Greek Texts & Translations

We are totally unable to do so.

Well then, can you declare that we need zeal in discerning both the object itself as a whole and the forms it assumes?

Illustrate what you mean by “the forms” you speak of.

For example, when we said that there are four forms of virtue, obviously, since there are four, we must assert that each is a separate one.

Certainly.

And yet we call them all by one name: we assert that courage is virtue, and wisdom virtue, 963dand the other two likewise, as though they were really not a plurality, but solely this one thing—virtue.

Very true.

Now it is not hard to explain wherein these two (and the rest) differ from one another, and how they have got two names; but to explain why we have given the one name “virtue” to both of them (and to the rest) is no longer an easy matter.

How do you mean?

It is not hard to make clear my meaning. Let one of us adopt the role of questioner, the other of answerer. ^note

In what way? 963e

Do you ask me this question—why, when calling both the two by the single name of “virtue,” did we again speak of them as two—courage and wisdom? Then I shall tell you the reason,—which is, that the one of them has to do with fear, namely courage, ^note in which beasts also share, and the characters of very young children; for a courageous soul comes into existence naturally and without reasoning, but without reasoning there never yet came into existence, and there does not nor ever will exist, a soul that is wise and rational, it being a distinct kind.

That is true. 964a

Wherein they differ and are two you have now learnt from my reply. So do you, in turn, inform me how it is that they are one and identical. Imagine you are also going to tell me how it is that, though four, they are yet one; and then, after you have shown me how they are one, do you again ask me how they are four. And after that, let us enquire regarding the person who has full knowledge of any objects which possess both a name and a definition, whether he ought to know the name only, and not know the definition, or whether it is not a shameful thing for a man worth anything to be ignorant of all these points in regard to matters of surpassing beauty 964band importance.

It would certainly seem to be so.

For the lawgiver and the Law-warden, and for him who thinks he surpasses all men in virtue and who has won prizes for just such qualities, is there anything more important than these very qualities with which we are now dealing—courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom?

Impossible.

In regard to these matters, is it not right that the interpreters, the teachers, the lawgivers, as the wardens of the rest, in dealing with him that requires knowledge and information, or with him that requires punishment and reproof for his sin, 964cshould excel all others in the art of instructing him in the quality of vice and virtue and exhibiting it fully? Or is some poet who comes into the State, or one who calls himself a trainer of youth, to be accounted evidently superior to him that has won prizes for all the virtues? In a State like that, where there are no wardens who are competent both in word and deed, and possessed of a competent knowledge of virtue,—is it surprising, I ask, if such a State, all unwarded as it is, suffers the same fate as do many of the 964dStates which exist today?

Not at all, I should say.

Well then, must we do what we now propose, or what? Must we contrive how our wardens shall have a more accurate grasp of virtue, both in word and deed, than the majority of men? For otherwise, how shall our State resemble a wise man's head and senses, on the ground that it possesses within itself a similar kind of wardenship?

What is this resemblance we speak of and wherein does it consist? 964e

Evidently we are comparing the State itself to the skull; and, of the wardens, the younger ones, who are selected as the most intelligent and nimble in every part of their souls, are set, as it were, like the eyes, in the top of the head, and survey the State all round; and as they watch, they pass on their perceptions to the organs of memory,—that is, they report to the elder wardens all that goes on in the State,—