Greek Texts & Translations

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, 967cupset again (so to say) the whole universe, and most of all themselves; for as regards the visible objects of sight, all that moves in the heavens appeared to them to be full of stones, earth and many other soulless bodies which dispense the causes of the whole cosmos. These were the views which, at that time, caused these thinkers to incur many charges of atheism and much odium, and which also incited the poets to abuse them ^note by likening philosophers to “dogs howling at the moon,” with other such senseless slanders. 967dBut today, as we have said, the position is quite the reverse.

How so?

It is impossible for any mortal man to become permanently god-fearing if he does not grasp the two truths now stated,—namely, how that the soul is oldest of all things that partake of generation, and is immortal, and rules over all bodies,—and in addition to this, he must also grasp that reason which, as we have often affirmed, controls what exists among the stars, together with the 967enecessary preliminary sciences; ^note and he must observe also the connection therewith of musical theory, and apply it harmoniously to the institutions and rules of ethics; ^note and he must be able to give a rational explanation of all that admits of rational explanation. 968aHe that is unable to master these sciences, in addition to the popular virtues, ^note will never make a competent magistrate of the whole State, but only a minister to other magistrates. And now, O Megillus and Clinias, it is time at last to consider whether, in addition to all the previous laws which we have stated, we shall add this also—that the nocturnal synod of magistrates shall be legally established, and shall participate in all the education we have described, to keep ward over the State, and to secure its salvation;