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.

Book VIII

Recalling the Argument: Four Defective Constitutions

Well then — these things have been agreed, Glaucon: that the city which is to be governed at its very best will have the women in common, the children in common, and all their education in common, and likewise the pursuits common in both war and peace, and that its kings will be those who have proved best in philosophy and in warfare.

It has been agreed, he said.

And moreover we agreed to this too — that when the rulers are established, they will lead the soldiers and settle them in dwellings such as we described earlier, dwellings with nothing private belonging to anyone, but common to all; and besides such dwellings, we also agreed, if you remember, what sort of possessions they would have.

I do remember, he said, that we thought none of them should possess anything that the others now possess, but rather, as athletes of war and guardians, receiving from the others their keep for the year as wages for their guarding, they must care for themselves and for the rest of the city.

You are right, I said. But come, since we have finished this, let us recall from where we turned aside to arrive here, so that we may go back the same way.

Not difficult, he said. For much as now, you were speaking as one who had finished the account of the city, saying that you set down as good the sort of city you had then described, and the man resembling it, and this despite having, as it seems, still finer things yet to say of city and man. But at any rate you went on to say that the other constitutions were mistaken, if this one is right. And of the remaining constitutions, you said, as I recall, there are four kinds, about which it would be worth both giving an account and seeing their faults, and the men who resemble them in turn, so that, having seen them all and agreed on the best and worst man, we might examine whether the best is happiest and the worst most wretched, or whether it stands otherwise — and when I asked which four constitutions you meant, at that point Polemarchus and Adeimantus broke in, and so you, taking up the argument, have arrived here.

You have remembered it exactly right, I said.

Well then, offer the same hold again, like a wrestler, and when I ask the same question, try to say what you were then about to say.

If I can, I said.

And indeed, he said, I myself am eager to hear which four constitutions you meant.

You will hear it without difficulty, I said. For those I mean, the ones that actually have names, are: the one praised by the many, this Cretan-and-Laconian one; and second, and praised second, the one called oligarchy, a constitution full of many evils; and the one differing from this and coming next in order, democracy; and then, of course, that noble thing tyranny, differing from all of these, the fourth and last disease of a city. Or do you have some other form of constitution, one that lies in some distinct kind? For dynasties, and purchased kingships, and certain other constitutions of that sort, lie somewhere between these, and one could find them no fewer among barbarians than among Greeks.

Many odd ones do get talked of, at any rate, he said.

Do you know, then, I said, that there must also be as many kinds of human character as there are of constitutions? Or do you think that constitutions come from some oak or rock, rather than from the characters found in the cities, which, tipping the scale as it were, draw everything else along with them?

Not I, certainly, he said — from nowhere else but there.

Then if the constitutions of cities are five, the soul's arrangements in private individuals would also be five.

What else could it be?

The man resembling aristocracy, then, we have already discussed — the one we rightly call good and just.

We have.

Must we, then, after this, go through the worse men — the contentious and honor-loving man corresponding to the Laconian constitution, and again the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical — so that, having seen the most unjust and set him against the most just, our inquiry may be complete as to how unmixed justice stands against unmixed injustice with respect to the happiness or wretchedness of the one who has it, so that we may either, persuaded by Thrasymachus, pursue injustice, or, by the argument now coming to light, pursue justice?

By all means, he said, that is what we must do.

Shall we, then, just as we began by examining the characters in the constitutions before examining them in private individuals, since that is clearer, so now too first examine the honor-loving constitution — for I have no other name commonly given to it; it must be called either timocracy or timarchy — and in relation to it examine the corresponding man, then oligarchy and the oligarchic man, and again, turning our gaze to democracy, observe the democratic man, and fourth, having come to a city under tyranny and seen it, and looking in turn at the tyrannical soul, try to become adequate judges of what we set out to determine?

Timocracy: How It Arises

That, at least, he said, is how the viewing and the judging would reasonably come about.

Come then, I said, let us try to say in what way a timocracy might arise out of an aristocracy. Or is this much straightforward — that every constitution changes from within the very body that holds power, whenever faction arises within that same body; but while it is of one mind, even if very small, it is impossible for it to be moved?

Yes, that is how it is.

How then, I said, Glaucon, will our city be set in motion, and in what way will the auxiliaries and the rulers fall into strife with one another and with themselves? Or would you like us, like Homer, to pray the Muses to tell us how strife first broke out, and shall we say that they, treating us as children to be played with and teased, and pretending to be in earnest, address us in a lofty, tragic style?

How?

Something like this. It is difficult, indeed, for a city so composed to be moved; but since everything that has come into being is subject to decay, not even a structure of this kind will remain for all time, but will be dissolved. And the dissolution is this: not only for plants that grow in the earth, but also for creatures that live upon it, there come to be fruitfulness and unfruitfulness of soul and of body alike, whenever the revolutions bring round for each the circuits of their cycles — short circuits for the short-lived, and opposite ones for the opposite kind. But as for the good breeding and the barrenness of your race — though those you have trained as leaders of the city are wise — they will be no better at hitting the mark by reasoning joined with observation, but these will slip past them, and they will at some time beget children when they ought not. For the divine begotten kind there is a period which a perfect number encompasses, but for the human kind there is one in which, first, increases capable of exercising power and subject to it — taking three intervals and four terms of things that make like and unlike, and that increase and decrease — rendered all things speakable and rational in relation to one another; of which the base in the ratio of four to three, yoked with the five, when increased three times, yields two harmonies: the one equal an equal number of times, taken a hundred times as many; the other of equal length one way but oblong — a hundred of the numbers from the rational diagonals of the five, each falling short by one, and of the irrational diagonals, two, and a hundred cubes of the three. And this whole number is geometrical, and has authority over things of this kind — better and worse births — and when your guardians, in ignorance of it, join brides to bridegrooms out of due season, the children born will be neither well-natured nor fortunate; of these the elder rulers will appoint the best, but nonetheless, being unworthy, once they in turn have come into their fathers' power, they, though guardians, will first begin to neglect us, holding the things of music in less honor than they ought, and second the things of gymnastic, so that your young will become more unmusical. And from these there will be established rulers not at all fit to guard, when it comes to testing Hesiod's races and those among you — the golden, the silver, the bronze, and the iron; and when iron is mixed together with silver, and bronze with gold, there will arise unlikeness and inharmonious inequality, which, wherever they arise, always breed war and enmity. It is of this stock, one must say, that strife always is, wherever it may arise.

And we shall say that they answer rightly, he said.

Yes indeed, I said, it must be so, since they are Muses.

What then, he said, do the Muses say next?

When strife arose, I said, the two kinds then pulled each its own way: the iron and the bronze toward money-making and the acquisition of land and houses and gold and silver, while the other two, the golden and the silver — being not poor but naturally rich — led their souls toward virtue and the ancient order; but as they used force on one another and pulled against each other, they agreed on a middle course: having divided up the land and the houses, to make them private property, and those whom before they had guarded as free friends and providers, they now enslaved and held as dependents and servants, while they themselves took charge of war and of guarding them.

It seems to me, he said, that this is how the transition comes about.

Then, I said, would this constitution not be somewhere between an aristocracy and an oligarchy?

Certainly.

It will change, then, in this way; but once it has changed, how will it be governed? Or is it clear that, being in between, it will in some ways imitate the former constitution, in others oligarchy, and will also have something peculiar to itself?

So it is, he said.

Then in honoring its rulers, in its fighting part's abstaining from farming and from handicrafts and the rest of money-making, in having common meals established, and in attending to gymnastic and the contests of war — in all such things will it not imitate the former constitution?

Yes.

But in fearing to bring the wise into office, since such men as it now has are no longer simple and unswerving but mixed, and in inclining instead toward the spirited and simpler sort, those naturally suited more to war than to peace, and in holding in honor the tricks and contrivances of war, and in spending its whole time at war — in these ways it will in turn have much that is peculiar to itself alone?

Yes.

And men of this sort, I said, will be desirers of money, like those in oligarchies, fiercely honoring gold and silver in secret, since they possess treasure-chambers and private hoards where they can store and hide them, and, again, walled dwellings — simply private nests — in which, spending on women and on whomever else they chose, they would lay out a great deal.

Very true, he said.

And so they will also be miserly with money, since they honor it and do not acquire it openly, yet eager to spend the wealth of others to satisfy desire, secretly reaping their pleasures like children running away from their father, the law, educated not by persuasion but by force, because they have neglected the true Muse, the one that goes with reason and philosophy, and have honored gymnastic above music as the elder of the two.

Altogether, he said, you are describing a constitution mixed of bad and good.

For it is mixed, I said; but one thing alone stands out most clearly in it, since the spirited part rules — love of victory and love of honor.

Very much so, he said.

Well then, I said, this constitution, having thus come about, would be of such a kind that, sketching the outline of a constitution in words, one would not work it out with precision, since it is enough to see even from the sketch both the most just man and the most unjust, while it would be an impossibly long task to go through all constitutions and all characters, leaving nothing out.

The Timocratic Man

And rightly, he said.

Who then is the man who answers to this constitution? How does he come to be, and what sort of man is he?

I think, said Adeimantus, that as far as love of victory goes he comes close to our Glaucon here.

Perhaps that much is so, I said; but it seems to me that these traits are not natural to him.

What traits?

He must, I said, be somewhat more self-willed and somewhat less musical, yet a lover of music, and fond of listening, though by no means eloquent. Such a man would be harsh toward slaves — not out of contempt for slaves, as the properly educated man is — yet gentle toward the free, thoroughly obedient to rulers, fond of rule and fond of honor, thinking himself fit to rule not on the strength of speech, nor of anything of that kind, but of deeds of war and of the business of war, and being something of a lover of exercise and of hunting.

Yes, he said, that is the character of that constitution.

And would not such a man, I said, while young despise money, but the older he becomes, always embrace it more, because he shares in the money-loving nature, and is not pure toward virtue, since he has been deprived of the best guardian?

Of what? Adeimantus asked.

Of reason, I said, blended with music; this alone, once it has come to be in a man, lives on in him as the savior of virtue throughout his life.

Well said, he replied.

And such, I said, is the timocratic young man, resembling the city of that kind.

Quite so.

He comes to be, I said, in some such way as this: sometimes he is the young son of a good father who lives in a city not well governed, a father who avoids honors and offices and lawsuits and all such meddling, and who is willing to be at a disadvantage in order to avoid trouble—

In what way does this happen? he asked.

Whenever, I said, he first hears his mother complaining that her husband is not among the rulers, and that on this account she is worse off among the other women, and then, when she sees that his father is not much concerned about money and does not quarrel and hurl abuse in private lawsuits or in public but bears all such things with easy unconcern, and when he himself perceives that his father always keeps his mind on his own affairs and neither greatly honors nor slights her, hears her vexed at all of this and saying that his father is unmanly and far too slack, and harping on all the other things, and the sort of things, that women love to go on about in such cases.

Very much so, said Adeimantus, many things, and all typical of women.

You know, I said, that the household servants of such people sometimes say things of this sort privately to the sons — servants who are thought to be well-disposed — and that if they see someone owing money whom the father does not prosecute, or doing some other wrong, they urge the boy on, so that once he becomes a man he will punish all such people and be more of a man than his father. And when he goes out, he hears and sees other such things: those who mind their own business in the city being called simpletons and counted for little, while those who do not mind their own business are honored and praised. Then indeed the young man, hearing and seeing all such things, and again hearing his father's words and seeing, close up, his practices as against those of others, drawn by both of these — his own father watering and increasing the rational part in his soul, while the others do the same to the appetitive and the spirited, because he is not by nature a bad man, but has kept the bad company of others — drawn, as I say, by both of them, he came to the middle, and handed over the rule within himself to the part that is middling, victory-loving, and spirited, and became a high-minded, honor-loving man.

You seem to me, he said, to have given a full account of his origin.

Oligarchy: How It Arises

Then we have, I said, both the second constitution and the second man.

We have, he said.

Then after this shall we speak, in Aeschylus's phrase, of a different man ranged against a different city — or rather, following our plan, of the city first?

Certainly, he said.

And the one that comes after such a constitution would be, I think, oligarchy.

And what arrangement do you mean by oligarchy? he said.

The constitution based on a property assessment, I said, in which the rich rule and the poor have no share in office.

I understand, he said.

Then must we not first tell how it changes from timocracy into oligarchy?

Yes.

And indeed, I said, even a blind man can see how it changes.

How so?

It is that storehouse, I said, each man's, filling up with gold, that destroys such a constitution. For first they find ways to spend on themselves, and twist the laws to this end, disobeying them, they and their wives alike.

Likely, he said.

Then, I suppose, one man seeing another and falling into rivalry with him, they made the mass of themselves like that.

Likely.

From there, then, I said, they press on further into money-making, and the more they hold this in honor, the less honor they give virtue. Or is not virtue set apart from wealth in this way — as if each lay in the pan of a balance, always tipping to opposite sides?

Very much so, he said.

When wealth is honored in a city, then, and the rich along with it, virtue and good men are held in less honor.

Clear.

What is always honored is practiced, then, while what is dishonored is neglected.

So it is.

So instead of men who love victory and honor, they end up becoming money-makers and lovers of money, and they praise and admire the rich man and bring him into office, while they dishonor the poor man.

Very much so.

Then at that point they establish a law setting the boundary of an oligarchic constitution, fixing a sum of money as the requirement — more where the oligarchy is stronger, less where it is weaker — and declaring in advance that whoever does not have property reaching the assessment set shall have no share in office; and they carry this out either by force of arms, or else, even before resorting to that, by frightening people into establishing such a constitution. Or is it not so?

Just so.

This, then, so to speak, is the arrangement.

Yes, he said; but what then is the character of the constitution? And what are the faults we said it has?

First, I said, this very point — what sort of boundary it has. For consider: if someone were to appoint ships' pilots in this way, based on property assessments, and refuse the post to a poor man even if he were the more skilled pilot—

A wretched voyage, he said, they would sail.

Then is it not likewise so with any other office whatsoever [or any]?

I think so, at least.

Except the city? I said — or is it also so with the city?

Most of all, he said, by far, seeing that this office is the hardest and the greatest.

That, then, would be one fault of oligarchy, and of such a size.

So it appears.

What next? Is this one any less than that?

What is it?

That such a city must necessarily be not one but two — one of the poor, one of the rich — dwelling in the same place, always plotting against each other.

No less at all, by Zeus, he said.

And moreover, this too is not good — that they are unable, perhaps, to wage any war, since they are forced either, if they make use of the armed populace, to fear that mass more than the enemy, or, if they do not make use of it, to show themselves, in the actual fighting, as truly oligarchic — that is, few — and at the same time to be unwilling to contribute money, since they love money.

Not good.

What next? The thing we found fault with long ago — the same men farming, making money, and fighting all at once in such a constitution — does that seem to be right?

Not in any way at all.

Consider then whether, of all these evils, this constitution is the first to admit the greatest one.

What is it?

That it is permitted to sell off all one's property, and for another to acquire it, and, having sold it, to go on living in the city as none of the city's parts — neither money-maker nor craftsman nor horseman nor hoplite — but called poor and without resources.

The first, he said.

Well, this sort of thing is certainly not prevented in cities ruled by oligarchy; for otherwise some would not be excessively rich while others were altogether poor.

Rightly.

But consider this: when such a man, being rich, was spending, was he then any more of use to the city for the things we were just now speaking of? Or did he only seem to be one of the rulers, while in truth he was neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but a spender of what lay ready to hand?

So it was, he said; he seemed to be one, but was nothing else than a spender.

Do you want us, then, I said, to say of him that, just as a drone arises in a honeycomb, a disease of the hive, so such a man arises in a household as a drone, a disease of the city?

Certainly, he said, Socrates.

Then, Adeimantus, has god made all the winged drones stingless, while of these that go on foot, some are stingless and some have terrible stings? And from the stingless come those who end up beggars in old age, while from those with stings come all who are called wrongdoers?

Most true, he said.

Then it is clear, I said, that in a city where you see beggars, there are, somewhere hidden in that same place, thieves and cutpurses and temple-robbers and craftsmen of all such evils.

Clear, he said.

What then? Do you not see beggars present in cities ruled by oligarchy?

Nearly everyone, he said, except those who rule.

Then must we not suppose, I said, that there are also many wrongdoers among them who have stings, whom the rulers hold in check by force and vigilance?

We must indeed, he said.

Shall we not say, then, that such men arise there because of lack of education, bad upbringing, and the arrangement of the constitution?

We shall say so.

Well then, such, at any rate, would be the city ruled by oligarchy, having so many evils — and perhaps even more.

Pretty much so, he said.

The Oligarchic Man

Let this constitution too, then, be taken as completed, I said — the one they call oligarchy, which has its rulers chosen by property assessment; and let us next examine the man who resembles it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is once he has come to be.

Certainly, he said.

Is it not chiefly in this way, then, that he changes from that timocratic man into an oligarchic one?

How so?

It is when a son is born to him, and at first he emulates his father and follows his footsteps, but then sees him suddenly strike against the city as against a hidden reef, and spill out both his property and himself, after serving as general or holding some other great office, and then falling into court, [harmed] by false accusers, and being put to death or exiled or stripped of his rights, losing his whole estate.

That's likely, he said.

Having seen this, my friend, and suffered it, and lost what he had, in fear, I think, he at once thrusts headlong down from the throne in his own soul both the love of honor and that spirited part, and humbled by poverty he turns to money-making, and little by little, living meanly and scraping and toiling, he gathers up wealth. Don't you think that such a man then enthrones on that throne the appetitive part, the money-loving part, and makes it the great king within himself, girding it about with tiara and collar and scimitar?

I do, he said.

And the rational part, I think, and the spirited part he seats on the ground, this side and that, beneath it, and enslaves them: the one he allows to reckon and consider nothing else but how a little money may become more, and the other, in turn, to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to be ambitious for nothing but the acquisition of money and whatever else contributes to that.

There is no other change, he said, so swift and so forceful, from an honor-loving young man into a money-loving one.

Is this man, then, I said, oligarchic?

At least his transformation is from a man resembling the constitution out of which oligarchy arose.

Let us examine, then, whether he would be like it.

Let us do so.

Then first, would he not be like it in valuing money above everything?

How could he not?

And surely too in being frugal and industrious, satisfying only his necessary desires, refusing to spend on anything else, and enslaving his other desires as futile.

Certainly.

A squalid sort of man, I said, who makes a surplus out of everything, a hoarder — the very sort the crowd praises — or would this not be the man who resembles such a constitution?

So it seems to me, at least, he said — for money, at any rate, is held in the highest honor both by the city and by such a man.

That is because, I suppose, I said, such a man has paid no attention to education.

I don't think so, he said — for he would not have set up a blind man as leader of the chorus and ⟨honored⟩ him most of all.

Good, I said. But consider this: shall we not say that drone-like desires spring up in him on account of his lack of education — some of them beggarly, some villainous — held down by force by his carefulness in other things?

Very much so, he said.

Do you know, then, I said, where you should look to observe their villainy?

Where? He asked.

To their guardianships over orphans, and to any similar situation that comes their way, giving them ample opportunity to act unjustly.

True.

So isn't it clear from this that in his other dealings, where he enjoys a good reputation for seeming just, he restrains, by force, with some decent part of himself, other bad desires that are present in him — not persuading them that wrongdoing is not better, nor taming them by argument, but by necessity and fear, trembling for the rest of his property?

Yes, quite so, he said.

And by Zeus, my friend, I said, you will find in most of them, whenever they need to spend what belongs to others, desires akin to the drone's present within them.

Very much so indeed, he said.

Such a man, then, would not be free of faction within himself, nor single but somehow double, though for the most part he would have his better desires holding down his worse ones.

That is so.

For this reason, I think, such a man would be more decent-seeming than many others; yet true virtue, belonging to a soul that is unified and in harmony with itself, would escape him by a long way.

So it seems to me.

And what's more, as a private competitor in the city, the thrifty man is a poor competitor for a victory or any other of the fine things men are ambitious for, unwilling to spend money for the sake of reputation and such contests, afraid to rouse his spendthrift desires and call on them as allies in the struggle for victory; fighting oligarchically with just a few of his own resources, he is mostly defeated, and grows rich.

Very much so, he said.

Do we still doubt, then, I said, that the thrifty, money-making man is to be ranked, by resemblance, with the oligarchically governed city?

Democracy: How It Arises

Not at all, he said.

Democracy, then, it seems, we must consider next — in what way it comes about, and what character it has once it has come about, so that once we know the character of such a man too, we may bring him forward for judgment.

At any rate, he said, we would be going on consistently with ourselves.

Then, I said, does it not change from oligarchy into democracy in some such way as this, through insatiable desire for the good set before it — the need to become as rich as possible?

How so?

Since the rulers in it, I suppose, rule because they possess much, they are unwilling to restrain by law those of the young who turn unruly, so as to bar them from spending and squandering what is theirs, in order that by buying up such men's property and lending money against it they may grow still richer and more honored.

More than anything.

Then is this not already evident in a city — that to honor wealth and at the same time adequately cultivate moderation among the citizens is impossible, but one must neglect the one or the other?

Reasonably clear, he said.

By being negligent in oligarchies, then, and allowing licentiousness, they have sometimes forced men not ignoble by birth to become poor.

Very much so.

These men, I suppose, sit in the city fitted with stings and fully armed, some owing debts, some stripped of civic rights, some both, hating and plotting against those who have acquired their property, and against everyone else, longing for revolution.

That is so.

But the moneymakers, going about with their heads down and seeming not even to see these men, wound whoever among the rest gives way, injecting their money into him, and by collecting manifold interest — offspring, as it were, of the parent sum — they breed a great swarm of drones and beggars in the city.

How, he said, could it not be great?

And they are unwilling, I said, to quench this evil as it blazes up, either in that way — by restraining a man from turning his own property wherever he pleases — or in this way, by which such troubles are resolved under a different law.

Under what law, then?

The one that ranks second after that other law, and that compels the citizens to care for virtue. For if one were to require that most voluntary contracts be entered into at one's own risk, people would do business less shamelessly in the city, and fewer of the evils we just now mentioned would spring up in it.

Yes, and by far, he said.

But now, I said, because of all this, the rulers treat those they rule in the city in that way; but as for themselves and their own children — do they not make the young extravagant and averse to toil, both in body and in soul, too soft to hold out against pleasures and pains, and idle?

Of course.

And do they not, apart from money-making, neglect everything else themselves, and take no more care for virtue than the poor do?

No, they do not.

So disposed, then, whenever the rulers and the ruled come together with one another — whether on journeys along the roads, or in some other joint undertaking, or at festivals or on campaigns, or as shipmates or fellow soldiers, or even watching one another in the midst of dangers themselves — the poor are in that setting by no means despised by the rich; but often a lean, sunburnt poor man, standing in battle next to a rich man reared in the shade, carrying much flesh that is not his own, sees him full of gasping breath and helplessness — do you not think he concludes that such men are rich thanks to the cowardice of his own sort, and passes the word to another, whenever they meet in private, that these men are ours — for they are nothing?

I for one know well, he said, that they do that.

Then, just as a sickly body needs only a slight push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes even without any outside cause is at war with itself, does not a city disposed in the same way also, from some slight pretext, fall sick and fight against itself when one party brings in an alliance from an oligarchically governed city, or the other from a democratically governed one, and sometimes even without any outside cause falls into civil strife?

Very much so indeed.

Democracy, I suppose, comes about when the poor, having won, kill some of the other party, banish others, and give the rest an equal share in the constitution and in the offices — and for the most part the offices in it are assigned by lot.

Yes, he said, that is the establishment of democracy, whether it comes about by arms, or whether the other party withdraws through fear.

In what manner, then, I said, do these people live? And what sort of constitution is this one, in turn? For it is clear that such a man will turn out to be some sort of democratic man.

Clearly, he said.

Then, first of all, are they not free, and does not the city become full of freedom and free speech, and is there not license in it to do whatever one wants?

So it is said, he said.

And where there is license, clearly each man would arrange his own private way of life within it, whatever pleased him.

Clearly.

It is in this constitution above all, I suppose, that people of every sort would spring up.

How could it not be so?

It looks, I said, as though this is the most beautiful of the constitutions; just as a many-colored cloak is spangled with every flower, so this one, spangled with characters of every sort, would appear the most beautiful. And perhaps, I said, many people, just as children and women do when looking at colorful things, would judge this one too to be the most beautiful.

Very much so, he said.

And it is indeed, my dear fellow, I said, the right place to look for a constitution.

Why so?

Because it holds every kind of constitution on account of its license; and it seems that anyone wishing to found a city — which is exactly what we were just doing — must, on coming to a democratically governed city, pick out whichever pattern suits him, as if he had arrived at a general store of constitutions, and, having picked it out, settle his city on that model.

At any rate, he said, he would probably not be at a loss for models.

And the fact, I said, that there is no compulsion to rule in this city, even if you are competent to rule, nor again to be ruled, if you do not wish to be, nor to make war when the others are making war, nor to keep the peace when the others are keeping it, if you have no desire for peace, and again, even if some law bars you from ruling or judging, that there is nothing to stop you all the same from ruling and judging, should the fancy take you — is not such a way of life divinely pleasant, for the moment at least?

Perhaps, he said, at least for that moment.

And what of this? Is not the mild manner of some who have been sentenced charming? Or have you not yet seen how, in such a constitution, when [men] have been condemned to death or exile, they none the less remain and move about in the midst of things, [and] with no one caring or even noticing, each of them struts about like a hero?

Yes, and many of them, he said.

And then its forgivingness, and its utter want of pettiness, and its contempt for what we said so solemnly when we were founding our city — that unless a man had a surpassing nature he would never become good, not unless from boyhood he played amid fine things and practiced all such pursuits — how magnificently it tramples all of that underfoot, caring nothing for what pursuits a man comes from when he enters politics, but honoring him so long as he merely says he is well disposed toward the multitude?

The Democratic Man

Quite so, he said — noble indeed.

These things, then, I said, democracy would have, along with other traits akin to them, and it would be, it seems, a pleasant constitution, anarchic and many-colored, distributing a kind of equality alike to equals and unequals.

Yes indeed, he said, that is all familiar enough.

Consider then, I said, who such a man is privately. Or must we first examine, just as we examined the constitution, in what way he comes to be?

Yes, he said.

Is it not, then, like this? A son might be born to that thrifty and oligarchic man, raised, I suppose, under his father in his father's ways?

Why not?

This one too, by force, ruling over the pleasures within himself — as many as are wasteful but not money-making, which indeed are called unnecessary—

Clearly, he said.

Do you want, then, I said, so that we may not talk obscurely, that we first define the necessary desires and the unnecessary ones?

I do, he said.

Would not, then, those desires that we could not turn aside be rightly called necessary, and also those which, when fulfilled, benefit us? For our nature necessarily desires both of these. Or not?

Very much so.

Rightly, then, we shall apply the term necessary to them.

Rightly.

But what of these? Those that a man could rid himself of if he practiced from youth, and that do no good when present — and some indeed the opposite: if we said that all of them are unnecessary, would we not be speaking correctly?

Quite correctly, indeed.

Shall we then choose some example of each kind, so that we may grasp them in outline?

Yes, we should.

Is not, then, the desire to eat up to the point of health and good condition, and the desire for bread and relish themselves, a necessary one?

I think so.

The desire for bread, at any rate, is necessary in both respects — both in that it is beneficial and in that it is capable of ⟨not⟩ putting an end to life.

Yes.

But the desire for relish, if it provides some benefit toward good condition,

Quite so.

But what of the desire for things beyond these and for different foods or the like — a desire that, if disciplined and trained from youth, is capable of being got rid of by most people, and is harmful to the body, and harmful to the soul in respect of practical wisdom and moderation? Would it not, then, rightly be called unnecessary?

Most rightly, indeed.

Shall we not, then, say that these are wasteful, and those others money-making, because they are useful for one's work?

Why not?

Shall we say the same, then, about the pleasures of love and the rest?

Just so.

Was it not, then, the man we just now called a drone whom we meant — the one full of such pleasures and desires and ruled by the unnecessary ones — while the man ruled by the necessary ones we called thrifty and oligarchic?

Well, of course.

Let us say again, then, I said, how the democratic man comes to be from the oligarchic. It seems to me that, for the most part, it happens like this.

How?

Whenever a young man, raised as we just said, without education and thriftily, tastes the honey of the drones, and keeps company with fierce and clever creatures who can concoct pleasures of every kind, varied and diversely composed, there, you may suppose, is the beginning of his change … from the oligarchic element in himself to the democratic.

Quite necessarily, he said.

Is it not, then, just as the city changed when an alliance from outside came to the aid of one part — like helping like — that the young man too changes, when in turn a kind of desire from outside comes to the aid of the other part within him, one akin and alike to it?

Absolutely, indeed.

And if, I suppose, some counter-aid comes in alliance to the oligarchic element within him — from his father perhaps, or from his other relatives, admonishing and reproaching him — then faction and counter-faction and battle arise in him against himself.

Of course.

And sometimes, I suppose, the democratic element yields to the oligarchic, and some of the desires are destroyed while others are driven out, with a kind of shame arising in the young man's soul, and order is restored again.

Yes, that happens sometimes, he said.

But then, I suppose, other desires akin to those that had been driven out are secretly nourished, and through the father's ignorance of how to rear them, they become many and strong.

That is indeed apt to happen so, he said.

So they draw him toward the same company, and, meeting with him in secret, breed a multitude.

Of course.

At last, I suppose, they seize the citadel of the young man's soul, perceiving it empty of learning and fine pursuits and true arguments — which indeed are the best sentinels and guardians in the minds of men beloved by the gods.

Quite so, he said.

Then, I suppose, false and boastful arguments and opinions rush up in their place and seize that same region in such a man's soul.

Very much so, he said.

Does he not, then, come back again to those Lotus-eaters and openly dwell among them, and if some aid from his relatives comes to the thrifty part of his soul, those boastful arguments, having shut the gates of the royal wall within him, neither let the alliance itself pass, nor admit as ambassadors the words of older private persons, but themselves prevail in the fight, and, naming shame folly, they thrust it out disgraced, as an exile, and calling moderation cowardice and abusing it, they cast it out, and, persuading him that measure and orderly spending are boorishness and meanness, they drive them beyond the border, in the company of many useless desires?

Very much so.

And having thus emptied and purified the soul of the young man possessed and initiated by them with great rites, after this they now lead back insolence and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness, resplendent, crowned, with a great chorus in attendance — praising and giving them pet names, calling insolence good breeding, anarchy freedom, prodigality magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Is it not in some such way, I said, that a young man, once reared among necessary desires, changes over to the liberation and release of unnecessary and useless pleasures?

Very much so, indeed, he said — quite plainly.

After this, I suppose, such a man lives spending money and toil and time no more on necessary pleasures than on unnecessary ones; but if he is fortunate and not carried too far into frenzy, and, becoming somewhat older, once the great tumult has passed, he admits back some part of what was driven out and does not give himself over wholly to the newcomers, he then lives establishing his pleasures on some kind of equal footing, always handing over his own rule to whichever one happens along, as if it had won it by lot, until it is satisfied, and then again to another, dishonoring none but nurturing all alike.

Quite so, indeed.

And, I said, not admitting a true account nor letting it into the fortress, if someone says that some pleasures belong to fine and good desires, and others to bad ones, and that the former should be cultivated and honored, the latter disciplined and enslaved; but in all these cases he shakes his head and says they are all alike and equally to be honored.

Yes indeed, he said — being so disposed, he does this.

And thus, I said, he also spends his daily life gratifying whatever desire comes along — now drinking and reveling to the flute, now drinking only water and reducing his flesh; now exercising, and sometimes idle and neglectful of everything, and now as if occupied with philosophy. Often, too, he engages in politics, and leaping up he says and does whatever comes into his head; and if ever he admires some men of war, he is carried in that direction, or if money-makers, then again toward that. And there is neither order nor necessity present in his life, but calling this life sweet and free and blessed, he lives by it throughout.

You have described completely, he said, the life of some egalitarian sort of man.

And I think too, I said, that this man is of every sort and full of the greatest number of characters, and — like that city — both fine and richly varied; many men and many women might well emulate his life, since it contains within it the greatest number of patterns of constitutions and ways of life.

For that indeed is what he is, he said.