Greek Texts & Translations

Can any man get an accurate vision and view of any object better than by being able to look from the many and dissimilar to the one unifying form?

Probably not.

It is certain, my friend, rather than probable, that no man can possibly have a clearer method than this.

I believe you, Stranger, and I assent; so let us employ this method in our subsequent discourse.

Naturally we must compel the wardens also of our divine polity to observe accurately, in the first place, what that identical element is which pervades all the four virtues, 965dand which,—since it exists as a unity in courage, temperance, justice and wisdom,— may justly be called, as we assert, by the single name of “virtue.” This element, my friends, we must now (if we please) hold very tight, and not let go until we have adequately explained the essential nature of the object to be aimed at—whether, that is, it exists by nature as a unity, or as a whole, or as both, or in some other way. Else, if this eludes us, can we possibly suppose that we shall adequately grasp the nature of virtue, when we are unable to state whether it is many or four or one? 965eAccordingly, if we follow our own counsel, we shall contrive somehow, by hook or by crook, that this knowledge shall exist in our State. Should we decide, however, to pass it over entirely—pass it over we must.

Nay, Stranger, in the name of the Stranger's God, we must by no means pass over a matter such as this, since what you say seems to us most true. But how is this to be contrived? 966a

It is too early to explain how we are to contrive it: let us first make sure that we agree among ourselves as to whether or not we ought to do so.

Well, surely we ought, if we can.

Very well then; do we hold the same view about the fair and the good? Ought our wardens to know only that each of these is a plurality, or ought they also to know how and wherein they are each a unity?

It is fairly obvious that they must necessarily also discern how these are a unity. 966b

Well then, ought they to discern it, but be unable to give a verbal demonstration of it?

Impossible! The state of mind you describe is that of a slave.

Well then, do we hold the same view about all forms of goodness, that those who are to be real wardens of the laws must really know the true nature of them, and be capable both of expounding it in word and conforming to it in deed, passing judgment on fair actions and foul according to their real character?

Certainly. 966c

And is not one of the fairest things the doctrine about the gods, which we expounded earnestly, ^note—to know both that they exist, and what power they manifestly possess, so far as a man is capable of learning these matters; so that while one should pardon the mass of the citizens if they merely follow the letter of the law, one must exclude from office those who are eligible for wardenship, unless they labor to grasp all the proofs there are about the existence of gods? Such exclusion from office 966dconsists in refusing ever to choose as a Law-warden, or to number among those approved for excellence, a man who is not divine himself, nor has spent any labor over things divine.

It is certainly just, as you say, that the man who is idle or incapable in respect of this subject should be strictly debarred from the ranks of the noble.

Are we assured, then, that there are two causes, amongst those we previously discussed, ^note which lead to faith in the gods?

What two?

One is our dogma about the soul,—that it is the most ancient 966eand divine of all the things whose motion, when developed into “becoming,” provides an ever-flowing fount of “being”; and the other is our dogma concerning the ordering of the motion of the stars ^note and all the other bodies under the control of reason, which has made a “cosmos” of the All. For no man that views these objects in no careless or amateurish way has ever proved so godless as not to be affected by them in a way just the opposite of that which most people expect. 967aFor they imagine that those who study these objects in astronomy and the other necessary allied arts become atheists through observing, as they suppose, that all things come into being by necessary forces and not by the mental energy of the will aiming at the fulfillment of good.

What in fact is the real state of the case?

The position at present is, as I said, exactly the opposite of what it was when those who considered these objects considered them to be soulless. Yet even then they were objects of admiration, and the conviction 967bwhich is now actually held was suspected by all who studied them accurately—namely, that if they were soulless, and consequently devoid of reason, they could never have employed with such precision calculations so marvellous; and even in those days there were some who dared to hazard the statement ^note that reason is the orderer of all that is in the heavens. But the same thinkers, through mistaking the nature of the soul and conceiving her to be posterior, instead of prior, to body,