Phaedrus — Plato

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THE REPUBLIC 24$ 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 v^.o are to be rulers j^odjyho sub^eg^s ? Certainly. There can be no doubt that the elder $ort must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the, best X)f the elder sort must rule. That is also clear. Now, are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted 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 desire 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 resolution, and never, under the influence either of force or enchantment, forget or let go their duty to the State. I do not understand, he said, the meaning of the latter words.

V.

p. 246will 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, ^ ^ 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 deprived 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 tragedians. 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 influence of pleasure, or the sterner influence of fear ? Yes, he said ; everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that the interest 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 perform 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 prescribed for them, in which they will give further proof of the same qualities.

p. 247Very right, he replied. > And then, I said, we must tcy them with enchantments — that is the third sort of test — and see what will be their behavior-^ 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 Urmed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retain under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, S'.ich as will be n^ost 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 inclined 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 firom those/ who might have the will or the power to injure us.

Thei \ •- young men whom we before called guardians may be morfS] properly designated auxiliaries and allies of the principles o^ the rulers. [Socrates suggests that the citizens be told an old Phoenician myth as part of their education. ^®] .

They are to be informed that their youth was a dream7[. 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 »» 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 lesson.

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.