back on land or in the sea.

I get my due, he said; for you have rightly rebuked me. But how, then, were you saying astronomy ought to be learned, contrary to how they now learn it, if they are to learn it usefully for the purposes we speak of?

Like this, I said. These ornaments in the heaven, since they are wrought in what is visible, must be regarded, I think, as the finest and most exact of such things, yet they fall far short of the true ones — the motions by which the true speed and the true slowness, in true number and in every true figure, move in relation to one another and carry along the things within them, which are graspable by argument and understanding but not by sight — or do you think otherwise?

Not at all, he said.

Then, I said, the ornamentation of the heaven must be used as patterns for the sake of learning those true things, just as one would if one came upon diagrams drawn and finished with special care by Daedalus or some other craftsman or painter. For someone experienced in geometry, seeing such things, would surely think them finest in point of workmanship, but would think it ridiculous to examine them in earnest as if to grasp from them the truth about equals or doubles or some other proportion.

Why should it not be ridiculous? So he asked.

Do you not think, I said, that a true astronomer, when he looks at the motions of the stars, will feel the same thing? He will believe that the craftsman of the heaven composed it and the things within it as finely as such works could possibly be composed; but as for the proportion of night to day, of these to a month, of a month to a year, and of the other stars to these and to one another, do you not think he will find it strange for anyone to hold that these things, having body and being visible, come to be forever in the same way and vary in no way at all, and to seek by every means to grasp the truth about them?

It seems so to me at least, he said, now that I hear you.

Then, by means of problems, I said, we shall pursue astronomy just as we pursue geometry, and we shall let the things in the heaven be, if, by genuinely partaking of astronomy, we are to make useful the naturally sensible part of the soul, instead of useless.

Truly, he said, you are prescribing a task many times greater than astronomy as it is now practiced.

And I think, I said, that we shall prescribe the other subjects too in the same way, if we are to be of any use as lawgivers. But can you remind me of any of the appropriate studies?

I cannot, he said, not offhand like this.

Motion, however, I said, presents not one kind but several, as I suppose. Now perhaps some wise person will be able to name them all; but those evident even to us are two.

Which are they?

Besides this one, I said, its counterpart.

Which one?

It is likely, I said, that just as the eyes are fixed on astronomy, so the ears are fixed on harmonic motion, and that these branches of knowledge are in some way sisters to one another, as the Pythagoreans say and as we, Glaucon, agree. Or what do we say?

Just so, he said.

Then, since the task is a large one, I said, we shall inquire of them how they speak about these things, and whether there is anything else besides; but throughout all this we shall guard what is our own.

What is that?

That those we are rearing should never attempt to learn any of these subjects incompletely, falling short of the point to which everything must be carried, as we were just now saying about astronomy. Or do you not know that they do another such thing regarding harmonics as well? For measuring the audible concords and sounds against one another, they toil endlessly, just like the astronomers.

By the gods, he said, and ridiculously too — naming certain close-packed intervals and pressing their ears close, as if hunting for a voice from next door, some claiming still to hear a note in between and that this is the smallest interval by which one must measure, others disputing this and insisting the notes already sound alike — both sides setting their ears before their intellect.

You mean, I said, the good fellows who give the strings trouble and torture them, twisting them on the pegs; but so that the image does not grow too long, with the blows of the plectrum and the accusation, denial, and boasting of the strings, I break off the image and say that these are not the ones I mean, but those whom we said just now we would question about harmonics. For they do the same thing as those in astronomy; for they seek the numbers in these audible concords, but they do not rise to problems, to examine which numbers are concordant and which are not, and why each is so.

That is a marvelous thing you speak of, he said.

Useful indeed, I said, for the search after the beautiful and the good, but pursued in any other way, useless.

That is likely, he said.

And I think, I said, that the method of all these subjects we have gone through , if it arrives at their community and kinship with one another, and draws the conclusion how they are akin, carries us some way toward what we want, and the labor is not spent in vain; but if not, it is in vain.

Dialectic

And I too, he said, guess as much. But that is an enormous task you speak of, Socrates.

Do you mean the prelude, I said, or what? Or don't we know that all these things are preludes to the very strain that must be learned? For surely those who are clever at this sort of thing do not seem to you to be dialecticians.

No, by Zeus, he said, except perhaps a very few of those I've met.

But then, I said, will people who are unable to give and receive an account ever know any of the things we say must be known?

Nor that, either, he said.

Well then, Glaucon, I said, is this now the very strain that dialectic carries through to its end? It is a strain that, intelligible though it is, the power of sight would imitate — the power which, we said, attempts to look at the living creatures themselves, and at the stars themselves, and finally at the sun itself. So too, whenever someone attempts, by dialectic, without any aid from the senses, to set out through argument toward what each thing itself is, and does not stop before he grasps, by reason itself, what the good itself is, he arrives at the very end of the intelligible, just as the other man then arrived at the end of the visible.

Absolutely, he said.

What then? Do you not call this journey dialectic?

Of course.

This release, I said, from the bonds, and the turning around from the shadows to the images and the light, and the way up out of the underground dwelling into the sun — where one is still unable to look at the animals and plants and the light of the sun, but can look at divine appearances in water and at shadows of the things that are, rather than at shadows of images cast by another light of the same kind, judged in relation to the sun — all this business of the crafts we have gone through has just this power: to lead the best part of the soul up to the vision of the best among the things that are, just as before it led the clearest part in the body up to the sight of the brightest thing in the region that is bodily and visible.

That is how I accept it, he said, for my part. And yet it seems to me altogether difficult to accept, and difficult, in another way again, not to accept. Nevertheless — for these things must not be heard only on the present occasion, but one must come back to them often again afterward — let us take them to hold as they are now stated, and go on to the strain itself, and go through it just as we went through the prelude. Tell me, then, what is the character of the power of dialectic, and into what kinds it is in fact divided, and again what its ways are; for these, it seems, would now at last be the ones leading to that very thing itself, and on arriving there one would have, as it were, a rest from the road and the end of the journey.

No longer, I said, dear Glaucon, will you be able to follow — though for my part nothing would be lacking in eagerness — nor would you still see an image of what we are speaking of, but the truth itself, as it at any rate appears to me; whether it really is so or not is no longer worth insisting on, but that there is something of this kind to be seen must be insisted on. Is that not so?

Of course.

And also that the power of dialectic alone could reveal this to someone experienced in what we have just gone through, and that it is possible in no other way?

This too, he said, is worth insisting on.

At any rate, I said, no one will dispute this with us when we say that, concerning each thing itself — what each thing is — no other method attempts, in an orderly way, to grasp it in every instance. But all the other crafts are turned either toward the opinions and desires of men, or toward generation and composition, or toward the tending of the things that grow and the things that are put together; while the remaining ones, which we said do lay hold of something of what is — geometry and the studies that follow it — we see dreaming, as it were, about what is, but unable to see it while awake, so long as they make use of hypotheses and leave these undisturbed, unable to give any account of them. For when the beginning is something one does not know, and the end and the middle are woven together out of what one does not know, what device is there for such an agreement ever to become knowledge?

None, he said.

Then, I said, the dialectical method alone proceeds in this way — doing away with the hypotheses and going to the beginning itself , so as to make it secure — and gently draws and leads upward the eye of the soul, which is, in truth, buried in a kind of barbaric mud, using the crafts we went through as fellow-workers and helpers in the turning around; these we have often called forms of knowledge out of habit, though they need another name, one clearer than opinion but dimmer than knowledge — understanding, as we defined it, I believe, earlier — though this, as it seems to me, is not a dispute about a name, for people whose inquiry concerns matters as great as those now before us.

Certainly not, he said.

But any name that only somehow makes plain the state in the soul, in point of clarity, ⟨will suffice? Yes.⟩

It will suffice, then, I said, just as before, to call the first part knowledge, the second understanding, the third belief, and the fourth imagination; and these two together, opinion, and those two together, reason; and opinion concerned with becoming, and reason concerned with being; and that as being is to becoming, so reason is to opinion, and as reason is to opinion, so knowledge is to belief and understanding is to imagination; and let us leave aside, Glaucon, the proportion among the things these are set over, and the twofold division of each — of the opinable and the intelligible — so that it does not fill us with a great many more arguments than those already gone through.

Well, he said, the rest seems right to me too, at least so far as I'm able to follow.

Do you also call dialectical the one who grasps the account of the being of each thing? And will you say that the one who lacks this — to the extent he cannot give an account to himself and to another — has, to that same extent, no intellect about the matter?

How, he replied, could I say he did?

Then likewise concerning the good: won't you say that whoever cannot mark off the form of the good in argument, separating it from everything else, and cannot, as in a battle, press through every refutation, eager to test things not by opinion but by being, and come through all of them with an argument that never trips, knows neither the good itself nor any other good, but that if he somehow lays hold of some image of it, he lays hold of it by opinion and not by knowledge, and that he dreams and drowses away his present life, and, before waking here, arrives in Hades first and falls wholly asleep there?

By Zeus, he said, I will certainly say all that.

But surely, I think, you would not allow your own children, whom you raise and educate in words, if you were ever to raise them in deed, being as irrational as lines, to be rulers in the city with authority over the greatest matters.

Certainly not, he said.

Then you will make it law for them to take hold, above all, of this education, from which they will be most able to ask questions and give answers with the greatest knowledge?

I will make it law, he said, together with you at least.

Does it seem to you, then, I said, that dialectic lies for us on top of the studies like a coping-stone, and that no other study could rightly be set any higher than this, but that the course of studies now has its completion?

Choosing and Testing the Students

It does to me, at any rate, he said.

What remains, then, I said, is the distribution — to whom we shall give these studies, and in what way.

Clearly, he said.

Do you remember, then, the earlier selection of the rulers, what sort of people we selected?

Of course, he said — how could I not?

As for the rest, I said, you must suppose that those same natures need to be selected; for the steadiest and the most courageous are to be preferred, and, so far as possible, the most graceful in form; and besides these, we must look not only for men noble and stern in character, but also for their having the natural traits suited to this education.

Which ones do you mean?

Keenness, my good friend, I said, is what they must have for their studies, and they must not find learning difficult. For souls grow far more faint-hearted in the face of demanding studies than in physical exercises; for the toil is more their own — private, and not shared with the body.

True, he said.

And indeed we must look for one who is retentive in memory, sturdy, and thoroughly fond of hard work. Or in what way do you suppose anyone will be willing to work hard at the body's exercises, and also carry through so much learning and practice?

No one, he said, unless he is altogether well-gifted by nature.

At any rate, I said, the present mistake and the disrepute that have fallen on philosophy for these reasons — as we said before too — come of this: that people take hold of it in a way unworthy of it; for it ought not to be bastards who lay hold of it, but true-born sons.

How so? So he asked.

First, I said, the one who is to take hold of it must not be lame in his love of toil, being industrious in one half but idle in the other. This happens whenever someone is fond of gymnastics and of hunting, and loves toil in everything done through the body, but is not fond of learning, nor fond of listening, nor inquisitive, but instead hates the toil in all these things; and the one who has shifted his love of toil the other way around is lame as well.

What you say is very true, he said.

So then, with a view to truth as well, I said, shall we in this same way set down as crippled a soul that hates the voluntary lie and bears it ill, growing exceedingly indignant whenever others lie, but welcomes the involuntary lie easily and, caught somewhere in ignorance, feels no indignation, but wallows readily in ignorance like a pig?

Quite so, he said.

And with a view to moderation too, I said, and courage, and magnificence, and all the parts of virtue, we must be no less on our guard to distinguish the bastard from the true-born. For whenever a private person or a city does not know how to examine such matters thoroughly, they unwittingly make use of lame and bastard men for whatever purpose these happen to serve — some as friends, others as rulers.

Yes indeed, he said, that is how it is.

We, then, I said, must be very careful about all such matters; for if we bring men sound of limb and sound of mind to so great a course of learning and so great a training, and educate them accordingly, Justice herself will not blame us, and we shall preserve the city and its constitution, but if we lead in men of a different kind, we shall do everything the opposite way, and pour down even more ridicule on philosophy.

That would indeed be shameful, he said.

Quite so, I said; and I myself seem to have suffered ⟨something⟩ ridiculous even just now.

What sort of thing? So he asked.

I forgot, I said, that we were only playing, and I spoke with more intensity than I meant to. For as I was speaking, I happened to glance toward philosophy, and, seeing her disgracefully mistreated, I seem to myself to have grown indignant and, as though angry at those responsible, to have said what I said more in earnest than I should.

No, by Zeus, he said, not to me, at least, as your listener.

But it seemed so to me, I said, as the one speaking. But let us not forget this: that in the earlier selection we chose older men, whereas in this one it will not be possible; for we must not trust Solon when he says that a man growing old is capable of learning much — less, rather, than he can run; and all the great and numerous labors belong to the young.

It must be so, he said.

The subjects of calculation, then, and geometry, and all the preliminary training that must be taught before dialectic, must be set before them while they are still children, without giving the form of the instruction any character of compulsion.

Why is that?

Because, I said, no free person should learn any subject under compulsion, the way a slave does. For while bodily labors performed under compulsion do the body no harm, no forced learning stays with the soul.

True, he said.

Do not, then, I said, my excellent friend, raise the children in their studies by force, but through play, so that you may also be better able to discern the natural bent of each.

There is reason in what you say, he said.

Do you not remember, then, I said, that we also said the children must be brought to war as spectators, mounted on horseback, and, wherever it is safe, brought close and given a taste of blood, like young hounds?

I remember, he said.

In all these things, then, I said — the labors, the studies, and the fears — whoever always proves quickest must be enrolled in a select number.

At what age, he asked, is this to happen?

When, I said, they are released from the required exercises; for this period — whether it turns out to be two years or three — is capable of nothing else, since weariness and sleep are hostile to learning. And at the same time, this is also one of the trials, and not the least of them — what each one shows himself to be in the gymnastic exercises.

How could it not? So he said.

After this period, then, I said, those selected from the twenty-year-olds will receive greater honors than the rest, and the subjects that were given to them scattered throughout their childhood education must now be gathered together for them into a synoptic view of the kinship of the studies with one another and with the nature of being.

That kind of learning alone, at any rate, he said, is secure, in whomever it comes to take root.

And it is also the greatest test, I said, of a dialectical nature or the lack of one; for the one who can take a synoptic view is a dialectician, and the one who cannot is not.

I agree, he said.

These things, then, I said, will require you to observe which of them, above all, prove to be of this kind, and steadfast in their studies, steadfast in war, and in the other lawful pursuits, and then, when these in turn pass beyond thirty years, to select them out from among those already preferred, establish them in greater honors, and examine them, testing them by the power of dialectic, to see who is capable of letting go of the eyes and the rest of the senses and going, together with truth, toward being itself. And it is just here, my friend, that a task of great caution lies.

The Danger of Dialectic Taken Too Early

What in particular? So he asked.

Don't you notice, I said, how great a harm is now arising in connection with dialectic?

What sort of harm? So he asked.

They get filled, I said, with lawlessness.

Very much so, he said.

Then do you think, I said, that what happens to them is anything to wonder at, and do you not forgive them?

In what way exactly? So he asked.

For example, I said, suppose a child who had been secretly substituted for another were reared amid great wealth and in a great and distinguished family, with many flatterers, and on becoming a man he perceived that he was not the child of those claiming to be his parents, and could not find those who had truly begotten him — can you guess how he would be disposed toward the flatterers and toward those who had substituted him, both in the time when he did not know about the substitution, and again in the time when he did? Or do you want to hear me guess?

I do, he said.

I guess, then, I said, that during the time when he did not know the truth, he would honor his supposed father and mother and other kin more than the flatterers, would be less likely to look on while they went in need of anything, would be less likely to do or say anything unlawful toward them, and would be less disobedient to them in matters of importance than to the flatterers.

Likely enough, he said.

Once he became aware of the truth, then, I guess in turn that he would relax his honor and devotion toward them, and intensify it toward the flatterers, and would obey them far more than before , and would now live according to their ways, associating with them openly, and would care nothing at all for that father and the others accounted as his kin — unless he were quite decent by nature.

Everything you say, he said, is just what would happen. But how does this image apply to those who take hold of arguments?

Like this. We have, I suppose, beliefs from childhood about what is just and noble, in which we have been brought up as if by parents, obeying and honoring them.

We do.

So there are also other practices, opposite to these, having their own pleasures, which flatter our soul and draw it toward themselves, but do not persuade those who are in any degree decent — such people honor those ancestral things instead, and obey them.

That is so.

What then? I said — when a question comes to a man in that condition and asks him what the noble is, and when, after he has answered what he heard from the lawgiver, the argument refutes him, and by refuting him often and in many ways casts him down into the opinion that this thing is no more noble than shameful, and likewise about the just and the good and whatever he held most in honor, after this, what do you think he will do regarding honoring and obeying them?

He is bound, he said, to honor them no longer in the same way, nor to obey them.

So when, I said, he no longer regards these things as honorable and belonging to him as before, and does not find the truth, is there any other life he will reasonably turn to except the one that flatters?

There is not, he said.

He will seem, I think, to have become lawless instead of law-abiding.

Necessarily.

Is this experience, then, I said, likely for those who take up arguments in this way, and, as I was just saying, deserving of much forgiveness?

And of pity too, he said.

Then, so that this pity does not arise concerning your thirty-year-olds, must one take up arguments with caution in every way?

Very much so, he said.

Then is this not one major precaution, that they not taste of arguments while young? For I think it has not escaped you that when young men first get a taste of arguments, they misuse them as if for sport, always turning them to contradiction, and, imitating those who refute, themselves refute others in turn, delighting like puppies in dragging and tearing with argument at whoever is nearby.

Extremely so, he said.

So when they have refuted many themselves and have been refuted by many in turn, they fall violently and quickly into believing nothing of what they believed before — and from this, both they themselves and philosophy as a whole come into disrepute with everyone else.

Most true, he said.

But the older man, I said, will not be willing to share in such madness — he will imitate the one who is willing to engage in dialectic and examine the truth, rather than the one who plays and contradicts for the sake of amusement, and he himself will be more moderate , and will make the practice more honorable rather than less.

That is right, he said.

And were not all the things said earlier stated as a precaution about this very thing — that the natures to whom one imparts arguments should be orderly and steady, and not, as happens now, that any chance person with no qualification at all approaches it?

Certainly, he said.

Is it enough, then, to remain continuously and intensely engaged in the pursuit of arguments, doing nothing else, but training in a manner that mirrors the bodily exercises, for twice as many years as then?

Do you mean six, he said, or four?

Never mind, I said, set it at five. For after this they will have to be sent back down by you into that cave again, and compelled to hold command in matters of war and whatever offices belong to the young, so that they do not fall behind the others even in experience — and further, in these very tasks they must be tested to see whether they will stand firm when pulled in every direction, or whether they will be shaken somewhat.

And how long a time, he said, do you set for this?

Fifteen years, I said. And when they have turned fifty, those who have come through safely and excelled in every way, in practical affairs as well as in knowledge, must at last be led to the goal, and compelled to lift up the soul's beam of sight and look toward that very thing which provides light to everything, and having seen the good itself, using it as a model, they must each in turn order the city and private citizens and themselves for the remainder of their life, spending the greater part of it occupied with philosophy, but when their turn comes, toiling at public affairs and ruling, each for the city's sake, doing this not as something noble but as something necessary, and thus, having always trained up others like themselves, leaving them behind as guardians of the city, they will depart to dwell in the Isles of the Blessed — the city shall make monuments and sacrifices for them at public expense, if the Pythia also concurs, as to divine spirits, but if not, as to blessed and godlike men.

You have fashioned altogether admirable rulers, Socrates, he said, like a sculptor.

And the female rulers too, I said, Glaucon — for you must not think that what I have said applies to the men any more than to the women, whoever among them are born with natures equal to the task.

Quite right, he said, if indeed they are to share equally in everything with the men, as we described.

How Such a City Could Actually Come to Be

What then? I said — do you agree, about the city and the constitution, that we have not been uttering mere wishes, but things difficult, yet in some way possible, and in no other way than as we have said — whenever those who are truly philosophers become rulers in a city, whether several or one, and look down on the honors now current, considering them ignoble and worth nothing, but value most highly what is right and the honors that come from it, and, greatest and most necessary of all, what is just, and by serving and increasing this thoroughly reorder their own city?

How so? So he asked.

All those, I said, who happen to be older than ten years in the city, they will send out into the countryside, and taking their children away from the present ways, which even their parents have, will raise them up in their own manners and laws, such as we went through then; and so, most quickly and most easily, the city and constitution we have described, once established, will itself be happy, and will benefit most the people among whom it comes to be?

Very much so, he said; and however it might come about, if it ever does come about, you seem to me, Socrates, to have spoken well.

So then, I said, have our arguments not already said enough about this city and the man who resembles it? For it is clear, I suppose, what sort of man we shall say he must be.

Clear, he said, and what you ask seems to me to have reached its conclusion.