Timaeus — Plato

would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he repHed ; I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he repHed, I do not understand you. I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the tragedians.

I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget ; argument steals away the hearts of 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 to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right.

And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those 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 enquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the State is to be the rule of their lives.

We must watch them from their youth upwards, and make them perform actions 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 be made to give further proof of the same qualities. 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 behaviour : like those who take colts amid noise and tumult 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 prove them more thoroughly than gold is 2must be guardians of themselves. 103 proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they Republic in. are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing Socrates, always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which G'-^^^^onthey have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the State.

And he if they stand who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has '^^ ^^^\^ ^^^^ come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed honoured in a ruler and guardian of the State ; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject.

I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. 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 The title of ought to be appHed to this higher class only who preserve us g"^'''^'^"^^^ <-' ^ ^ . .

"^ reserved for against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our the eiders, the citizens at home, that the one may not have the will, or the ^'^""^gT" '° others the power, to harm us. The young men whom we auxiliaries. before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said.

How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke — just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city? What sort of lie? he said.

Nothing new, I replied ; only an old Phoenician ^ tale of The Phoeniwhat has often occurred before now in other places, (as the ^'^" ^^•^■ poets say, and have made the world believe,) though not in our time, and I do not know whether such an event could ever happen again, or could now even be made probable, if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips! You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. ^ Cp. Laws, 663 E.