Phaedrus — Plato
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p. 294Certainly not. And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel ? That is certain. Laboring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes. Then the forgetful soul cannot be ranked among philosophers ; a philosopher ought to have a good memory ? Certainly. But the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion ? No doubt of that.
And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or disproportion ? To proportion. Then, besides other qualities, let us seek for a well-proportioned and gracious mind whose own nature will of herself be drawn to the true being of everything. Certainly.
Well, and do not all these qualities go together, and are they not necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being ? g They are absolutely necessary, he replied. ^ ' And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has a good memory, and is quick to learn, noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred ? ^ The god of jealousy himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study.
And to these, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will entrust the State.
Here Adeimantus interposed and said : To this, Socrates, no one can offer a reply ; but there is a feeling which those who hear you talk as you are now doing often experience, and which I may describe in this way : they fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions ; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a dire reverse and to be at the antip- * See Book IL , 376 ; III. , 412-414.
THE REPUBLIC 29$ odes of their former selves. And as unskillful players of draughts are at last shut up by their skilled adversaries and have no piece to move, so they find themselves at last shut up and have no word to say in this new game of which words are the counters ; and yet all the time they are in the right. This observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring.
For at this instant any one will say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step in the argument, as a fact he sees that the votaries of philosophy who carry on the study, not only in youth with a view to education, but as the pursuit % of their maturer years, — that these men, I say, for the most \ part grow into very strange beings, not to say utter rogues, and that the result with those who may be considered the best of them is, that they are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.
Well, I said ; and do you think that they are wrong ? I cannot tell, he replied ; but- 1 should like to know what is your opinion. Let me tell you then that I think they are quite right. Then how can you be justified in saying that cities will not cease from evil until philosophers rule in them, when philosophers are acknowledged by us to be of no use to them ? You ask a question, I said, which I can only answer in a parable.
Yes, said he ; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not accustomed, I suppose.
I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having got me to speak on such an impossible theme ; and now you shall hear the parable in order that you may judge better of ^^ the meagreness of my imagination : for the treatment which the best men experience from their States is so grievous that no single thing on earth can be compared with them ; and therefore in defending them I must have recourse to fiction, and make a compound of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures.
Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. Now the sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering ; every one is of opinion that h^ ought to steer, though he has never learned and cannot p. 296tell who taught him or when he learned, and will even assert that the art of navigation cannot be taught, and is ready to cut in pieces him who says the contrary.
They throng about *the captain, and do all that they can to make him commit the helm to them ; and then, if they fail on some occasion and others prevail, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make themselves at home with the stores ; and thus, eating and drinking, they continue their voyage with such success as might be expected of them.
Him who is their partisan and zealous in the design of getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own, whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man and call him a goodfor-nothing ; but they have not even a notion that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship; at the same time that he must and will be the steerer, whether people like him to steer or not ; and they think that the combination of this with the art of navigation is impossible.
Now in vesg sels and among sailors, whose condition is such as this, ^ how will the true pilot be regarded ? Will he not be called by the mutineers useless, prater, star-gazer ? Of course, said Adeimantus. I do not suppose, I said, that you would care to hear the interpretation of the figure, which is an allegory of the true philosopher in his relation to the State ^ ; for you understand already. Certainly.
Then suppose you now take the parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honor in their cities, and explain to him and try to convince him that their having honor would be far more extraordinary. I will. Say to him, that, in deeming the best of the votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right ; but * The captain personifies the people as Uncle Sam stands for the American people. The sailors represent the politicians ; the true pilot represents the philosopher.
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