Greek Texts & Translations

Is not that a right conviction? Or what is your view?

Just consider what one ought to have in view in every instance, in order to justify the bestowal of such praise. And first, with regard to the matter now under discussion,—if the men who were then marshalling the army knew how to organize it properly, how would they have achieved success? Must it not have been by consolidating it firmly and by maintaining it perpetually, so that they should be both free themselves and masters over all others whom they chose, and so that both they and their children should do 687bin general just what they pleased throughout the world of Greeks and barbarians alike? Are not these the reasons why they would be praised?

Certainly.

And in every case where a man uses the language of eulogy on seeing great wealth or eminent family distinctions or anything else of the kind, would it not be true to say that, in using it, he has this fact specially in mind,—that the possessor of such things is likely, just because of this, to realize all, or at least the most and greatest, of his desires.

That is certainly probable. 687c

Come now, is there one object of desire—that now indicated by our argument—which is common to all men?

What is that?

The desire that, if possible, everything,—or failing that, all that is humanly possible—should happen in accordance with the demands of one's own heart.

To he sure.

Since this, then, is what we all wish always, alike in childhood and manhood and old age, it is for this, necessarily, that we should pray continually.

Of course. 687d

Moreover, on behalf of our friends we will join in making the same prayer which they make on their own behalf.

To be sure.

And a son is a friend to his father, the boy to the man.

Certainly.

Yet the father will often pray the gods that the things which the son prays to obtain may in no wise he granted according to the son's prayers.

Do you mean, when the son who is praying is still young and foolish?

Yes, and also when the father, either through age or through the hot temper of youth, 687ebeing devoid of all sense of right and justice, indulges in the vehement prayers of passion (like those of Theseus against Hippolytus ^note, when he met his luckless end), while the son, on the contrary, has a sense of justice,—in this case do you suppose that the son will echo his father's prayers?

I grasp your meaning. You mean, as I suppose, that what a man ought to pray and press for is not that everything should follow his own desire, while his desire in no way follows his own reason; but it is the winning of wisdom that everyone of us, States and individuals alike, ought to pray for and strive after. 688a

Yes. And what is more, I would recall to your recollection, as well as to my own, how it was said ^note (if you remember) at the outset that the legislator of a State, in settling his legal ordinances, must always have regard to wisdom. The injunction you gave was that the good lawgiver must frame all his laws with a view to war: I, on the other hand, maintained that, whereas by your injunction the laws would be framed with reference to one only of the four virtues, it was really essential 688bto look to the whole of virtue, and first and above all to pay regard to the principal virtue of the four, which is wisdom and reason and opinion, together with the love and desire that accompany them. Now the argument has come hack again to the same point, and I now repeat my former statement,—in jest, if you will, or else in earnest; I assert that prayer is a perilous practice for him who is devoid of reason, and that what he obtains is the opposite of his desires. 688cFor I certainly expect that, as you follow the argument recently propounded, you will now discover that the cause of the ruin of those kingdoms, and of their whole design, was not cowardice or ignorance of warfare on the part either of the rulers or of those who should have been their subjects; but that what ruined them was badness of all other kinds, and especially ignorance concerning the greatest of human interests. That this was the course of events then, and is so still, 688dwhenever such events occur, and will be so likewise in the future,—this, with your permission, I will endeavor to discover in the course of the coming argument, and to make it as clear as I can to you, my very good friends.

Verbal compliments are in poor taste, Stranger; but by deed, if not by word, we shall pay you the highest of compliments by attending eagerly to your discourse; and that is what best shows whether compliments are spontaneous or the reverse.

Capital, Clinias! Let us do just as you say. 688e

It shall be so, God willing. Only say on.

Well then, to advance further on the track of our discourse,—we assert that it was ignorance, in its greatest form, which at that time destroyed the power we have described, and which naturally produces still the same results; and if this is so, it follows that the lawgiver must try to implant in States as much wisdom as possible, and to root out folly to the utmost of his power.

Obviously.