Timaeus — Plato

of philosophy, instead of persisting, degenerates and receives another character.

But if philosophy ever finds in the State that perfection which she herself is, then will be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human; — and now, I know, that you are going to ask, What that State is : No, he said ; there you are wrong, for I was going to ask another question — whether it is the State of which we are the founders and inventors, or some other?

Yes, I replied, ours in most respects ; but you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when as legislator you were laying down the laws. That was said, he replied.

Yes, but not in a satisfactory manner ; you frightened us by interposing objections, which certainly showed that the discussion would be long and difficult ; and what still remains is the reverse of easy. What is there remaining? The question how the study of philosophy may be so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State : All great attempts are attended with risk ; ' hard is the good,' as men say.

Still, he said, let the point be cleared up, and the enquiry will then be complete. I shall not be hindered, I said, by any want of will, but, if at all, by a want of power : my zeal you may see for yourselves ; and please to remark in what I am about to say how boldly and unhesitatingly I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. In what manner?

At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite 498 young ; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits ; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off.

In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered 3by them to be their proper business : at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus' sun, inasmuch as they never light up again '. But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite.

In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years : during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy ; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul ; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another.

How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that ; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all.

Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and me, who have recently become friends, although, indeed, we were never enemies ; for I shall go on striving to the utmost until I either convert him and other men, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence. You are speaking of a time which is not very near.

Rather, I repHed, of a time which is as nothing in comparison with eternity. Nevertheless, I do not wonder that the many refuse to believe ; for they have never seen that of which we are now speaking realized ; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity.

But a human being who in word and work is perfectly moulded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue — such a man ruling in a city which 499 bears the same image, they have never yet seen, neither one nor many of them — do you think that they ever did? ^ Heracleitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.