Republic

For these two, then, it seems there are two arts which I would say some god gave to mankind, music and gymnastics for the service of the high-spirited principle and the love of knowledge in them—not for the soul and the body except incidentally, but for the harmonious adjustment of these two principles by the proper degree of tension and relaxation of each.Yes, so it appears, he said. Then he who best blends gymnastics with music and applies them most suitably to the soul is the man whom we should most rightly pronounce to be the most perfect and harmonious musician, far rather than the one who brings the strings into unison with one another.[*](For virtue as music Cf. Phaedo61 A, Laches 188 D, and Iago’s There is a daily music in his life. The perfect musician is the professor of the royal art of Politicus 306-308 ff. which harmonizes the two temperaments, not merely by education, but by elminating extremes through judicious marriages.) That seems likely, Socrates, he said. And shall we not also need in our city, Glaucon, a permanent overseer[*](This epistates is not the director of education of Laws 765 D ff., though of course he or it will control education. It is rather an anticipation of the philosophic rulers, as appears from 497 C-D, and corresponds to the nocturnal council of Laws 950 B ff. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 86, note 650.) of this kind if its constitution is to be preserved? We most certainly shall. Such would be the outlines of their education and breeding. For why[*](γάρ explains τύποι, or outlines. Both in the Republic and the LawsPlato frequently states that many details must be left to subsequent legislation. Cf. Republic 379 A, 400 B-C, 403 D-E, 425 A-E, Laws 770 B, 772 A-B, 785 A, 788 A-B, 807 E, 828 B, 846 C, 855 D, 876 D-E, 957 A, 968 C.) should one recite the list of the dances of such citizens, their hunts and chases with hounds, their athletic contests and races? It is pretty plain that they must conform to these principles and there is no longer any difficulty in discovering them. There is, it may be, no difficulty, he said. Very well, said I; what, then, have we next to determine? Is it not which ones among them[*](αὐτῶν τούτων marks a class within a class. Cf. Class. Phil . vol. vii. (1912) p. 485. 535 A refers back to this passage.) shall be the rulers and the ruled? Certainly. That the rulers must be the elder and the ruled the younger is obvious. It is. And that the rulers must be their best? This too. And do not the best of the farmers prove the best farmers? Yes. And in this case, since we want them to be the best of the guardians, must they not be the best guardians, the most regardful of the state? Yes. They must then to begin with be intelligent in such matters and capable, and furthermore careful[*](The argument proceeds by minute links. Cf. on 338 D.) of the interests of the state? That is so. But one would be most likely to be careful of that which he loved. Necessarily. And again, one would be most likely to love that whose interests he supposed to coincide with his own, and thought that when it prospered, he too would prosper and if not, the contrary. So it is, he said. Then we must pick out from the other guardians such men as to our observation appear most inclined through the entire course of their lives to be zealous to do what they think for the interest of the state, and who would be least likely to consent to do the opposite. That would be a suitable choice, he said. I think, then, we shall have to observe them at every period of life, to see if they are conservators and guardians of this conviction in their minds and never by sorcery nor by force can be brought to expel[*](Cf. Crito 46 B, Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 12. 7.) from their souls unawares this conviction that they must do what is best for the state. What do you mean by the expelling? he said.

I will tell you, said I; it seems to me that the exit of a belief from the mind is either voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary is the departure of the false belief from one who learns better, involuntary that of every true belief. The voluntary, he said, I understand, but I need instruction about the involuntary. How now, said I, don’t you agree with me in thinking that men are unwillingly deprived of good things but willingly of evil? Or is it not an evil to be deceived in respect of the truth and a good to possess truth? And don’t you think that to opine the things that are is to possess the truth? Why, yes, said he, you are right, and I agree that men are unwillingly deprived of true opinions.[*](Cf. on 382 A and Sophist. 228 C, Marcus Aurelius vii. 63.) And doesn’t this happen to them by theft, by the spells of sorcery or by force? I don’t understand now either, he said. I must be talking in high tragic style,[*](The preceding metaphors are in the high-flown, obscure style of tragedy. Cf. Thompson on Meno 76 E, Cratylus 418 D, Aristophanes Frogs, passim, Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 146.) I said; by those who have their opinions stolen from them I mean those who are over-persuaded and those who forget, because in the one case time, in the other argument strips them unawares of their beliefs. Now I presume you understand, do you not? Yes. Well, then, by those who are constrained or forced I mean those whom some pain or suffering compels[*](Cf. Dionysius ὁ μεταθέμενος, who went over from the Stoics to the Cyrenaics because of the pain in his eyes, Diogenes Laertius vii. 166.) to change their minds. That too I understand and you are right. And the victims of sorcery[*](Cf. 584 A γοητεία.) I am sure you too would say are they who alter their opinions under the spell of pleasure or terrified by some fear. Yes, he said: everything that deceives appears to cast a spell upon the mind. Well then, as I was just saying, we must look for those who are the best guardians of the indwelling conviction that what they have to do is what they at any time believe to be best for the state. Then we must observe them from childhood up and propose them tasks in which one would be most likely to forget this principle or be deceived, and he whose memory is sure and who cannot be beguiled we must accept and the other kind we must cross off from our list. Is not that so? Yes. And again we must subject them to toils and pains and competitions in which we have to watch for the same traits. Right, he said. Then, said I, must we not institute a third kind of competitive test with regard to sorcery and observe them in that? Just as men conduct colts to noises and uproar to see if they are liable to take fright, so we must bring these lads while young into fears and again pass them into pleasures, testing them much more carefully than men do gold in the fire, to see if the man remains immune to such witchcraft and preserves his composure throughout, a good guardian of himself and the culture which he has received, maintaining the true rhythm and harmony of his being in all those conditions, and the character that would make him most useful to himself and to the state.

And he who as boy, lad, and man endures the test and issues from it unspoiled we must establish as ruler over our city and its guardian, and bestow rewards upon him in life, and in death the allotment of the supreme honors of burial-rites and other memorials. But the man of the other type we must reject. Such, said I, appears to me, Glaucon, the general notion of our selection and appointment of rulers and guardians as sketched in outline, but not drawn out in detail. I too, he said, think much the same. Then would it not truly be most proper to designate these as guardians in the full sense of the word, watchers against foemen without and friends within, so that the latter shall not wish and the former shall not be able to work harm, but to name those youths whom we were calling guardians just now, helpers and aids for the decrees of the rulers? I think so, he replied. How, then, said I, might we contrive[*](The concept μηχανή or ingenious device employed by a superior intelligence to circumvent necessity or play providence with the vulgar holds a prominent place in Plato’s physics, and is for Rousseau-minded readers one of the dangerous features of his political and educational philosophy. Cf. 415 C, Laws 664 A, 752 C, 769 E, 798 B, 640 B.) one of those opportune falsehoods[*](Cf. 389 B.) of which we were just now[*](389 B f.) speaking, so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city? What kind of a fiction do you mean? said he. Nothing unprecedented, said I, but a sort of Phoenician tale,[*](As was the Cadmus legend of the men who sprang from the dragon’s teeth, which the Greeks believed οὕτως ἀπίθανον ὄν, Laws 663 E. Pater, who translates the passage (Plato and Platonism, p. 223), fancifully suggests that it is a miners’ story. Others read into it an allusion to Egyptian castes. The proverb ψεῦσμα Φοινικικόν (Strabo 259 B) probably goes back to the Phoenician tales of the Odyssey.) something that has happened ere now in many parts of the world, as the poets aver and have induced men to believe, but that has not happened and perhaps would not be likely to happen in our day[*](Plato never attempts a Voltairian polemic against the general faith in the supernatural, which he is willing to utilize for ethical ends, but he never himself affirms le surnaturel particulier.) and demanding no little persuasion to make it believable. You act like one who shrinks from telling his thought, he said. You will think that I have right good reason[*](καὶ μάλ’ here as often adds a touch of humorous colloquial emphasis, which our conception of the dignity of Plato does not allow a translator to reproduce.) for shrinking when I have told, I said. Say on, said he, and don’t be afraid. Very well, I will. And yet I hardly know how to find the audacity or the words to speak and undertake to persuade first the rulers themselves and the soldiers and then the rest of the city, that in good sooth[*](Perhaps that so it is that would be better. ὡς ἄρα as often disclaims responsibility for the tale. Plato’s fancy of men reared beneath the earth is the basis of Bulwer-Lytton’s Utopia, The Coming Race, as his use of the ring of Gyges (359 D-360 B) is of H. G. Wells’ Invisible Man.) all our training and educating of them were things that they imagined and that happened to them as it were in a dream; but that in reality at that time they were down within the earth being molded and fostered themselves while their weapons and the rest of their equipment were being fashioned. And when they were quite finished the earth as being their mother[*](The symbolism expresses the Athenian boast of autochthony and Plato’s patriotic application of it, Menexenus 237 E-238 A. Cf. Burgess, Epideictic Literature, University of Chicago Studies in Classical Philology, vol. iii. pp. 153-154; Timaeus 24 C-D, Aeschylus Septem 17, Lucretius ii. 641 f., and Swineburne, Erechtheus: All races but one are as aliens engrafted or sown,Strange children and changelings, but we, O our mother, thine own.) delivered them, and now as if their land were their mother and their nurse they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth. It is not for nothing,[*](οὐκ ἐτός is comic. Cf. 568 A, and Blaydes on Aristophanes Acharnians 411.) he said, that you were so bashful about coming out with your lie.