graceful state of education than this, that not only the meaner
classes and the artisans are in need of the high skill of physi-
cians and judges, but also those who would tell us that they
have had a liberal education? Is not this disgraceful, and a
great sign of the want of education, that a man should have to
go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his
own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the
hands of others ?

Nothing, he said, can be more disgraceful.

Would you say that, I replied, when you consider that there
is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a life-
long litigant, passing his days always in the courts either, as
plaintiff or defendant, but is led by his bad taste even to pride
himself on this; he is ready to fancy that he is a master
in cunning ; and he will take every crooked turn and wriggle
into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting
away, and all for what ? in order that he may gain small points
not worth mentioning, not knowing that so to order his life as
to be able to do without a nodding judge is a far higher and
nobler sort of thing. Is not that still more disgraceful ?

Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful.

Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when
a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but



THE REPUBLIC 239

just because, by their lives of indolence and luxury, men fill
themselves like pools with waters and winds, compelling the
ingenious sons of Asclepius 8 to give diseases the names of flatu-
lence and catarrh j is not this, too, a disgrace ?

[In the days of Asclepius and Homer, and before the time
of Herodicus, most of the diseases which we now have did
not exist and the practice of medicine was very simple. But
the present system of medicine may be said to educate diseases.]

Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly consti
tution, by a happy combination of training and doctoring,
found out a way of torturing first and principally himself, and
secondly the rest of the world.

How was that ? he said.

By the invention of lingering death ; for he had a mortal
disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out
of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian ;
he could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in
constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his
usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he
struggled on to old age.

What a noble reward of the physician's skill !

Yes, I said ; such a reward as a man might fairly expect
who knew not the wisdom of Asclepius, and did not consider
that, if he failed to instruct his descendants in these arts, this
arose not from ignorance or inexperience of such a department
of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered
States every individual had an occupation to which he must
attend, and therefore had no leisure to spend in continually
being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but,
ludicrously enough, fail to apply the same rule to people of
the richer sort.

How is that? he said.

I replied ; when a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for
a rough and ready remedy j an emetic or a purge or cautery or
the knife, — these are his remedies. And if any one tells him
that he must go through a course of dietetics, and swathe and
swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once
that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life

8 Physicians. See Protagoras, note 8.



240 PLATO THE TEACHER

which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his ordi-
nary calling ; and therefore saying good-by to this sort of phy-
sician, he resumes his customary diet, and either gets well and
lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies
and has done with it.

Yes, he said, and a man in his condition of life ought to use
this summary art of medicine.

Has he not, I said, an occupation ; and what profit
4 7" would there be in his life if he were deprived of his oc-
cupation ?

Very true, he said.

But the rich man, as we say, is a gentleman who has no
work which he ought to do or die ?

He is generally supposed to have nothing to do.

Then you never heard of the saying of Phocylides, 9 that as
soon as a man has a livelihood he should practice virtue ?

Nay, he said, I think that he need not wait for that.

I don't want to raise that question, I replied ; 1 want rather
to know whether the practice of virtue is obligatory on the
rich, and ought to be a necessity of life to him; and if so,
whether their dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to
the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechani-
cal arts, does not equally stand in the way of the maxim of
Phocylides?

Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt j such excessive
care of the body, when carried beyond the rules of gymnastic,
is most inimical to the practice of virtue, and equally incom-
patible with the management of a house, an army, or an office
of State.

Yes, and even more incompatible, I replied, with any kind
of study or thought or self-reflection.

[Asclepius shows himself to have been a good statesman.
He conserved the interests of the State in healing only those
of healthy constitution and habits of life. He did not attempt
to cure diseased constitutions because they were of no use to
the State.]

All that, Socrates, he said, is excellent ; but I should like
to put a question to you. Ought there not to be good physi-

9 Phocylides (fo-cyl'i-dez, 560 B.C.) : a Greek poet.



THE REPUBLIC 24 1

cians in a State, and are not the best those who have the
greatest experience of constitutions good and bad, just as good
judges are those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral
natures ?

Yes, I said, I quite agree about the necessity of having good
judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think
good?

Will you inform me ?

Yes, if I can. Let me however note that in the same
question you join two things which are not the same.

How is that ? he said.

Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now skillful
physicians are those who, besides knowing their art, have from
their youth upwards had the greatest experience of disease ;
they had better not be in robust health, and should have had
all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as
I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the
body ; in that case we would not allow them ever to be sickly ;
but they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which is
or has become sick can cure nothing.

That is very true, he said.

But with the judge the case is different ; he governs mind
by mind, and he cannot be allowed therefore to have been
reared among vicious minds, and to have associated with
them from youth upwards, in order that, having gone
through the whole calendar of crime, he may infer the crimes
of others like their diseases from the knowledge of himself;
but the honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment
ought rather to have had no experience or contamination of
evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth
good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practiced
upon by the evil, because they have no samples of evil in their
own souls.

Yes, he said, that very often happens with them.

Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young ; he should
have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from
late and long observation of the nature of evil in others :
knowledge, and not his own experience, should be his guide.

Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.

Yes, I replied, and he will be good too (and this answers
your question) ; for he is good whose soul is good ; now your
16



242 PLATO THE TEACHER

cunning and suspicious character, who has committed many-
crimes, when he is among men who are like himself, is won-
derful in his precautions against others, because he judges of
them by himself : but when he gets into the company of men
of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a
fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicion : he cannot
recognize an honest man, because he has nothing in himself
at all parallel to judge from j at the same time, as the bad
are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them
oftener, he thinks himself, and others think him, rather wise
than foolish.

Most true, he said.

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not
this man ; the other is better suited to us ; for vice cannot
know virtue, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will ac-
quire a knowledge both of virtue and vice : the virtuous, and
not the vicious man has wisdom ; that is my view.

And mine also.

This is the sort of medicine, and this is the sort of law,

which you will sanction. They will be healing arts to better

natures in their souls and in their bodies ; but the worse

nature or constitution they will in the case of the body

leave to die, and the diseased and incurable soul they will put

to death themselves.

That is clearly best for them and for the State.

And thus our youth, having been educated only in that
simple music which infuses temperance, will be reluctant to
go to law.

That is evident.

And in the same way simple gymnastic will incline him to
have as little as possible to do with medicine.

That I quite believe.

The very exercises and toils he will undertake in order to
stimulate the spirited element of his nature, rather than with a
view of increasing his strength ; he will not, like common
athletes, use exercise and regimen to develop his muscles.

Very right, he said.

Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really de-
signed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the
training of the body.

But what is the real object ?



THE REPUBLIC 243

I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view
chiefly the improvement of the soul.

How is that ? he asked.

Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind of
exclusive devotion to gymnastic, or the opposite effect of an
exclusive devotion to music ?

In what is that shown ? he said.

In producing a temper of hardness and ferocity, or again of
softness and effeminacy, I replied.

Yes, he said, I am quite aware that your mere athlete be-
comes too much of a savage, and that the musician is melted
and softened beyond what is good for him.

Moreover, I said, that fierce quality gives spirit, and, if ed-
ucated rightly, will be valiant, but, if overstrained, is likely
to become hard and brutal.

That I quite think.

The philosopher is the type of the gentler character. This,
if too much relaxed, will turn to softness, but, if educated,
will be gentle and modest.

True.

And our view is that the guardians ought to have both these
qualities?

They ought.

They should be harmonized ?

Beyond question.

And the harmonious soul is both temperate and val-
iant? 4 "

Yes.

And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish ?

Very true.

And, when a man allows music to play and pour over his
soul through his ears, which are the funnel, those sweet and
soft and melancholy airs of which we were just now speaking,
and his whole life is passed in warbling and the delights of
song ; in the first stage of the process the passion or spirit
which is in him is tempered like iron, and made useful, instead
of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening proc-
ess, in the next stage he begins to melt and consume, until
the passion of his soul is melted out of him, and what may be
called the nerves of his soul are cut away, and he makes but a
feeble warrior.



244 PLATO THE TEACHER

Very true.

If the element of spirit is naturally weak in him this is soon
accomplished, but if he have a good deal, then the power of
music weakening the spirit renders him excitable; he soon
flames up, and is speedily extinguished j instead of having
spirit he becomes irritable and violent and very discontented.

Exactly.

Thus in gymnastics also, if a man works hard and is a great
feeder, and the reverse of a great student of music and philos-
ophy, at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride
and spirit, until he is twice the man that he was.

Certainly.

But if he do nothing else, and never cultivates the Muses,
even that intelligence which there may be in him, having no
taste of any sort of learning or inquiry or thought or music,
becomes feeble and dull and blind, because never roused or
sustained, and because the senses are not purged of their mists.

True, he said.

And he ends by becoming a hater of philosophy, unculti-
vated, never using the weapon of persuasion, — he is like a
wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other
way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil condi-
tions, and has no sense of propriety and grace.

That is quite true, he said.

And as there are two principles of human nature, one the
spirited and the other the philosophical, my belief is that God
has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only
indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two
principles may be duly attuned and harmonized with one an-
other.

That I am disposed to believe.

And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest
proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be
called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense
than the tuner of the strings.

I dare say, Socrates.

And such a presiding genius will be always required in our
State if the government is to last.

Yes, he will be absolutely necessary.

Such, then, are our principles of nurture and education.
There would be no use in going into further details about their



THE REPUBLIC 245

dances, their hunting or chasing with dogs, their gymnastic and
equestrian contests ; for these all follow the general principle,
and there will be no longer any difficulty in discovering them.

I dare say that there will be no difficulty.

Very well, I said ; and what is the next question ? Must
we not ask who are to be rulers and who subjects ?

Certainly.

There can be no doubt that the elder sort must rule the
younger.

Clearly.

And that the best of the elder sort must rule.

That is also clear.

Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most de-
voted to husbandry ?

Yes.

And as we must have the best guardians of our city, must
they not be those who have most the character of guardians ?

Yes.

And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient, and to
have a special interest about the State ?

True.

And a man will be most likely to care about that which he
happens to love ?

That may be truly inferred.

And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as
having the same interests with himself, and anything the good
or evil fortune of which he imagines to involve as a result his
own good or evil fortune, and to be proportionably careless
when he is less concerned ?

Very true, he replied.

Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the
guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest de-
sire to do what is for the good of their country, and will not
do what is against her interests.

Those are the right men.

They will have to be watched at every turn of their lives,
in order that we may see whether they preserve this resolu-
tion, and never, under the influence either of force or en-
chantment, forget or let go their duty to the State.

I do not understand, he said, the meaning of the latter
words.



246 t>LATO THE TEACHER

I will explain them to you, I replied. A resolution may
go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his
will; with his will when he gets rid of a falsehood,
^ I3 against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth.

I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution; the
meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn.

Why, I said, do you not see that men are unwillingly de-
prived of good, and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the
truth an evil, and to have the truth a good ? and you would
allow that to conceive things as they are is to have the truth ?

Yes, he replied ; I agree with you in thinking that mankind
are deprived of truth against their will.

And do they not experience this involuntary effect owing
either to theft, or force, or enchantment?

Still, he replied, I do not understand you.

I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the trage-
dians. All that I mean is that some men change and others
forget ; persuasion steals away the hearts of the one class, and
time of the other ; and this I call theft. Now you understand
me?

Yes.

Those again who are forced, are those whom the violence
of some pain or grief compels co change their opinion.

That, he said, I understand, and you are quite right.

And you would also acknowledge with me that those are
enchanted who change their minds either under the softer in-
fluence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear ?

Yes, he said ; everything that deceives may be said to en-
chant.

Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who
are the best guardians of their own conviction that the inter-
est of the State is to be the rule of all their actions. We must
watch them from their youth upwards, and propose deeds for
them to perforin in which they are most likely to forget or to
be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to
be selected, and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected.
That will be the way.

Yes.

And there should also be toils and pains and conflicts pre-
scribed for them, in which they will give further proof of the
same qualities.



THE REPUBLIC 247

Very right, he replied.

And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments —
that is the third sort of test — and see what will be their be-
havior ; like those who take colts amid noises and cries to see
if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid
terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and
try them more thoroughly than gold is tried in the fire, in
order to discover whether they are armed against all enchant-
ments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of them-
selves and of the music which they have learned, and retain
under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature,
sich as will be most serviceable to the man himself and to the
State. And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in
mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall
be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State ; he shall
be honored in life and death, and shall receive sepulture
and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to
give. And as he is chosen his opposite is rejected. I am in-
clined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers
and guardians should be chosen. I speak generally, and not
with any pretension to exactness.

And, speaking generally, I agree with you, he said.

And perhaps the word " guardian " in the fullest sense ought
to be applied to this class only who are our warriors abroad
and our peacemakers at home, and who save us from those
who might have the will or the power to injure us. The
young men whom we before called guardians may be more
properly designated auxiliaries and allies of the principles of
the rulers.

[Socrates suggests that the citizens be told an old Phoenician
myth as part of their education. 10 ]

They are to be informed that their youth was a dream,
and the education and training which they received from us
an appearance only ; in reality during all that time they
were in process of formation and nourishment in the womb of

10 In this place, as also in Laws, II., 663, Socrates advises that the people
should be taught as literal truth a myth, which is intended to convey a les-
son. Here as elsewhere he justifies a certain kind of falsehood. Observe
that the " Socratic method " in this case does not consist in asking questions
but in the inculcation of truth by myth.



248 PLATO THE TEACHER

the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurte-
nances were manufactured ; and when they were completed,
the earth, their mother, sent them up; and, their country
being their mother and also their nurse, they are therefore
bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against
attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the
earth and their own brothers. . . . Citizens, we shall say
45 to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed
you differently. Some of you have the power of command,
and these he has composed of gold, wherefore also they have
the greatest honor ; others of silver, to be auxiliaries j others
again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has made
of brass and iron ; and the species will generally be preserved
in the children. But as you are of the same original family,
a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver
parent a golden son. And God proclaims to the rulers, as a
first principle, that before all they should watch over their
offspring, and see what elements mingle in their nature ; for
if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of
brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks,
and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards his child
because he has to descend in the scale and become a husband-
man or artisan, just as there may be others sprung from the
artisan class who are raised to honor, and become guardians
and auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass
or iron guards the State, it will then be destroyed. Such is the
tale; is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it?

Not in the present generation, he replied ; I do not see any
way of accomplishing this ; but their sons may be made to
believe, and their sons' sons, and posterity after them.

I see the difficulty, I replied ; yet even this amount of
belief may make them care more for the city and for one
another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now
be borne on the wings of rumor, while we arm our earth-born
heroes, and lead them forth under the command of their rulers.
Let them look around and select a spot whence they can best
prevent insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also
defend themselves against enemies, who like wolves may come
down on the fold from without ; there let them encamp, and
when they have encamped, let them sacrifice and prepare their
dwellings.



THE REPUBLIC 249

And what sort of dwellings are they to have?

Dwellings that will shield them against the cold of winter
and the heat of summer.

I suppose that you mean houses, he replied.

Yes, I said ; but they must be the houses of soldiers, and
not of shop-keepers.

What is the difference? he said.

That I will endeavor to explain, I replied. To keep ,
watch-dogs, who, from want of discipline or hunger, or
some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry
them, and behave not like dogs but wolves, would be a foul
and monstrous thing ?

Truly monstrous, he said.

And, therefore, every care must be taken lest our auxilia-
ries, as they are stronger than our citizens, should prevail over
them, and become savage tyrants instead of gentle allies to
them ?

Yes, care should be taken.

And would not education be the best preparation and safe-
guard of them ?

But they are well-educated, he replied j that is a safeguard
which they already have.

I cannot be so confident of that, my dear Glaucon, I said ;
I am much more certain that they ought to be, and that true
education, whatever that may be, will greatly tend to civilize
and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to
those who are under their protection.

True, he replied.

And not only their education, but their habitations, and
also their means of subsistence, should be such as will neither
impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon
the other citizens. Any man of sense will say that.

He will.

Such is our conception of them ; and now let us consider
what way of life will correspond with this conception. In the
first place, none of them should have any property beyond
what is absolutely necessary ; neither should they have a private
house, with bars and bolts, closed against any one who has a
mind to enter ; their provisions should be only such as are re-
quired by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and
courage ; their agreement is to receive from the citizens a



250 PLATO THE TEACHER

fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and
no more, and they will have common meals and live together,