The Republic — Plato
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of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or sonic other great artist, which we may chance to behold ; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous.
And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner ?
But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation — that would be absurd ; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before.
Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems^ and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said ; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value.
But can you tell me of any other suitable study ? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only ; two of them are obvious enough even to wits no better than oiirs ; and there are others, as I imagine, which may be left to wiser persons. But where are the two? There is a second, I said, which is the counterpart of the one already named. And what may that be?
The second, I said, would seem relatively to the ears to be what the first is to the eyes ; for I conceive that as the eyes are designed to look up at the stars, so are the ears to hear harmonious motions ; and these are sister sciences — as the Pythagoreans say, and we, Glaucon, agree with them? Yes, he replied. But this, I said, is a laborious study, and therefore we had better go and learn of them ; and they will tell us whether there are any other applications of these sciences. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our own higher object. What is that ?
There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach, and which our pupils ought also to attain, and not to fall short of, as I was saying that they did in astronomy. For in the science of harmony, as you probably know, the same thing happens. The teachers of harmony compare the sounds and consonances which are heard only, and their labor, like that of the astronomers, is in vain.
Yes, by heaven ! he said ; and 'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their condensed notes, as they call them ; they put their ears close alongside of the strings like persons catching a sound from their neighbor's wall ^ — one set of them declaring that they distinguish an intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be the unit of measurement ; the others insisting that the two sounds have passed into the same — either party setting their ears before their understanding.
You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument : I might carry on the metaphor and speak after their manner of the blows which the plectrum gives, and make accusations against the strings, both of backwardness and forwardness to sound ; but this would be tedious, and therefore I will only say that these are not the men, and that I am referring to the Pythagoreans, of whom I was just now proposing to inquire about harmony.
For they too are in error, like the astronomers ; they investigate the numbers of the harmonies which are heard, but they never attain to problems — that is to say, they never reach the natural harmonies of number, or reflect why some numbers are harmonious and others not. That, he said, is a thing of more than mortal knowledge.
A thing, I replied, which I would rather call useful ; that is, ' Or, " closealongsideof their neighbor's instruments, as if to catch asounil fromthem."
if sought after with a view to the beautiful and good ; but if pursued in any other spirit, useless. Very true, he said. Now, when all these studies reach the point of intercommunion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, I think, but not till then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objects ; otherwise there is no profit in them.
I suspect so ; but you are speaking, Socrates, of a vast work. What do you mean ? I said ; the prelude, or what ? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? Assuredly not, he said ; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
But do you imagine that men who are unable to give and take a reason will have the knowledge which we require of them? Neither can this be supposed. And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic.
This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate ; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself.
And so with dialectic ; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. Exactly, he said. Then this is the progress which you call dialectic? True.
But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images^ in the water (which are divine), and • Omitting ivravBa Se irpbs tfiavTaanara. The word fleco is bracketed by Stallbaum.
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