| Plato, Republic (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Resp.]. | ||
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537b“At what age?” he said. “When they are released from their prescribed gymnastics. For that period, whether it be two or three years, incapacitates them for other occupations. note For great fatigue and much sleep are the foes of study, and moreover one of our tests of them, and not the least, will be their behavior in their physical exercises. note” “Surely it is,” he said. “After this period,” I said, “those who are given preference from the twenty-year class will receive greater honors than the others,
537cand they will be required to gather the studies which they disconnectedly pursued as children in their former education into a comprehensive survey note of their affinities with one another and with the nature of things.” “That, at any rate, he said, is the only instruction that abides with those who receive it.” “And it is also,” said I, “the chief test of the dialectical nature and its opposite. For he who can view things in their connection is a dialectician; he who cannot, is not.” “I concur,” he said. “With these qualities in mind,” I said,
537d“it will be your task to make a selection of those who manifest them best from the group who are steadfast in their studies and in war and in all lawful requirements, and when they have passed the thirtieth year to promote them, by a second selection from those preferred in the first, note to still greater honors, and to prove and test them by the power of dialectic note to see which of them is able to disregard the eyes and other senses note and go on to being itself in company with truth. And at this point, my friend, the greatest care note is requisite.” “How so?” he said. “Do you not note,”
537esaid I, “how great is the harm caused by our present treatment of dialectics?” “What is that?” he said. “Its practitioners are infected with lawlessness. note” “They are indeed.” “Do you suppose,” I said, “that there is anything surprising in this state of mind, and do you not think it pardonable note?” “In what way, pray?” he said. “Their case,” said I, “resembles that of a supposititious son reared in abundant wealth and a great and numerous family
538aamid many flatterers, who on arriving at manhood should become aware that he is not the child of those who call themselves his parents, and should I not be able to find his true father and mother. Can you divine what would be his feelings towards the flatterers and his supposed parents in the time when he did not know the truth about his adoption, and, again, when he knew it? Or would you like to hear my surmise?” “I would.”
“Well, then, my surmise is,” I said, “that he would be more likely to honor
538bhis reputed father and mother and other kin than the flatterers, and that there would be less likelihood of his allowing them to lack for anything, and that he would be less inclined to do or say to them anything unlawful, and less liable to disobey them in great matters than to disobey the flatterers—during the time when he did not know the truth.” “It is probable,” he said. “But when he found out the truth, I surmise that he would grow more remiss in honor and devotion to them and pay more regard to the flatterers, whom he would heed 538cmore than before note and would henceforth live by their rule, associating with them openly, while for that former father and his adoptive kin he would not care at all, unless he was naturally of a very good disposition.” “All that you say,” he replied, “would be likely to happen. note But what is the pertinency of this comparison to the novices of dialectic note?” “It is this. We have, I take it, certain convictions note from childhood about the just and the honorable, in which, in obedience and honor to them, we have been bred as children under their parents.” 538d“Yes, we have.” “And are there not other practices going counter to these, that have pleasures attached to them and that flatter and solicit our souls, but do not win over men of any decency; but they continue to hold in honor the teachings of their fathers and obey them?” “It is so” “Well, then,” said I, “when a man of this kind is met by the question, note‘What is the honorable?’ and on his giving the answer which he learned from the lawgiver, the argument confutes him, and by many and various refutations upsets note his faith 538eand makes him believe that this thing is no more honorable than it is base, note and when he has had the same experience about the just and the good and everything that he chiefly held in esteem, how do you suppose that he will conduct himself thereafter in the matter of respect and obedience to this traditional morality?” “It is inevitable,” he said, “that he will not continue to honor and obey as before.” “And then,” said I, “when he ceases to honor these principles and to think that they are binding on him, note and cannot discover the true principles,| Plato, Republic (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Resp.]. | ||
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